Natural Disasters and Dangerous Speech

Over the past month, two catastrophic hurricanes hit the American southeast. In their midst, dangerous rumors circulated suggesting that the rescue workers who were trying to help devastated communities were stealing property and even killing people instead and that meteorologists were part of a government coverup. Preposterous lies, such as that Democrats had created the hurricanes and hurled them at Republican voters to steal the upcoming election, spread easily. Dangerous speech thrives when people are afraid and uncertain about what is actually happening, as was evident during other crises like COVID, Ebola, and Hurricane Katrina in 2005. In this report, we report specific narratives circulating in the aftermath of hurricanes Helene and Milton.