Pop over to Civil Beat without delay and check out their important coverage of the disinformation war that warped public understanding of the Lahaina fire. Newly available analysis shows how conspiracy theories of the Lahaina fire, attributing it to a “directed energy weapon” or an intentional plot to powerful development interests, originated or were powerfully amplified by foreign governments who took advantage of the tragedy to create division and dissension designed to weaken the U.S.
Today’s “Sunshine Blog” column points to research by Newsguard, “Pro-China Disinformation Campaign Claims US Started Maui Fires in a ‘Weather Weapons’ Experiment, Falsely Citing the UK’s MI6.”
But there’s more.
A couple of weeks ago, the New York Times noted similar disinformation surrounding other natural disasters in addition to Lahaina (“Falsehoods Follow Close Behind This Summer’s Natural Disasters/Misattributed videos, recycled lies and warped fears are fueling unfounded claims about the recent record-breaking heat, floods and wildfires”).
An earlier analysis pointed to Russian involvement in spreading similar disinformation (“Russia amplifies right-wing influence campaign to undermine support for Ukraine by exploiting Hawaii’s tragedy/A deep, deep dive into the symbiotic relationship between right-wing influencers, Russian state media, and the shared disinformation ecosystem in which they live”). This analysis traced the origin of the phrase, “Hawaii not Ukraine,” designed to pit U.S. disaster funding to Hawaii against the separate issue of aid to Ukraine, as if our choice was one or the other.
This article traced the “Hawaii not Ukraine” phrase to an obscure social media account, picked up an hour later by a layer of Russian-linked influencers, and then again to more mainstream social media.
I’ve seen how effective these disinformation tactics have been. A brother-in-law let me know he was a believer in the directed energy weapon theory, and a former Kaaawa neighbor, now living in the Northeast, reposted a link to a site promoting the theory. His email was headed, “Sounds crazy, but were the Maui fires caused by directed energy weapons?”
It’s all very troubling.
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An easy way to avoid science and personal responsibility…
Create a monster that is unseen and beyond belief… oh no! Sounds like COVID-19.
But using less fossil fuels and processed foods is the response the sane are taking… sound crazy? I am sticking to International green party theory that maps out peace and prosperity BUT IT BEGINS AND ENDS AT THE PERSONAL LEVEL.
I get it that wooden structures (especially very old ones)burn super quickly.
It still does not answer many questions about
1. metal turning to liquid like vehicles on Front street.
2. House jumping fired even next to each other in high winds.
3. Fields being burned and again vehicles melting from the heat with no accelerator around it.
I would like science to prove everything we’ve seen is accurate and an acceptable practice.
When you are that far gone, science won’t help alliviate your curiosity.
AMEN !
There is only one acceptable explanation for the destruction of Lahaina. …….REVENGE OF THE WHALES!!! And only one solution……KRILL! plenty of krill!
I think that that there was a lot of local incompetence in not having a plan of action in place.
Inception? Dis-, Miss-, Mal-information, et al, believe a linguistic offensive ploy promoted by strategists of the Russiagate theory in Hillary Pres loss in 2016.
So, might we look to those who control legacy media, as terminology purveyor…. certainly’s not the public.
China imposes all sorts of limitations on internet posts they don’t like, yet China is free to spew hate and disinformation to Americans through the internet. Is there no way we can impose reciprocal restrictions on them?