Making money out of a disaster: Fake news in Myanmar quake

Profiteers have flooded social media with fake news and bogus videos since a

powerful earthquake devastated Myanmar on March 28,

exploiting the chaos with clickbait that can reap tens of thousands in ad revenues, digital activists say.

Be it sensational images that go viral or fake rescue tales, the schemes prey on the heightened fears and appetite for news that follow any disaster or outbreak of war.

“People just have to assume there’s a lot of false information that circulates. They should be aware there are people making money off of false information,” said Mr Darrell West, a senior technology researcher at the Brookings Institution think-tank.

The death toll from Myanmar’s 7.7-magnitude quake has risen to more than 3,600, according to state media, with a further 5,000 injured and hundreds of people still missing.

Grassroots group Digital Insight Lab, which runs Facebook pages countering misinformation and hate speech in Myanmar, said it had seen viral posts claiming to show the devastation of the disaster even though the videos were shot in Syria and Malaysia, or created from scratch by artificial intelligence (AI).

“Many of these reports repurpose photos and videos from unrelated past incidents, while others leverage AI-generated content to fabricate false narratives,” said research officer Windy, who used a pseudonym for safety.

Misinformation and disinformation are common on social media following catastrophes, digital experts say, be it miscaptioned images, fake videos or false narratives about rescue efforts.

“When you have mis- and disinformation, it can escalate panic, you can delay your evacuation. It can undermine the trust that you have in emergency services. It can also be really distracting,” said Ms Jeanette Elsworth, head of communications at the UN Office for Disaster Risk Reduction (UNDRR).

After Hurricane Helene devastated parts of the US last year, false rumours spread, accusing the government of channelling federal disaster funds to illegal migrants.

When a massive quake hit Turkey and Syria in 2023, killing more than 51,000 people, fraudsters uploaded old videos of tsunamis in Japan and Greenland, claiming it was real-time footage from the new disaster zone.

“We have a Wild West now where virtually anything goes. There are very few laws regulating content online, and the tech companies aren’t doing very much to protect people,” Mr West of the Brookings Institution told the Thomson Reuters Foundation.

Fake news pays

More than US$20 billion ($26.68 billion) was made in 2024 through advertising revenues shared between social platforms and content creators, according to tech policy group What To Fix.

Content creators use platforms such as Facebook, Instagram and TikTok to get a share of revenue from the ads displayed with their posts, said founder Victoire Rio, who has also worked in Myanmar researching misinformation.

She said the model incentivises creators to produce viral posts, even if they are false or AI-generated, because the more views and shares they attract, the more money they make.

Though it is difficult to calculate an exact figure, fraudsters have been able to earn tens of thousands of dollars during previous crises such as the 2021 Myanmar coup, Ms Rio said.

According to a 2021 study by fact-checking firm NewsGuard and analytics company Comscore, misinformation websites reap US$2.6 billion from digital advertising each year.

Meta, which owns Facebook and Instagram, accounts for more than 60 per cent of the social advertising market and had over 3.1 million creator accounts in 2024, a 55 per cent increase on the previous year, according to What To Fix.

“In the current context in Myanmar, a vast volume of the disinformation you’re seeing circulate is financially motivated,” Ms Rio said.

Meta said they remove posts that violate their policies, working with partners to debunk false claims and move such content down the feed “so fewer people see it”.

Ms Rio said the lack of information coming out of Myanmar due to internet shutdowns was also fuelling misinformation.

“You have a huge community of people that are turning to Facebook from outside of Myanmar trying to find information. And those people are particularly vulnerable to misinformation because they are desperately looking for information,” Ms Rio said.

Ms Htaike Htaike Aung, director of the Myanmar Internet Project which tracks the country’s internet blackouts, said the situation was putting lives at risk.

“Due to it’s clickbaity nature and how social media algorithms function, (fake posts) are often at the top of the newsfeed, which makes people having access to quality information more challenging,” she pointed out.

“It’s hindering a lot of aid efforts. Access to information at this time is a life and death situation.”

Reducing risks

Governments have also been urged to step up. But it will take more than Big Tech and government to tackle fake news, said Ms Elsworth, who urged religious leaders, civil society and local media to play their part, too.

“Everybody needs to get involved,” she said. “It’s... about empowering people at every level to do what they need to do.”
THOMSON REUTERS FOUNDATION