In January 2024, a powerful 7.6 magnitude earthquake struck the Noto region of Japan's Ishikawa Prefecture, killing nearly 500 people and leaving many without homes, according to Nippon.com. However, as footage began circulating online, some people were speculating and spreading misinformation about the event.
As NHK World reported, the Meteorological Agency described it as a "reverse fault quake where the bedrock splits, and one side slides over the other." In other words, completely normal, natural seismic activity. However, some individuals online speculated that it wasn't a natural event, but a man-made one.
Kyoto University Professor Nishimura Takuya said it would be impossible for humans to cause an earthquake at the depth of the one that hit Noto, per NHK World.
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Definitely 💯 "The surface moved upward as much as four meters (13 feet) on some parts of the North Coast of the Noto Peninsula," said Eric Fielding, a geophysicist at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory. "The uplift is large because the fault ruptured close to the surface — at a depth of about 10 kilometers (six miles). It occurred on a fault with a steep dip angle, and the south side of the fault moved upward — what we call a thrust earthquake."
However, earthquake conspiracy theories swirled, alleging that secret government technology or undersea experiments caused the quake. Humanities and Social Sciences Communications documented this discussion. There were around 250,000 posts of this kind in just a day, with some garnering millions of likes. Fake rescue and charity requests also began spreading.
Misinformation about natural disasters can have damaging consequences. Not only can "fake news" influence the public's perception, but it can distract from credible advice on safety measures and victim assistance. Conspiracy theories can make the public distrust scientists and policymakers, making it harder to implement effective disaster response strategies. Misinformed people are also more likely to be unprepared or at risk in future emergencies.
"To deal with rumors, we need to reflect on our own behavior, starting with the realization that we ourselves are susceptible to believing them. Thus, we must always be circumspect about the information we are exposed to," said Yamaguchi Shin'ichi, an associate professor at the International University of Japan, in a case study on the Noto earthquake, per Nippon.com.
Yamaguchi added: "It is also important to verify information. We should check its reliability by looking at how other media or individuals are treating the information or by conducting an image search. There are many ways of verifying sources, and while it is true that checking each one every single time is difficult when we are drowning in a flood of information, we need to pause and think for a moment to check before sharing information."
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