Our Mismanaged Social Ecology is Fueling Misinformation Wildfires
Misinformation about the LA fires has underlying social causes that we must acknowledge while battling the immediate incidents
Last week, my partner and I were trying to stay calm while howling winds were swirling outside our new apartment in Pasadena. We had just moved in the week prior, and now we were wondering if we made the right choice. A knock on our door brought us outside, as our neighbors pointed to the nearby mountain — visibly on fire with a large orange glow — and told us they were considering evacuating. We briefly weighed the pros and cons, packed our things, and left to stay with family that same night.
Thankfully, our apartment was spared, as the fires’ southward spread stopped short of our area. But our fear, the grief of those who lost their homes, the anxiety of the uncertainty surrounding the future, were all acutely felt and still being processed.
In the reprieve that’s now following last week’s blazes, I am now being alerted to several threads being woven, making sense of the disaster in various ways. I received an email in my inbox from the Wall Street Journal linking to a piece written about misinformation related to the fires and other disasters, and decided to briefly investigate.
With more to come, several narratives have emerged to make social and political sense of the fires, and they caught my attention. The Wall Street Journal article cites Alex Jones saying that firefighters were battling blazes using handbags rather than buckets because too many buckets were sent to Ukraine (declared untrue by firefighting officials who said the bags are used to put out small fires, and they have plenty of buckets). It also cites a series of Trump tweets blaming Gov. Gavin Newsom for refusing to sign a water restoration declaration (which never existed), and lambasts the protection of the delta smelt as an example of useless environmental policy that wastes water (that is also a frequent right-leaning talking point which is false, as the smelt-protecting legislation does not draw firefighting water away from the area). It debunks a claim that Gov. Newsom is working with real estate developers to change zoning laws in the burned areas to allow construction of mass apartments. An NPR article details Elon Musk and Charlie Kirk blaming the fires on DEI initiatives, calling the gay LAFD fire chief less capable (this is just purely homophobic). A New York Times article cites Musk also blaming the fires on government overregulation, and another Times piece takes aim at narratives citing the LA mayor’s LAFD budget decrease and LAPD budget increase (it turns out the budget story is more complicated than is being stated, but the LAFD chief does strongly argue that the budget is too low).
The same Wall Street Journal article cites several cases of officials dealing with misinformation effectively through holding press conferences, putting up fact pages online, and generally dealing with the rumors head on. It argues that with X’s recent changes, as well as Meta’s incoming changes, both allowing more unfettered speech and reducing content moderation, these rumors will spread more easily and we will enter a new era of misinformation. Undoubtedly, these changes will allow lower quality information to be more present on platforms and spread more widely. And it does seem that officials will need to take strong stances against lies through various media methods, as demonstrated in the WSJ article. But missing from the conversation about misinformation is an acknowledgment of what fuels these narratives’ efficacy in the first place, and what we need to do to deal with the misinformation problem at a more fundamental level.
Our mismanaged social ecology sparks misinformation
My research into misinformation and how to deal with socially harmful narratives concludes that the most pervasive and damaging narratives graft themselves onto existing social and political attitudes. For example, the lines from Alex Jones blaming Ukraine policy, Trump blaming environmental regulation, Musk blaming regulation, and groups blaming the LAFD budget decrease all share in common resentment of government policy — specifically along the lines that government wastes its time and money on useless endeavors while ignoring real issues. From the right, this is often aimed at environmental laws and regulations (interestingly, in the current climate, also military assistance to Ukraine). From the left, this is aimed at inflated police budgets, decreased community and social assistance funding, and wasteful military spending.
Similarly, the narrative accusing Gov. Newsom of working with real estate developers stems from a real felt burden of rents increasing, real estate being prioritized over community housing, and the influence of big capital. Musk and Kirk blaming the fires on DEI efforts stems from deep-seated racism and homophobia in society, which is fanned by politicians and media to gain support. I don’t agree with this reaction, but those who feel aggrieved by DEI programs (via pushing them to reckon with racist biases, which feels uncomfortable, or equity-driven programs that are spun as making undeserving people advance while you stagnate) will latch onto this explanation.
So long as these undercurrents are strong in society, politicians and media outlets will use them to gain support in the aftermath of major crises, and drive large parts of the population further into a misinformed and socially harmful worldview. Much like the fires themselves, without addressing underlying, fundamental conditions (in the case of fires, environmental quality and policies related to climate conditions; in the case of misinformation, social and economic conditions as well as dominant socially harmful worldviews), incidents will continue to crop up and likely become more powerful and common. Fires need to be immediately dealt with through decisive action, but society needs to also shift to start caring for the land and climate so that fires decrease over time.
Rehabilitating our society must be part of the solution
If we want harmful misinformation narratives to stop, society must reckon with the reasons why they are so appealing in the first place. The underlying conditions driving widespread misinformation belief are akin to a barren landscape, deprived of the resources and care needed to make it lush and fertile. Some of the most prominent socially harmful misinformation narratives take advantage of people’s lived experience of this barren landscape: it’s hard to find work and economic success because immigrants are taking jobs, you are not advancing in life because of DEI programs, liberal elites are hoarding power and ignoring normal people, elite scientists and environmentalists aren’t responsive to the needs of everyday working people.
Misinformation thrives when sparks of resentment are fanned into flames by opportunistic politicians and media figures. This is not to give excuses to those who adopt racist, homophobic, or other hateful narratives as explanations for why social conditions are bad. But we have to understand why people are gravitating towards these explanations so we can intervene.
One aspect of addressing misinformation is thus to address the underlying social conditions. Economic justice must be won so there is less corporate influence over policies, so rents are not overburdening people, affordable housing is widespread, and government budgets do not include trillion-dollar military allotments while social programs dry up. Governments must become less corrupt, honestly respond to the needs of people, and show efficacy by improving people’s lives. Oppressive, socially harmful mindsets must be addressed and dealt with across the nation, in a way that acknowledges the danger of backlash, addresses the potential grievances, and smartly helps people build empathetic mindsets. And media and influencers who fan these flames must become irrelevant through widespread media literacy education.
This is by no means a set of easy tasks. It is not like arguing for a new news feed algorithm — these actually involve coordinated social efforts to improve society. But real material conditions make an enormous impact on what people believe and don’t believe. This type of work is one that is unacknowledged in the dominant discourse surrounding misinformation precisely because it’s more difficult. But without it, we are essentially doing the same thing that is feeding and fanning new wildfires: drying out our capacities for empathy, creating new kindling through antisocial mindsets, and allowing media and politicians to become unaccountable arsonists.
