How Disinformation is Used to Amplify Societal Chaos During Natural Disasters

Why natural disasters are attractive opportunities for disinformation actors

Disinformation is hardly ever 100% fake, in fact it’s mostly about exploiting real weaknesses and pain points. Natural disasters create a “perfect storm” for bad actors. When disaster strikes, frightened and vulnerable people rush to social media looking for information, and threat actors exploit this panic. Deepfake videos and coordinated narrative attacks have become common tools for spreading disinformation in the critical hours after a disaster hits, sowing fear and eroding trust in the governments and local authorities responsible for the response.

Venezuela Earthquake 2026

On June 24th, 2026, two large earthquakes struck northern Venezuela, causing extensive damage and mass casualties. Social media was quickly flooded with videos and images of the devastation, and threat actors didn't waste any time. AI generated videos of buildings collapsing began circulating almost immediately, including one fake popular video showing two tall buildings collapsing into each other. Another video showed a large building collapsing onto rescue workers. These two videos received over 13 million views combined.

Two fake videos detected depicting buildings collapsing after the Venezuela earthquakes

Mumbai Floods 2026

Heavy monsoon rains caused extensive flooding and damage across Mumbai, India, over the past week. As a result of the heavy rains, the newly built Mumbai-Pune Expressway connecting link was damaged in a landslide, just months after construction was completed. The damage was contained enough that the expressway reopened to traffic in just under 24 hours.

That didn't stop the disinformation. X users seized on the story and shared AI-generated videos depicting the expressway as completely destroyed, showing far more extensive damage than what actually occurred. People felt trapped and they blamed the government for poor construction of new infrastructure.

The deepfake video claiming to show the expressway collapsing

January 2025 California Wildfires

During January 2025, massive wildfires broke out across southern California, with major fires  spreading throughout the Los Angeles metropolitan area and parts of San Diego County. Fires moved quickly and locals ran to social media to try to track their spread. Threat actors shared a variety of manipulated and AI-generated videos and images to stir panic. In one instance, many users started to share fake content claiming that the Hollywood sign was on fire, one user shared a fake video of the sign burning along with the statement, “When I heard it had reached the Hollywood sign, I figured it was minor. This is serious; if you’re in the Hills, you need to evacuate for your safety!” Fake posts even pointed out to an "offical evacuation point" that didn't exist.

One of the posts featuring a video claiming to show the Hollywood sign on fire

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Why Narrative Intelligence Monitoring Is Crucial Before, During, and After a Natural Disaster?

These three examples point to a pattern that repeats after nearly every major disaster. All countries are under threat form malicious actors and this is a innate weakness that needs to fortified and monitored to avoid chaos.

Since disasters are unplanned, it is important to monitor discourse constantly. Many of the accounts that will eventually spread deepfakes and disinformation will have been created and mobilized long before disaster strikes, waiting for the moment to become active and spread chaos.

Disinformation campaigns target governments and local authorities, designed to sow distrust and stir animosity among the public during moments where trust in official information matters most.

Narrative intelligence monitoring can help in real time take various actions, including:

• Alert the media of false/dangerous narratives

• Takedown harmful posts, and detect users spreading harmful content

• Alert the public to be aware 

  
  

How Brinker Can Help During Natural Disasters?

Brinker’s deep fake detection and malicious intent analysis tool, used on the earthquake videos

Brinker's battle-proven narrative intelligence platform gives governments, response teams, and organizations the tools to fight back against disinformation during a crisis:

• Agentic AI investigation - Our OSINT AI agent, Hans, can quickly analyze large sets of data, recommend strategies for countering harmful narratives, and identify inauthentic behavior.

• Early narrative detection - Brinker collects data quickly from social media, blogs, news outlets, and more, surfacing emerging narratives before they gain high engagement.

• Deepfake identification - Our deepfake analysis tools assess whether an image or video has been manipulated, alongside an analysis of malicious intent behind the content.

• Network mapping - Brinker maps out narrative attack networks and disinformation campaigns targeting governments, first responders, and local authorities.

  
  

A nation’s psyche is as crucial as a nation’s ability to face hurdles and threats when disaster strikes. Bad actors know to take advantage of this fact because damage of trust will have long lasting effects in the minds of the public,  building back trust can be a bigger hurdle than fixing damaged infrastructure.