As Australia continues to battle the deadly bushfires that have devastated much of the country, a campaign has begun about the causes.
As Dr Timothy Graham, from the Queensland University of Technology (QUT), reports, tweets carrying hashtags such as #ArsonEmergency appear to come from bot and troll accounts.
As he told ZDNet, these tweets “focused heavily on climate change denial, and that environmentalists are responsible for the fires, while also saying that these are arson attacks.”
These last two are conspiracy theories, he said.
Environmentalists have never opposed fire prevention measures in fire-prone areas. In fact, they support them.
And while some fires are indeed caused by arson, there is no evidence to suggest that this is the case.
Graham collected a sample of tweets from January 1st to 6th, using a Python-based tool . What he discovered was a large number of suspected bot accounts .
Graham said the analysis was based on just 315 accounts using the hashtag #ArsonEmergency, compared to 1106 using #BushfireAustralia and 7674 using #AustraliaFire.
Overall, Graham's main concern is that this whole episode will be "a bit embarrassing" for Australia, due to what he says is "unprecedented" misinformation.
Government warns of fake donations
As often happens in times of crisis, there are those who try to exploit the situation to their advantage.
According to the government, some scammers are pretending to be people affected by the fires and asking for financial assistance.
"Scammers are making phone calls, sending instant messages and creating fake websites and social media pages to solicit donations," Scamwatch warned on Monday.
“Do not donate through donation pages on platforms that do not verify the legitimacy of the fundraiser or that do not guarantee that your money will be returned if the page is found to be malicious,” they wrote.
