Fake News Floods Myanmar after Earthquake, Profiteers Exploit Tragedy with AI Hoaxes

Digital scammers took advantage of the chaos and fear following the Myanmar earthquake to distribute phony videos and AI-generated content.

Profiteers have flooded social media with fake news and bogus videos since a powerful earthquake devastated Myanmar last month, exploiting the chaos with clickbait that can reap tens of thousands in ad revenues, digital activists say.

Be it sensational images that go viral or fake rescue tales, the schemes prey on the heightened fears and appetite for news that follow any disaster or outbreak of war.

A senior technology researcher at the Brookings Institution think-tank, Darrell West said that people just have to assume there’s a lot of false information that circulates. They should be aware there are people making money off of false information.

The death toll from Myanmar’s March 28 quake has risen to more than 3,600, according to state media, with a further 5,000 injured and hundreds of people still missing.

The quake was the latest blow for the impoverished Southeast Asian country of 53 million, following a 2021 coup that returned the military to power and devastated its economy after a decade of development and tentative democracy.

Grassroots group Digital Insight Lab, which runs Facebook pages countering misinformation and hate speech in Myanmar, said it had seen viral posts claiming to show the devastation of the disaster even though the videos were shot in Syria and Malaysia, or created from scratch by artificial intelligence.

Research officer Windy, who used a pseudonym for safety, said that many of these reports repurpose photos and videos from unrelated past incidents, while others leverage AI-generated content to fabricate false narratives.

Jeanette Elsworth, head of communications at the UN Office for Disaster Risk Reduction (UNDRR) said that when you have mis- and disinformation, it can escalate panic; you can delay your evacuation. It can undermine the trust that you have in emergency services. It can also be really distracting.

After Hurricane Helene devastated parts of the United States last year, false rumours spread accusing the government of channeling federal disaster funds to illegal migrants.