How the Misinformation on Hurricane Helene Affects You
Image taken of a home in Tennessee after Helene inflicted massive damages. Photo courtesy of Carol M. Highsmith.
Following his October 4, 2024, press conference in Evans, Georgia, now-President Donald Trump took to Truth Social, a social media platform created specifically for Trump after he was banned from X, to share a clip of himself captioned: "It's been a terrible response from the White House. They're missing a billion dollars that was used for another purpose–From that standpoint, it's been terrible."
The then presidential candidate did not offer any evidence for the billion-dollar figure, yet the post remains up, alongside other unsubstantiated claims, on his account with nearly 9 million followers. Other elected Republican officials, such as Marjorie Taylor Green (R-GA), quickly began following Trump’s lead and flooding social media platforms like X and Truth Social with unsubstantiated claims regarding the Democrats’ relief response, creating widespread confusion. The partisan misinformation on Hurricane Helene brought to light, in a very tangible way, the harm that these misinformation efforts can have on relief efforts. In light of this, social media platforms must take steps to play a more active role in moderating and fact-checking politicians and their posts.
Trump’s claim regarding the billion-dollar figure came mere days after the end of the deadliest US hurricane in almost twenty years. After making landfall in Florida, Helene continued northwards, ravaging the east coast and killing over 230 people. In the days following the hurricane, some of the most prominent conspiracy theories pushed particularly by Trump and billionaire Elon Musk surrounded the ideas that relief aid was limited to $750 a person and that FEMA money was mostly spent on bringing illegal immigrants into the country. These claims are both demonstrably false. When Trump asserted that “They’re offering them $750 to people whose homes have been washed away” at a rally in Butler, Pennsylvania, he failed to reveal that this figure was only an initial value given to everyone, and that more money would be apportioned on a need-basis. Moreover, Musk boldly stated on X that the Biden administration was using FEMA funds to “ferry illegals into the country”; however, this is a misconception that originates from a separate Trump-era fund meant to help pay for migrant detention centers and aid asylum seekers that happens to also fall under the purview of FEMA. In fact, after returning to office, President Trump has used many of these claims to justify his numerous cuts to FEMA.
The contrast between the statements of individuals like Trump or Musk and individuals taking legitimate steps to provide aid and information is perhaps the most stark when examining the messaging of Republican governors of states that felt the very real impacts of the Helene. South Carolina Governor Henry McMaster praised the federal aid, and Virginia Governor Glenn Youngkin went as far as to say that he was “incredibly appreciative” for the Biden administration's response.
What makes the increase of misinformation on social media so dire is the growing extent to which social media serves as a news source for Americans. According to a 2024 study from the Pew Research Center, over 50 percent of Americans today receive at least some of their news from social media, and this trend will only grow exponentially as younger generations continue to move away from mainstream media sources. Though social media is clearly the future of news consumption, the newfound ease with which information can be disseminated also facilitates the spread of false information.
Moreover, greater social media news consumption has directly affected relief attempts. Deanne Criswell, the Biden-era director of FEMA, responded to the growing confusion of hurricane victims due to the misinformation spread online and expressed her worries that they “won’t register for assistance with us and get access to the critical resources that they are eligible for.” For example, in Rutherford County, North Carolina, FEMA workers were forced to temporarily close their operations after receiving death threats. Even the nonpartisan American Red Cross has warned against the spreading of false information that would cause individuals to not cooperate with government relief efforts.
The very tangible effects of misinformation on relief efforts following Hurricane Helene underscore that we must place a higher scrutiny on social media companies that allow the dissemination of misinformation. Social media platforms are largely protected from legislative restrictions due to Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act. Section 230, dubbed the 26 words that created the internet, essentially absolves platforms of responsibility for the content posted on their sites. Platforms are considered “distributors” of content, not “publishers,” and are therefore not liable for defamatory statements made in the content they distribute.
Given the restrictions imposed by Section 230, solutions to misinformation must stem from the corporations themselves. While fact-checking and community warnings can already be found on some posts on X, a 2022 study published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences demonstrates that the effects of these solutions end up being minimal at best. Instead, the study proposes a unique solution: limiting the number of times a message can be shared. The end goal is to limit the spread of misinformation as much as possible on a grand scale. Because there is so much content constantly being posted on these platforms, case-by-case analysis of specific posts is incredibly ineffective. The proposed alternative would take a much larger blanket approach that will be the most effective to attack the channels through which misinformation is spread. While the researchers do acknowledge that accurate news would be affected as well, this is much less of a problem, as accurate news will be spread much more reliably through traditional sources.
As for motivating platforms to implement these changes, the federal government could incentivize implementation through tax incentives such as breaks or subsidies that do not violate Section 230. These benefits would be allotted to companies that fulfill set guidelines and share parts of their internal data with the government to prove it. An incentives-based strategy is especially effective because it encourages compliance regardless of partisanship. A notable proof-of-concept would be the recent Inflation Reduction Act, which has encouraged investment in green energy sources for over 20 million houses in just a couple of years. Importantly, the IRA induced the notoriously slow-moving and influential energy industry to make record investments and tangible change. Incentives have a proven and impressive track record that should be the blueprint for creating change in the misinformation-ridden landscape of modern social media. While President Trump may not necessarily want to implement these incentives, a bipartisan effort in Congress could help gain some much-needed good PR for Republican congresspeople under the controversial Trump administration. In light of the serious setbacks recovery efforts experienced, it is vital that we find real ways to limit disinformation before it limits us.
J. Adler Rice (CC ’28) is a staff writer for CPR studying history and political science. He is interested in electoral politics, domestic agenda, and presidential history. In his free time, he enjoys playing pick-up basketball and reading mystery novels.