Analysis regarding the impact of ‘fake news’ on the quality of life of the population in a region affected by earthquake activity. The case of Romania–Northern Oltenia

Mărcău, Flavius Cristian; Peptan, Cătălin; Băleanu, Vlad Dumitru; Holt, Alina Georgiana; Iana, Silviu Adrian; Gheorman, Victor

doi:10.3389/fpubh.2023.1244564

Cited by 2 publications

(4 citation statements)

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“…The EMSC has already deployed its publishing robot, including automatic pre-bunking of tweets, on Mastodon and Bluesky, recent alternatives to Twitter. In the meantime, the growing success of messaging applications for both conversational and informational purposes make them fertile ground for the spread of false information (ICRC, 2017;Mărcău et al, 2023). For that reason, the EMSC have a duty to be present there.…”

Section: Research Limitationsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…This is often caused by retrospective evidence bias and confirmation bias, or by a poor understanding of phenomena with complex dynamics (Dallo et al, 2022). In the aftermath of a seismic event, it is not uncommon to witness the propagation of a combination of these three types of misinformation across social media platforms, highlighting the multifaceted nature of misinformation, as was documented for instance in Romania by Mărcău et al (2023). In this study, the authors give an idea of the scale of false information, showing that around 30% of respondents gave credit to information reporting predictions of an earthquake following a seismic event, which occurred on February 13, 2023.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Prebunking earthquake predictions on social media

Fallou,

Bossu,

Cheny

2024

Front. Commun.

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Earthquake misinformation has not only a significant impact on crisis management, but also on trust in scientific information and institutions. As a global center for seismic information, the Euro-Mediterranean Seismological Center (EMSC) has developed a strategy to combat false information related to earthquakes, particularly on Twitter (now known as X). This strategy includes the automation of prebunking tweets to prevent the spread of false information and, particularly unreliable claims of earthquake predictions. In the field of false information, predictions of earthquakes have a particular characteristic: their appearance follows a specific dynamic and the attention paid to them is predictable, which makes the automation of countermeasures (prebunking and debunking) both possible and relevant. Therefore, the objectives of the EMSC’s automatic tweets are to warn people in advance, particularly those who may be vulnerable to earthquake misinformation, while filling the information void with verified, scientifically-based information in the meantime. This paper seeks to examine the usefulness of such a tool. It does so by analyzing users’ engagement with these tweets. In addition, it focuses on two case studies, the seismic sequence in Turkey following the M7.8 earthquake on February 6, 2023 and the M6.8 Morocco earthquake on September 8, 2023. The results show engagement with the automatically generated tweets but an even greater interaction and engagement with manual tweets, highlighting the importance of a holistic approach. Recommendations include optimizing the visibility of the tweets, extending efforts beyond social media, and exploring alternative platforms. The paper advocates for a comprehensive strategy, combining automated tools with manual engagement and leveraging diverse communication channels to take into account cultural differences.

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Section: Research Limitationsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%