Why Did False Rumors Diffuse after the 2011 Earthquake off the Pacific Coast of Tohoku? Impact Analysis of the Network Structure

Usui, Shohei; Toriumi, Fujio; Hirayama, Takatsugu; Enokibori, Yu; Mase, Kenji

doi:10.1002/ecj.11687

Cited by 3 publications

(4 citation statements)

References 14 publications

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“…However, the conclusions that can be drawn from these past surveys are limited since some rely on university students [e.g., Carter et al, 2014;Jung and Moro, 2014]. Beyond descriptive studies, some past work has involved network analysis of Twitter messages [e.g., Lu and Brelsford, 2014;Usui et al, 2015]. Bird et al [2012] has some similarities to this present study since it addresses the use of Facebook during the 2010-2011 Australian floods.…”

Section: Water Resources Researchmentioning

confidence: 91%

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Disaster loss and social media: Can online information increase flood resilience?

Allaire

2016

Water Resources Research

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When confronted with natural disasters, individuals around the world increasingly use online resources to become informed of forecasted conditions and advisable actions. This study tests the effectiveness of online information and social media in enabling households to reduce disaster losses. The 2011 Bangkok flood is utilized as a case study since it was one of the first major disasters to affect a substantial population connected to social media. The role of online information is investigated with a mixed methods approach. Both quantitative (propensity score matching) and qualitative (in‐depth interviews) techniques are employed. The study relies on two data sources—survey responses from 469 Bangkok households and in‐depth interviews with internet users who were a subset of the survey participants. Propensity score matching indicates that social media enabled households to reduce flood losses by an average of 37% (USD 3708 per household), using a nearest neighbor estimator. This reduction is substantial when considering that household flood losses for the matched sample averaged USD 8278. Social media offered information not available from other sources, such as localized and nearly real‐time updates of flood location and depth. With this knowledge, households could move belongings to higher ground before floodwaters arrived. These findings suggest that utilizing social media users as sensors could better inform populations during disasters. Overall, the study reveals that online information can enable effective disaster preparedness and reduce losses.

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Section: Water Resources Researchmentioning

confidence: 91%

“…However, the conclusions that can be drawn from these past surveys are limited since some rely on university students [e.g., Carter et al ., ; Jung and Moro , ]. Beyond descriptive studies, some past work has involved network analysis of Twitter messages [e.g., Lu and Brelsford , ; Usui et al ., ].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Disaster loss and social media: Can online information increase flood resilience?

Allaire

2016

Water Resources Research

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“…Regarding the respondents' level of information, we observe that over half (52.3%) indicate they had access to trustworthy informational resources and materials concerning the seismic movements (Table 2). Given that earthquakes pose a genuine threat to the population's safety in the region, this statistic should serve as a foundation for future public communication initiatives by authorities during emergencies and to combat misinformation, as specialized studies also highlight (62,81,82). The fact that nearly 22% of respondents either did not access or did not find credible information (Table 2) is alarming and underscores an urgent need to enhance communication channels.…”

Section: Information "Fake News "And the Perception Of Reality (O1-h1)mentioning

confidence: 99%

Analysis regarding the impact of ‘fake news’ on the quality of life of the population in a region affected by earthquake activity. The case of Romania–Northern Oltenia

Mărcău,

Peptan,

Băleanu

et al. 2023

Front. Public Health

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PurposeThe study aims to examine the impact of the wave of seismic activity in the northern region of Oltenia (Gorj County, Romania) in February 2023 and the belief in ‘fake news’ (circulated regarding causality, manifestations, and future developments of the seismic activity) on the quality of life of the affected population. It was considered opportune to conduct this study, given the novelty of such a situation, as the mentioned geographical area is not known to have a high seismic risk.MethodsThe study was built based on the questionnaire to which 975 respondents, present/residing in Gorj County during the earthquakes and at least 14 days after, and with a minimum age of 18 years, responded. The data was collected between February 27, 2023, and March 31, 2023, at a reasonable time interval from the recording of the first seismic event in the region, assuming that the respondents’ opinions regarding the negative impact of seismic events on societal life are well crystallized. The aim was to obtain information and analyze it in order to establish the respondents’ perception regarding the negative effects of seismic activity and the elements of “fake news” promoted in this context on the quality of life of individuals in the region.ResultsOur study indicates that individuals who are not concerned, due to their disbelief in “fake news” information, about the possibility of new strong earthquakes in the mentioned area feel the best physically, having an average satisfaction level of 82.80 (with a standard deviation of 19.70) on the WHOQOL-BREF scale. On the other hand, those who believed in the fake news experienced the lowest levels of psychological well-being, with an average satisfaction of 60.80 (and a standard deviation of 21.98). The WHOQOL-BREF is an instrument that assesses the quality of life across four distinct domains, and this study emphasizes the importance of accurate and trustworthy information for people’s well-being.ConclusionThe results of the study highlight that the quality of life indicators of people in the geographic area affected by the wave of seismic movements are negatively impacted due to the release of “fake news” in the public domain regarding the cause of seismic movements in Gorj county (and the previous earthquakes in Turkey) and their future manifestations and developments (the possibility of high magnitude seismic movements), as well as the lack of information provided by the public authorities on the issue at hand (causes, effects, future manifestations, management measures).

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“…Numerous fake news stories emerged after the 2011 earthquake off the Pacific coast of Tohoku 4,37 . We collected tweets posted in Japanese from March 12 to March 24, 2011, by using sample streams from the Twitter API.…”

Section: Fake News In 2011 Tohoku Earthquake and Tsunami (Tohoku)mentioning

confidence: 99%

Modeling the spread of fake news on Twitter

Murayama,

Wakamiya,

Aramaki

et al. 2020

Preprint

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Fake news becomes a palpable potential risk to society because of the growing use of mobile devices and the immense increase in Internet access across the world. It is essential to develop a simple mathematical model to understand the mechanism of the online dissemination of fake news. In this paper, we propose a point process model for predicting the spreading of the fake news on Twitter. This model describes the cascade as a two-stage process: initially, a cascade spreads as an ordinary news story; a second cascade then emerges through attempts to disclose and rectify the falsity of the news story. We validate this model through the collection of two datasets of fake news cascades from Twitter. We show that the proposed model is superior to the current state-of-the-art methods in accurately predicting the evolution of the fake news cascades. Moreover, the proposed model can appropriately infer the correction time when some users realize the falsity of the news. The proposed model contributes to understand the dynamics of fake news spread in social media and is potentially advantageous in extracting a compact representation of the temporal information of the cascades.

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Why Did False Rumors Diffuse after the 2011 Earthquake off the Pacific Coast of Tohoku? Impact Analysis of the Network Structure

Cited by 3 publications

References 14 publications

Disaster loss and social media: Can online information increase flood resilience?

Disaster loss and social media: Can online information increase flood resilience?

Analysis regarding the impact of ‘fake news’ on the quality of life of the population in a region affected by earthquake activity. The case of Romania–Northern Oltenia

Modeling the spread of fake news on Twitter

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