Activists and technology experts say that since the powerful earthquake that struck Myanmar last month, fake news and fabricated videos have proliferated on social media.
It is worth noting that much of this content is spread to profit from advertising revenue.
Typical examples of the above phenomenon are the spread of sensational images and unreal rescue stories.
This is how bad guys take advantage of panic and the need to access information after a disaster to spread false information for personal gain.
Mr. Darrell West, senior research fellow at the Brookings Institution (USA), warned people to be vigilant when there are people making money from spreading false information on social networks.
The Digital Insight Lab, which runs Facebook pages to combat misinformation and hate speech in Myanmar, said it had found several viral posts with false content about the extent of damage and devastation caused by the earthquake in the Southeast Asian country.
These include videos shot in Syria, Malaysia, or created using Artificial Intelligence (AI).
A researcher on the team said much of such misinformation was the product of repurposing images and videos from other disasters or using AI to create bogus stories.
According to digital technology experts, the spread of fake news after disasters is quite common on social networks such as Facebook, Instagram and Tik Tok, from using images with misleading captions to fake videos of rescue operations, causing panic in the community.
“Misinformation can cause panic, delay evacuation or rescue operations, or undermine people’s trust in emergency response agencies, and the consequences can be truly devastating,” said Jeanette Elsworth, head of communications at the United Nations Office for Disaster Risk Reduction (UNDRR).
According to Myanmar media, the death toll from the earthquake that occurred on March 28 has exceeded 3,600, while more than 5,000 people were injured and hundreds of people are still missing.
The spread of misinformation after disasters has been quite common on social media platforms in recent years.
When Hurricane Helene devastated the US last year, there were false rumors on social media regarding the government's use of relief funds.
After the earthquakes in Türkiye and Syria in 2023, many people shared on social media videos of tsunami disasters that had previously occurred in Japan and Greenland, pretending to be footage taken at the scene of the recent disaster.
A 2021 study found that websites spreading misinformation could earn up to $2.6 billion a year from advertising.
The research was conducted by NewsGuard - a tool that helps evaluate website reputation and the reliability of online information - and Comscore - a global media analysis and evaluation company./.
Source: https://www.vietnamplus.vn/tran-lan-tin-gia-va-video-bia-dat-lien-quan-tran-dong-dat-tai-myanmar-post1027019.vnp
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