











Helene rumors and conspiracy theories gain millions of views on X : NPR














Accessibility links 
Skip to main content
Keyboard shortcuts for audio player
















                    Open Navigation Menu
                









Newsletters




NPR Shop








                    Close Navigation Menu




Home



News
Expand/collapse submenu for News


National
World
Politics
Business
Health
Science
Climate
Race




Culture
Expand/collapse submenu for Culture


Books
Movies
Television
Pop Culture
Food
Art & Design 
Performing Arts
Life Kit
Gaming




Music
Expand/collapse submenu for Music



        Best Music of 2024
    


        All Songs Considered
    


        Tiny Desk
    


        Music Features
    


        Live Sessions
    




Podcasts & Shows
Expand/collapse submenu for Podcasts & Shows


Daily




                                    Morning Edition
                                




                                    Weekend Edition Saturday
                                




                                    Weekend Edition Sunday
                                




                                    All Things Considered
                                




                                    Fresh Air
                                




                                    Up First
                                


Featured



        The NPR Politics Podcast
    



        Throughline
    



        Trump's Terms
    



        Wild Card with Rachel Martin
    


More Podcasts & Shows





Search




Newsletters





NPR Shop
















        Best Music of 2024
    


        All Songs Considered
    


        Tiny Desk
    


        Music Features
    


        Live Sessions
    







About NPR
Diversity
Support
Careers
Press
Ethics





Helene rumors and conspiracy theories gain millions of views on X False claims about the hurricane and the government's response got millions of views on social media. Emergency management researchers say it makes it harder for useful information to surface.




Special Series Untangling Disinformation





 
Politically charged rumors and conspiracy theories about Helene flourish on X










October 3, 20249:39 AM ET

 
                        Heard on             All Things Considered










By  


      Huo Jingnan
    












HELENE RUMORS







                            
                            Listen
                        

· 
2:51





2:51






Transcript



Toggle more options


Download


Embed




Embed



<iframe src="https://www.npr.org/player/embed/nx-s1-5134866/nx-s1-13486012-7868-4c60-ae50-9a86d3006d87" width="100%" height="290" frameborder="0" scrolling="no" title="NPR embedded audio player">






Transcript




















                Marine One, carrying President Biden, flies above a storm-impacted area near Asheville, N.C., on Wednesday. Biden was visiting North and South Carolina to survey damage after Hurricane Helene. Social media sites, especially X, were filled with politically charged rumors and conspiracy theories about the hurricane response.
                
                    
                    Mandel Ngan/AFP/Getty Images
                    
                
hide caption


toggle caption


        
        Mandel Ngan/AFP/Getty Images
        
    


Avery Dull left her apartment in Hendersonville, N.C., with her baby daughter a day after she made a TikTok showing brown floodwater from Hurricane Helene swelling beneath her second-floor balcony. Staying with friends two hours away, and with her life in limbo, Dull has been spending a lot of time online. "Usually I'm in bed by 10 p.m. I haven't gone to bed till 3 a.m. since this happened," she told NPR. "I mean, I've been up all day and night just trying to find any, any information I can whatsoever. It has been consuming me." 
Sponsor Message



Having evacuated, Dull is turning to videos on TikTok to keep her up to date on her community. 

 
National 
Loved ones search for the hundreds of people still missing after Helene






"This is my hometown. And to see these places, just water up to the roof, I can't even comprehend it. … I walked those streets and they're just, I mean, sunk." She constantly watches for death toll updates. "I want to know if any of my family members who I haven't heard from are alive and well. ... And every time I update, it goes up, like, five people." People like Dull, as well as those still in their storm-damaged communities, are hungry for reliable information. When they turn to social media, they're finding mixed results. Some platforms don't have much news at all. Other platforms have enabled them to form groups that provide information and companionship. 

 
Politics 
Harris and Biden surveyed damage wrought by Hurricane Helene in 2 swing states






And then there is X, formerly known as Twitter, where politically charged rumors flow freely. Emergency management researchers lament that the platform owned by Elon Musk, which was once considered a useful source of information in a disaster, is instead contributing to the chaos in Helene's wake. The disaster became fodder for political attacks The storm hit two swing states just a month before a close election, making criticisms about the response a tempting political line of attack. On X, the top results for "Helene" have millions of views but are not always reliable. 
Sponsor Message



"'$2.4 billion aid to Ukraine' vs 'No more aid for Hurricane Helene' - 3 days apart" pro-Trump account End Wokeness wrote alongside video clips of President Biden speaking on two occasions. The post received over 5 million views. 

 
Climate 
Hurricanes contribute to thousands of deaths each year in the U.S. — many times the reported number






The text misrepresents one of the Biden videos. In it, Biden responds "no" when asked if more federal resources will be directed to disaster relief and says that local governments have yet to ask for what has already been allocated. The video also shows Biden saying the federal government had already preplanned hurricane relief even before states had asked for disaster aid. Former President Donald Trump claimed without evidence that Democrats were withholding aid from Republican areas. Trump also falsely claimed that Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp had not been able to speak to Biden, even though both confirmed they had spoken to one another. There's no evidence the federal government is withholding aid from affected states. The Republican governors of South Carolina and Georgia have praised the federal government's support. Other videos on X made wilder claims. "Don't worry guys, weather modification isn't real! It's just a coincidence that Hurricane Helene is one of the most devastating 'inland damage storms' in history and that hundreds of pro-Trump counties are being massively impacted during the most important election of our lifetimes," influencer Matt Wallace posted alongside video footage of flooding. The post received 11 million views. 

 
Untangling Disinformation 
How rumors and conspiracy theories got in the way of Maui's fire recovery






False claims about weather-altering tools have become common in the aftermath of major storms, said Amber Silver, who teaches emergency management at the University at Albany. "And there's always questions about … is this storm, you know, man-made or is it natural?" "But the scale of that amount of chatter with Helene was unexpected for this event," she said. 











                Damage to homes and vehicles along with evidence of rerouted streams can be seen on Oct. 2 in Black Mountain, N.C. The road can be seen washed out from floodwaters in front of his property. According to reports, at least 160 people have been killed across the southeastern U.S., and more than a million are without power due to the storm. The White House has approved disaster declarations in multiple Southern states, freeing up federal emergency management money and resources.
                
                    
                    Melissa Sue Gerrits/Getty Images/Getty Images North America
                    
                
hide caption


toggle caption


        
        Melissa Sue Gerrits/Getty Images/Getty Images North America
        
    


Twitter was useful for disaster response, X less so While X's predecessor, Twitter, has always had fewer users than other major social media platforms, "it has been historically very influential in disaster preparedness [and] response," Silver said. 
Sponsor Message



In a recent study, Silver and her colleagues surveyed people about how they used social media after Hurricane Dorian in 2019. "When people were sharing pictures of themselves at the grocery stores with carts full of supplies, or standing in line to get gas, or standing in line at Home Depot buying a generator, people felt internal pressure to prepare for the storm, too," she said. After a disaster struck, people used the platform to spread information that helped first responders plan and call for help, Silver said. But since Elon Musk's purchase of Twitter in 2022 and its subsequent transformation into X, all that has shifted. A blue check mark used to mean that the company had verified a user's identity. Now it just means the user has paid for a subscription, which makes identifying which accounts are trustworthy more difficult. The company also raised the cost of access to analyze its data, making rumor-monitoring efforts prohibitively expensive for many researchers. "The kind of difference here that we're experiencing is just the amount of kind of maybe un-useful tweets that you have to dig through to be able to find the useful, actionable ones," said Samantha Montano, an assistant professor of emergency management at Massachusetts Maritime Academy. "And that's a real challenge because in a disaster, you don't necessarily have time to be digging through all of that." Researchers have not yet looked at whether the effects of X's changes under Musk are negative for disaster response. Silver is applying for funding to answer the question. "I do still think that there are real benefits to using social media in disasters — whether it's Twitter, Tik Tok or something else — as a way for people to organize among themselves and work directly with survivors," Montano said. Dull says she has been relying on TikTok and a neighborhood Facebook group as well as family and friends in the area. She wants to know both what's happening now and what's happening next. 
Sponsor Message



"I would like to hear updates on the people that are trapped on top of mountains right now. I would like to know what steps they're going to take to move forward and start rebuilding," said Dull. "I want to know how they're going to help us feel a sense of normalcy again."


Correction Oct. 4, 2024
An earlier version of this story misidentified Amber Silver's institutional affiliation. She teaches at the University at Albany, which is part of the State University of New York system. 



Facebook
Flipboard
Email




















Read & Listen

Home
News
Culture
Music
Podcasts & Shows



Connect

Newsletters
Facebook
Instagram
Press
Public Editor
Corrections
Contact & Help



About NPR

Overview
Diversity
NPR Network
Accessibility
Ethics
Finances



Get Involved

Support Public Radio
Sponsor NPR
NPR Careers
NPR Shop
NPR Events
NPR Extra





Terms of Use
Privacy
Your Privacy Choices
Text Only










 


Sponsor MessageBecome an NPR sponsor









What could they possibly say that could be a conspiracy?