Extreme Weather

CCDH found that X, YouTube, and Meta (Instagram and Facebook), allow a storm of false and misleading claims about extreme weather events like the Texas floods, Hurricane Helene and the LA wildfires flood their platforms – disrupting disaster response, and putting lives at risk.

CCDH looked at the 300 most-liked posts on X, YouTube, and Meta about extreme weather events.

We found:

• False or misleading claims about extreme weather were viewed 221 million times across all platforms.
• Community Notes or fact checks are almost entirely absent on viral posts spreading false claims during major disasters.
  • 98% of the 100 posts analyzed on Facebook and Instagram 
  • 99% of the 100 posts analyzed on X 
  • All the 100 posts analyzed on YouTube 
• Social media companies are profiting from lies about extreme weather events.
  • On X, 88% of misleading extreme weather posts were from verified accounts. The platform enables paid subscriptions for five of these accounts – which combined have 14 million followers 
  • On YouTube, 73% of posts were from verified accounts. YouTube displayed ads next to 29% of misleading extreme weather videos. 
  • On Facebook and Instagram, 64% of posts were from verified accounts. Meta is sharing ad revenue with three content creators pushing misleading claims, enabling them to share in Meta’s revenue from ads near their posts. 
• ‘Superspreaders’ of false claims and conspiracies online, like Alex Jones, get more views than official information during extreme weather events like the LA wildfires.
  • Alex Jones’ false claims about the LA wildfires amassed 408 million views on X – more than the combined views of posts from 10 major news outlets and 10 key emergency agencies.

An Introduction from CCDH CEO Imran Ahmed

In early July 2025, catastrophic floods in Texas killed over 130 people—including more than 20 girls at summer camp. As families mourned their loved ones and emergency responders frantically searched through debris for survivors, people around the country turned to social media for answers. Instead, they found disturbing lies about rescue efforts, people downplaying the severity of the disaster, and conspiracy theories about weather manipulation. It was a disgusting, but now all too predictable, display of how social media companies exploit deadly disasters for profit and a few extra million clicks.    

Sadly, this pattern isn’t new. In this report, CCDH researchers investigate how misleading information surged after Hurricanes Helene and Milton in the fall of 2024 and the LA wildfires in early 2025—disasters that claimed hundreds of lives and displaced thousands. What we uncovered is disturbing evidence of tech companies elevating conspiracy superspreaders, profiting from lies about rescue efforts, and enabling falsehoods that could impede emergency response and place lives at risk.  

Within hours of each catastrophe, baseless claims that hurricanes were “geo-engineered weapons” and wildfires were ignited by “government lasers” spread faster than updates from emergency officials and reliable news outlets. Conspiracies that migrants were receiving preferential aid over disaster victims stirred resentment and division. One armed man, radicalized by this torrent of lies, was arrested after threatening FEMA employees near a relief site. Officials from LA County described to me how a flood of scammers added to the woes of people displaced from their homes by targeting them with paid ads encouraging them to hand over their personal data to secure federal assistance.  

This report documents how Meta, X, and YouTube enable and profit from the spread of false information during disasters, allowing conspiracy theorists to drown out reliable news sources and emergency responders. CCDH researchers found that these platforms applied fact-checks or community notes to fewer than 2% of the 300 misleading posts analyzed across platforms. The overwhelming majority of posts spreading lies about disaster response, climate change causes, and emergency aid were left unmoderated before being algorithmically boosted and monetized.   

Consider this: the social media views of just one well-known superspreader of conspiracy theories and lies, Alex Jones, outnumbered the views of official emergency response information amid the LA wildfires. His false claims, including accusations of FEMA “food confiscation” and globalist plots, amassed over 400 million views on X—more than double the combined reach of FEMA and ten major news outlets.  

By undermining trust in first responders and sowing confusion in moments of crisis, platforms are sabotaging disaster response for profit.   

In our 2023 New Climate Denial report, we highlighted the rise of “New Denial” at the expense of the “Old Denial”: a shift from rejecting the reality of human-caused climate change to undermining proposed solutions and attacking climate science and scientists. These narratives now dominate climate discourse online, appearing in 70% of denial content on YouTube in our study. Natural disasters, devastating lives and entire communities, are cynically co-opted as opportunities to fuel this “New Climate Denial” agenda.  

This is not an accident—it is the result of social media business models that reward extremism, punish truth, and profit from chaos. As climate disasters become increasingly severe and frequent, we must confront the reality that tech giants are active participants in the spread of falsehoods that endanger our communities and the planet.  

We cannot wait for the next disaster to demand accountability and transparency from these companies.