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Much has been made of the importance of the speed at which disinformation diffuses through online social media and this speed is an important aspect to consider when designing interventions. An additional complexity is that there can be different types of false information that travel from and through different communities who respond in various ways within the same social media conversation. Here we present a case study/example analysis exploring the speed and reach of three different types of false stories found in the Black Panther movie Twitter conversation and comparing the diffusion of these stories with the community responses to them. We find that the negative reaction to fake stories of racially-motivated violence whether in the form of debunking quotes or satirical posts can spread at speeds that are magnitudes higher than the original fake stories. Satire posts, while less viral than debunking quotes, appear to have longer lifetimes in the conversation. We also found that the majority of mixed community members who originally spread fake stories switched to attacking them. Our work serves as an example of the importance of analyzing the diffusion of both different types of disinformation and the different responses to it within the same overall conversation.

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In the face of changing environmental and socio-economic drivers, access to, understanding of, and the use of probabilistic climate forecasts and other sources of scientific hydro-climate information are important for informed decision making in the water sector. This paper characterizes and compares local perceptions of the water system and hydro-climate information in the seasonally dry province of Guanacaste, Costa Rica. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with a total of 40 participants from 7 water-related groups. Interview results were used to compare mental models of the drivers of water systems and water scarcity mitigation/adaptation options, and relate them to stakeholder information needs, accuracy ratings, and use. Our results suggest that: 1) while there appear to be similar perceptions of the drivers of rainfall and groundwater, there is a gap between groups in the use of forecasts, the awareness of management options, and the level of detailed understanding of how the water system works; 2) there are potential mismatches between the information presented in rainfall forecasts and the stated and/or salient information needs of some stakeholders, specifically in the case of groundwater resources; 3) there appear to be different perceptions of forecasts even among groups that rate the accuracy of such forecasts the same; and 4) there appears to be a relationship between the use of forecasts and certain types of management actions such as long-term planning. Our findings warrant further investigation and confirmation and may contribute to the development of communications that help stakeholders make informed decisions about freshwater management in semi-arid regions.