TOKYO - In the immediate aftermath of the Kumamoto earthquake on July 28, social media was flooded with unverified information, including old disaster footage repurposed to depict current damage, videos exaggerating the situation and baseless posts predicting further quakes.
Social media can quickly convey conditions in disaster-hit areas, helping people confirm others' safety, request rescues and share information such as shelter locations and needed supplies. But it can spread false information just as quickly.
During the 2016 Kumamoto earthquake, a fake post claiming a lion had been released from a zoo became emblematic of disaster misinformation, and a decade later, such misinformation has entered a new phase.
Of particular concern is the increasing sophistication of fake images and videos created with generative artificial intelligence. With generative AI, plausible scenes -- collapsed buildings, fires, tsunamis and people calling for help -- can be produced in a short time.
Not only still images but also video and audio now feel closer to the real thing, including news-style videos, making it harder to judge authenticity by appearance alone. As fakes proliferate, even genuine footage of disaster damage is increasingly being questioned as potentially AI-generated.
The motives for spreading misinformation on social media are also changing. Beyond mere pranks, there is "impression farming," in which users seek to earn revenue by boosting views. After the latest Kumamoto quake, there was also a noticeable number of posts that lured users to a simplified version of a video-sharing app, prompting them to register so referrers could earn points.
In other words, people's anxiety about disasters and goodwill toward victims are being exploited to generate advertising revenue and referral rewards.
Misinformation is said to spread more easily when a topic is of great concern, and the situation remains unclear.
Disasters are of great concern because they threaten lives, while the full extent of the damage is often unknown immediately after they occur. Many people are also driven by good intentions, such as wanting to quickly inform others or help those in need.
Of particular concern is well-intentioned sharing by people outside the affected area. Even if only a few people create false posts, they can spread explosively if amplified by a well-meaning majority. Sharing unverified information does not help and can instead hinder relief efforts by forcing rescuers and authorities to conduct unnecessary verification work and drowning out information that is genuinely needed.
What is required of us is not expert-level analysis, but simply asking ourselves two questions when encountering information: "Is this true?" and "Is this something I should share?"
Check the source, date and time, and location. Cross-check against information from local governments, the weather agency, police, fire departments and news organizations. If unsure, do not share it. Rather than sharing something "just in case," we need to resolve that "it stops with me."
Governments, news outlets and platform operators should move quickly to debunk emerging misinformation. They should also advance "prebunking," or informing people in advance about the kinds of false information that may appear during disasters, providing a kind of inoculation against misinformation.
Rather than being manipulated by disaster-related information, each of us should calmly scrutinize what we encounter and distinguish fact from falsehood. Doing so will help cultivate "disaster prevention literacy," the ability to make sound judgments and act appropriately in the face of a disaster.
(Reo Kimura, born in 1975, is a professor at the University of Hyogo specializing in disaster psychology and disaster education. He holds a doctorate in informatics from Kyoto University and has served as an assistant professor at a graduate school at Nagoya University among other posts.)
