New research shows Russia has worked to amplify false and misleading claims about the U.S. government's response to Hurricanes Helene and Milton as part of the Kremlin's efforts to manipulate Americans before the Nov. 5 election.

Russia has helped amplify and spread false and misleading internet claims about recent hurricanes in the United States and the federal government’s response, part of a wider effort by the Kremlin to manipulate America’s political discourse before the presidential election, new research shows.

The content, spread by Russian state media and networks of social media accounts and websites, criticizes the federal response to Hurricanes Helene and Milton, exploiting legitimate concerns about the recovery effort in an attempt to paint American leaders as incompetent and corrupt, according to research from the Institute for Strategic Dialogue. The London-based organization tracks disinformation and online extremism.

In some cases, the claims about the storms include fake images created using artificial intelligence, such as a photo depicting scenes of devastating flooding at Disney World that never happened, researchers say.

  • krashmo@lemmy.world
    56·
    1 month ago

    I’m normally a big advocate of government programs but FEMA does kind of suck. My family lost a house in a natural disaster in the recent past and they were a nightmare to work with. They refused to offer any assistance without a significant amount of paperwork, they were constantly badgering us with seemingly unrelated questions, waited 6 months to pay out less than 5% of what the property was worth, and eventually decided we shouldn’t have gotten that and are still trying to get it back. On top of all that the IRS is auditing my family primarily due to this whole situation. My family is in a good enough financial position that we didn’t have to rely solely on their aid but if we did we would have been fucked for 6 months at least. The family member dealing with them still says he wishes he had turned them away and received no assistance at all.

    All that to say, there’s legitimate reasons that people don’t like FEMA unrelated to Russian influence. My personal experience with them has been overwhelmingly negative to the point that I would not be happy to see them under any circumstances. I wouldn’t be out hunting them like some weirdo but that doesn’t mean I have a positive opinion of what they do.

    • Breezy@lemmy.world
      11·
      1 month ago

      Im not saying you’re wrong, but I’ve worked with fema and so has my family since we do restoration on thr affected houses, at least in my home state. And i never heard of nothing like this happening. I am sorry if thats how it worked out for you.

      • krashmo@lemmy.world
        52·
        1 month ago

        Thanks, I hope it goes better for most people. For what it’s worth the FEMA employees we talked to in person seemed to be genuinely interested in helping but that’s a big part of why it was so frustrating; the people on the ground were saying very different things than the people sending emails and approving funding.

        • Breezy@lemmy.world
          2·
          1 month ago

          Okay, but we’re talking about russia undermining americans trusts in FEMA. As bad as it is fod me to say this, even if your claim is true, this is not the time to be bringing it up.

          • krashmo@lemmy.world
            11·
            1 month ago

            Sure it is. If you want people to trust you then be trustworthy. Attempting to reclaim funds handed out during a disaster that were ridiculously difficult to obtain in the first place is not what I would call worthy of trust. If my experience with FEMA had been a positive one I’d be here saying good things about them but I’m not and that is entirely their fault, not Russia’s.