I’m Running Out of Ways to Explain How Bad This Is

The Atlantic's Charlie Warzel writes of an increasingly disassociated social media audience fueled by echo chamber algorithms that believes the AI images and videos and false narratives surrounding the recent hurricane disasters in the Southeast.

The Atlantic
The truth is, it’s getting harder to describe the extent to which a meaningful percentage of Americans have dissociated from reality. As Hurricane Milton churned across the Gulf of Mexico (Wednesday) night, I saw an onslaught of outright conspiracy theorizing and utter nonsense racking up millions of views across the internet. The posts would be laughable if they weren’t taken by many people as gospel. Among them: Infowars’ Alex Jones, who claimed that Hurricanes Milton and Helene were “weather weapons” unleashed on the East Coast by the U.S. government, and “truth seeker” accounts on X that posted photos of condensation trails in the sky to baselessly allege that the government was “spraying Florida ahead of Hurricane Milton” in order to ensure maximum rainfall, “just like they did over Asheville!”

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