WRAL by Jeff Cercone

Southeastern U.S. residents have suffered back-to-back hurricanes and a torrent of mis- and disinformation that complicated relief efforts and distorted information about available assistance.

Hurricane Helene, a Category 4 storm that made landfall Sept. 26 in northern Florida’s Big Bend area, left destruction across six states and killed more than 200 people. Category 3 Hurricane Milton followed closely behind, making landfall Oct. 9 on Florida’s Siesta Key, just south of Sarasota. Milton spawned deadly tornadoes and killed at least 17 people.

Now, researchers say there’s evidence that China and Russia are amplifying false social media claims about the storms, as they did after other disasters. And North Carolina members of Congress are asking U.S. intelligence officials for answers.

Although research on foreign interference can take weeks or months to complete and verify, misinformation experts already have identified some examples.

The hurricanes brought chaos and false claims from politicians and social media users about the storms and the government’s response.

On Friday, Democratic members of North Carolina’s congressional delegation asked Avril Haines, the director of national intelligence, for a briefing on the scope of disinformation campaigns launched by foreign governments.

“We are concerned about potential involvement in propagating or amplifying this disinformation from foreign governments or malign influences, with the intent of undermining public trust in our institutions and hampering emergency response efforts,” U.S. Reps. Deborah Ross, Wiley Nickel and Kathy Manning wrote in a letter to Haines. “Given the significant impact that such disinformation can have on public safety, morale, and the overall effectiveness of recovery initiatives, it is critical to address these threats in a timely and transparent manner.”

They added: “Understanding the scope of these challenges and any foreign involvement would be invaluable as we work to ensure that accurate information reaches affected communities and that we can counter harmful narratives with effective measures.”

PolitiFact has reported on conspiracy theories about the Federal Emergency Management agency; misinformation about available federal aid; claims the hurricanes were planned for nefarious reasons; and that the storms were engineered using weather modification techniques and steered toward Florida. Politicians including former President Donald Trump and U.S. Rep Marjorie Taylor Greene, R-Ga., also have made ridiculous claims about FEMA funding and weather control, respectively.

They are the same kinds of claims that followed other recent disasters, including the August 2023 Maui, Hawaii, wildfires and the March 2024 collapse of the Francis Scott Key Bridge in Baltimore.

After the Maui wildfires, researchers found that foreign adversaries including Russia and China used social media to spread false claims the fires were intentionally sparked by the U.S. government, or that the U.S. government was more interested in helping Ukraine than Americans. Similarly, after the Key Bridge collapse, researchers found that pro-Russia X accounts promoted the narrative that the bridge collapsed because of a coordinated attack.

Jessica Jensen, a policy researcher at Rand Corp., a nonprofit global think tank, said she has heard directly from government sources that foreign adversaries are involved in spreading misinformation about Hurricane Helene. Jensen wrote about the misinformation after Maui wildfires.

"It’s extraordinarily likely that that would be the case," that they would again peddle disinformation, Jensen said. "Helene is a high-profile event with widespread, significant severe impacts, and our foreign adversaries have been documented to do it in events that are far less severe. So, it is very likely that they would take advantage of this situation as well."

Experts have seen early evidence of foreign interference

Meghan Hermann, a spokesperson for Graphika, a social media analytics company, told PolitiFact that its company analysts found China is spreading misinformation about Hurricane Helene.

"Graphika has observed Chinese state-linked actors, including the Chinese state-linked influence operation network Spamouflage, amplifying misinformation surrounding Hurricane Helene," Hermann said in an email. Spamouflage is a network that "mimics Americans online to sway U.S. political debate," The Associated Press reported Sept. 3.

The analysts called this a "consistent pattern" for Chinese state actors who "opportunistically leverage disastrous events … in the U.S. to denigrate the U.S. government and cast doubt on leadership at both federal and local levels." They also said one common tactic is amplifying existing public concerns.

Colleen Sinclair, a Louisiana State University associate research professor, pointed to an article in The Guardian newspaper that said Russian state news agency RIA Novosti shared on Telegram an image of a flooded Walt Disney World after Hurricane Milton as if it were real, but the image had been generated by artificial intelligence.

"Whether or not some of those sources (of misinformation) on X are in fact hostile agents, we know Russia is certainly sharing some of this information," Sinclair said.

Zack Fishman, a news verification editor for NewsGuard, a company that tracks online false narratives, said its researchers have seen evidence of China and Russia advancing false claims about the hurricanes.

"We have found some state-controlled or (state)-aligned sources pushing false claims around Hurricanes Helene and Milton," Fishman said. He said the most prominent examples were the flooded Disney images, "which many Russian news outlets and websites promoted."

NewsGuard reported Oct. 14 that the Disney photos originated on an X account created in June and that was the account’s only post. From there, sources that typically spread Russian disinformation reshared the photos, NewsGuard’s Coalter Palmer wrote.

A Telegram post by state-owned RIA Novosti and the Russian social network VK showed what looked like Disney World’s Cinderella’s Castle surrounded by floodwaters, Fishman said. Pravda, which Fishman said is part of a network that often spreads pro-Kremlin information, shared the same images as if they were real.

A Chinese state-funded radio station promoted Trump's false claim that disaster relief funds were used for migrants, Fishman said. NewsGuard also identified an article on the Chinese social media site QQ.com that falsely reported relief funds were diverted "to support illegal immigration programs."

Russian media coverage critical of how the U.S. is handling disaster response "is in line with its broader pattern of anti-West propaganda," Fishman said. China’s news coverage has been similarly critical, he said, including focusing on Democrats’ and Republicans’ casting blame on one another.

Government agencies haven’t confirmed foreign interference

U.S. officials have sought to combat storm-related misinformation, with FEMA launching a keyword-searchable rumor response webpage and elected officials — from President Joe Biden to congressional members to state governors — publicly disputing false claims.

But they have stopped short of saying foreign adversaries are to blame.

FEMA Administrator Deanne Criswell, in an Oct. 8 press briefing, called the hurricane mis- and disinformation "absolutely the worst that I have ever seen.

"We know in Maui that some of the disinformation were from foreign state actors," Criswell said. "I don't have that information for this disaster if that's the case or not."

Tennessee Gov. Bill Lee, a Republican, speculated at an Oct. 3 press briefing, however.

"There’s a lot of misinformation," Lee said. "In fact, there’s some belief and understanding that it’s coming from foreign sources just to confuse on the ground what’s happening here." His office didn’t respond to PolitiFact’s requests for more information.

What motivates foreign actors?

Jensen, the Rand Corp. researcher, said it’s in foreign adversaries interest to polarize — and thus disrupt — the U.S., calling it a "low-cost strategy."

"It's highly effective in terms of sowing discord and exacerbating an already polarized climate," Jensen said.

Darrell West, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution’s Center for Technology Innovation, said such efforts have been successful in the past.

"It’s easy to exploit natural disasters because there’s always some degree of chaos in the service delivery," West said.

Making U.S. agencies look incompetent has real-world impact, West said. He pointed to North Carolina relief work that was paused Oct. 13 because of threats against FEMA responders.

Graphika’s analysts said foreign actors spread false narratives to portray the U.S. in chaos and declining in power. The Chinese activities usually didn’t generate meaningful engagement from authentic audiences on the platforms they were shared on.

A Sept. 11 New York Times article echoed that point, saying the impact of the Chinese campaign after the Maui fires "is difficult to measure, though early indications suggest that few social media users engaged with the most outlandish of the conspiracy theories." Researchers cited in the Times article "suggested that China was building a network of accounts that could be put to use in future information operations, including the next U.S. presidential election."

Sinclair said her research shows that one major reason foreign governments seek to spread false narratives online is to distract people from other news events that may put their own nations in an unfavorable light. For example, Russia may seek to distract people from focusing on its war with Ukraine.

When China first started sowing misinformation online, its goal was mostly to make China look good, or deflect attention from things such as the Hong Kong protests, Sinclair said.

"But recently, they've really stepped up, going on attack, and engaging in a lot of the tactics that Russia had been using," she said.

Those include "stoking conspiracy theories, disseminating disinformation, creating political fractures, and generally trying to weaken the United States as well as other Western countries," she said.

What can U.S. citizens, government do?

Sinclair has written several blog posts about ways people can spot foreign-backed false claims online.

Some of the signs social media users can watch for include typos in names, poor English grammar, the mixing of American and British slang, obviously AI-generated images and little interaction on their accounts, she told PolitiFact.

West cautioned people to be skeptical about what they read online and evaluate its authenticity.

People should "look at the URL of the referring information just to see how legitimate it looks," West said. "Foreign entities have created fake news sites. People should evaluate whether this seems to be coming from a domestic or a foreign source. Is it a partisan or nonpartisan organization that is spreading the information?"

Jensen said research shows it’s "a wise practice for citizens to double-check information that they come into contact with and verify it against legitimate sources and trusted sources."

That’s not easy in today’s political environment, she said.

Jensen praised FEMA’s efforts to counter misinformation in real time, both on its website and in officials’ comments.

"They're monitoring what's being communicated out there actively, and they're then directly addressing the exact misinformation and rumors as they arise, and you can see evidence of that on that rumor page, but they're also doing that as they speak to the public," Jensen said.

FEMA is also working with state and local officials so people will hear consistent messaging to combat misinformation, she said.