Australia's Wildfires Spark Disinformation Battle As They Take A Tragic Toll
Researchers say bots and trolls blasted out hashtags like #ArsonEmergency, in a campaign to steer the conversation about wildfires away from climate change and toward arson.
Australia is struggling to cope with deadly infernos and faces the loss of nearly a billion animals to terrible bushfires — but in the midst of those tragedies, authorities are also battling against hoaxes and misinformation, including false reports of widespread arson. Many of the claims seek to suggest arson, not climate change, was a key driver of the historic fires.
The hashtag #ArsonEmergency began trending shortly after the new year. Queensland University of Technology researcher Timothy Graham says he identified troll and bot social media accounts that tried to shift
