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Friend, Extreme weather events, like the recent Texas floods, are more frequent than ever. When these emergencies happen, people turn to social media to find answers. But, when the LA fires and hurricanes Helen and Milton hit, instead of reliable information, a storm of false claims and conspiracies took over X, YouTube, Facebook, and Instagram. How do we know this? CCDH analyzed 300 of the most-liked false and misleading posts about extreme weather events made between 2023 and 2025 on X, Meta (Instagram and Facebook), and YouTube. What we found was alarming: Community Notes or fact-checks were NOT displayed on most of the posts on X, Facebook, and Instagram, and they were absent from all YouTube videos. The falsehoods in our sample were viewed 221 million times across the four platforms. They included false claims that the LA wildfires were part of a “globalist plot”, that the hurricanes are controlled by “weather weapon technology”, and that emergency responders were failing to act and diverting funds. All platforms are giving ‘verified’ status to users pushing these false claims, allowing their content to reach more people. YouTube displayed ads next to 29 of the 100 misleading videos, profiting from this content. Conspiracist Alex Jones’ false claims about the 2025 LA wildfires had more views on X than the combined views of posts from 10 major news outlets and 10 key emergency agencies.
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