It’s not unusual for the Federal Emergency Management Agency to have to respond to rumors surrounding any given natural disaster. But US officials are concerned about the scale and scope of the conspiracy theories and the threat they pose to hurricane victims and the government employees responding to the disaster.
This week, President Joe Biden requested a memorandum from his team on the federal government’s digital response, including how officials were remediating misinformation, a senior administration official told CNN. While addressing preparations for Hurricane Milton, Biden called out “reckless, irresponsible and relentless promotion of disinformation and outright lies that are disturbing people” and “undermining confidence in the incredible rescue and recovery work that has already been taken.” He specifically called out Trump for his
role in spreading misinformation.
“The contours of this misinformation are unlike anything we’ve seen before,” a senior administration official told CNN.
With Hurricane Milton barreling toward Florida, concerns among administration officials have only been exacerbated, and new tactics to share information have been deployed to reach different corners of the internet, like a newly launched White House Reddit page.
Senior US officials have also instructed public affairs teams at federal agencies to ramp up social media posts from government accounts with photos that illustrate how federal workers are clearing debris and dispensing aid, the first US official familiar with the effort said.
“We have a massive misinformation problem, and this is something that actively harms the ability of responders to do their job,” Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg told CNN’s John Berman on Wednesday. “I think a lot of it’s driven by politics. Some of it’s just the internet doing what it seems to do lately and amplify the loudest or strangest thing that is being said.”
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