Russia shares AI images of Hurricane Milton while disinformation abounds in the US | Hurricane Milton

As Hurricane Milton ripped through Florida, leaving a trail of destruction in its wake, trolls and politicians alike spread misinformation about the storm, questioning the government's preparations and calling it a “simulation” designed to harm the Republican state.

But after it reaches the mainland and enters the Atlantic Ocean, there is a new propaganda target among conspiracy theorists: Walt Disney World in Orlando.

On Thursday morning, images circulated on X, formerly Twitter, showing a flooded boardwalk at Disney World in Orlando with the iconic Cinderella Castle in the middle.

“Hurricane Milton flooded Disney World in Orlando,” wrote a well-known disinformation vector on X with photos of the alleged scene suspected of being created using an AI image generator. The post has already been viewed over 200,000 times.

Other versions of the same fraudulent post were also translated into Spanish and other languages ​​and then distributed on X.

However, that didn't stop RIA Novosti, one of Russia's largest state news agencies, from republishing the images on its official Telegram channel.

“Social media users are posting photos of the sinking of Disneyland in Florida as a result of Hurricane Milton,” the post said, incorrectly identifying the location as Disneyland, the theme park thousands of miles away in Anaheim, California.

RIA Novosti's post has already been viewed over 300,000 times.

Disinformation and conspiracy theories surrounding Milton began long before the storm even made landfall. Since last week, Donald Trump has been spreading lies about the Biden administration's response to Hurricane Helene and accusing the Federal Emergency Management Agency of “failing” North Carolinians in a hotly contested state in November's presidential election.

The Institute for Strategic Dialogue (ISD), an extremism and disinformation monitoring organization, told the Guardian that hostile actors are known to use manipulated images and propaganda pieces in times of crisis to undermine Western democracies.

Russia is one of the most notorious perpetrators of this tactic.

“It is well known that Kremlin-backed media and the Kremlin itself often exploit natural disasters and political crises to sow chaos and spread misinformation for their own benefit,” said Moustafa Ayad, ISD executive director for Africa, the Middle East and Asia . “The use of this image is no different.”

Through online chatter in places like Telegram, right-wing trolls seized the moment as Milton began to gain momentum and head toward Florida, using the suspicions surrounding Helene as a catalyst.

“Simulation,” a popular extremist channel posted days ago, accusing the hurricane of being a government creation.

Another post from the same channel, viewed thousands of times, went further, posting an image of the storm in the form of an anti-Semitic cartoon as it approached Florida.

“Pray for Florida and everyone else whose lives are being destroyed while our tax dollars are sent to Satanists and other people who hate white Christians,” the post said, referring to Israel’s military operations in the Middle East.

Today, a neighboring station known for its neo-Nazi interpretations of the news accused the government of using “stratospheric aerosols” to create Milton.

Some of the most blatant misinformation came from the halls of Congress.

On Monday, Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene doubled down on her own misinformation record, directly accusing the federal government of storm manufacturing.

“Climate change is the new Covid,” the Georgia representative wrote on X. “Ask your government if the weather is being manipulated or controlled.”

“Are you paying for this?” she asked cheerfully. “Of course you are.”

Last night, as Milton reached Florida, Joe Biden made it clear that the Republican presidential candidate was at the center of the disinformation storm.

“Frankly, these lies are un-American,” Biden said in a speech at the White House. “Former President Trump led this onslaught of lies.”

The onslaught of falsehoods has gotten so bad that Fema boss Deanne Criswell has been forced to respond to the conspiracy theories about how her agency responded to the storms. Helene is a kind of meteorological Frankenstein.