Consider This from NPR - Conspiracies Add Fuel To An Already Challenging Wildfire Season

Episode Date: September 15, 2020

Wildfires in Western states aren't slowing down and conspiracy theories about who started them are only making things harder for responders. Conrad Wilson from Oregon Public Broadcasting reports on how claims of Antifa arsonists have clogged up the phone lines for 911 dispatchers in some Oregon towns. And NPR's Audie Cornish talks with Nick Clegg, Facebook's Vice President of Global Affairs and Communication, about the company's decision to remove some misinformation about the fires — and their broader attempts to stop the spread of misinformation online.Find and support your local public radio station.Email us at [e-mail] more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoicesNPR Privacy Policy

Sue McAllister and Michael Palmer are only a few months into their retirement. In June, they moved from Oklahoma to the small mountain community of Blue River, Oregon, onto the property where McAllister grew up. My family's had this property for several generations. My great-grandfather bought it in the early 1900s. A few nights ago, just after McAllister and her husband went to bed, their phones lit up with a Level 3 evacuation warning. Which is immediate, leave now, do not gather your belongings.

They grabbed a few important documents, their three cats, and headed for the door. And there was this moment where he hoped the warning was some kind of error. And I started looking around and the fire had already jumped on our property. Basically, the embers were flying miles. The trees were torching up as tall as, you know, they're a hundred and some feet tall and they were torching. I mean, flying flames everywhere. It was, it was really scary. Not long after they escaped, a neighbor sent them a photo of their property. There's nothing remaining except for a brick chimney.

Michael Palmer and Sue McAllister, they recalled their escape to my colleague Lulu Garcia-Navarro. The wildfires spreading through Oregon aren't slowing down. And if that wasn't enough, rumors have sprung up about the origins of the fires. Rumors that play on the tension between far-left and far-right groups in Oregon. We're right in that border zone where we have some people of each leaning. I'm curious how much of this is active disinformation. Consider this. Wildfires are swallowing up towns in western states, and conspiracy theories are making it harder to fight them. From NPR, I'm Adi Cornish. It's Tuesday, September 15th. This message comes from NPR sponsor, Unfinished Short Creek,

the latest investigative true crime podcast from Witness Docs and Critical Frequency. A battle over family, home, and the limits of religious freedom. Find it in Stitcher, Apple Podcasts, or wherever it is you listen. This message comes from NPR sponsor Twilio, a customer engagement platform trusted by millions of developers, enabling you to reinvent how you connect with your customers. Whatever your use case, Twilio has your back. It's time to build. Visit Twilio.com.

On Facebook, there are these three brothers who love guns, say guns are overregulated, say the NRA is too quick to compromise. And they're gaining more followers every day. They're very in your face and offensive. And by God, I love them for it. Listen now to the No Compromise podcast from NPR. It's Consider This. I'm Audie Cornish. So in typical 2020 fashion, first comes the disaster, then come the conspiracy theories. Well, the rumor mill is working overtime on the interwebs today. With the wildfires, it's conspiracies about arson.

Loads of people insisting without really any evidence at all that insert boogeyman of your choice is intentionally starting these fires like Antifa or the Proud Boys. And they're not. All right, let's just say that right off the bat. The Portland TV station KGWA shared a video posted by firefighter T.J. Heiner. I've had my fill of you guys trying to make my life your conspiracy theory. Heiner has been fighting fires for the past 25 years. You are a part of the problem if you're sharing conspiracy theories. You are part of the problem if you're making my job be your politics. You are part of the problem if you're not standing up for me while I am doing my best to save towns.

Conrad Wilson from Oregon Public Broadcasting has been reporting on these false conspiracy theories and the real challenge they pose to the people fighting the wildfires. He spoke with my colleague Michelle Martin. So first of all, what do fire officials say about how these fires actually started? Well, there are a number of factors, but the big one fire officials say is this massive and extremely unusual windstorm that happened on Labor Day. It came amid very dry conditions across Oregon. In some cases, that windstorm downed power lines, which started fires. Fire officials here say some of the fires are human caused, but that doesn't necessarily mean that they're intentional.

And others are arson and are being investigated criminally. Many other fires are being investigated and are being investigated criminally. Many other fires are being investigated and the causes are not known. Can you tell us about these conspiracy theories and do you have any idea who is starting them and spreading them? So there's a sense online among some that there are just too many fires for this to be a coincidence. Many without evidence are saying that they're being caused by Antifa. The Republican candidate for Oregon Attorney General posted on Facebook this week that the fires were clearly arson, constituted domestic terrorism, and stated that he heard of 14 people involved in starting

fires. I called him and pressed him repeatedly, and he couldn't provide evidence. And then later in the week, a sheriff's deputy in Clackamas County, Oregon, was seen in a video posted online claiming anti-fascist activists have been starting fires in the area. On the video, he said Antifa, quote, are out causing hell and there's a lot of lives at stake and there's a lot of people's property at stake because these guys got some vendetta. Now, after that video was posted, the Clackamas County Sheriff apologized and placed the deputy on administrative leave. Is law enforcement doing anything else about this? Well, officials all the way from the FBI to a small town police chief has said the rumors about Antifa having anything to do with these wildfires are completely false. There is just no evidence.

And in fact, law enforcement say the rumors are taking away resources. One county here said that their 911 dispatchers were overwhelmed with calls about an apparent arrest of several Antifa members in connection with a fire. On Facebook, the Douglas County Sheriff's Office said, in all caps, this is not true. Please share this widely. Law enforcement investigating the devastating Almeda fire in Southern Oregon have stressed over and over again that there's no connection to Antifa or any other political group. I spoke with Ashland Police Chief Ty O'Meara this week, and here's what he told me. That investigation is criminal and it is ongoing, and in no way does it point toward any political group, including anybody

associated with Antifa, and any rumors suggesting that it is pointing toward Antifa are entirely fabricated. Well, just briefly, Conrad, I understand that Facebook has removed some posts linking Oregon wildfires to activist groups. But are these bizarre and these false rumors penetrating? I mean, how are people dealing with all that? Oh, people here are totally freaked out. I mean, especially in areas hit hardest by the fires where there's an imminent threat of fire. One of my colleagues at OPB was out reporting in Malala, Oregon,

and was confronted by an armed person who told my colleague he had to leave immediately. So I think it just shows how dangerous some of these rumors on Facebook can be. Conrad Wilson of OPB talking to NPR's Michelle Martin. As Michelle mentioned, Facebook did take down some of those inaccurate Facebook posts about the fires. Nick Clegg, Facebook's vice president of global affairs and communications, said the company took action because local officials told them the conspiracy theories were taking resources away from the rescue effort. So that's a clear example where we felt that by removing that content, we were also diminishing the real world harm that could follow.

Clegg says Facebook will take down posts if they create a clear risk for impending real-world harm. But the conspiracy theories aren't the only misinformation popping up around wildfires. For instance, Monday at a meeting between California state officials and President Trump, the state's Secretary for Natural Resources, Wade Crowfoot, told the president any strategy for fighting fires had to acknowledge the reality of climate change. If we ignore that science and sort of put our head in the sand and think it's all about vegetation management, we're not going to succeed together protecting Californians. Okay, it'll start getting cooler.

You just watch. I wish science agreed with you. Oh, well, I don't think science knows, actually. Okay, that's not true. The overwhelming scientific consensus is that without major reductions in carbon emissions, Oh, well, I don't think science knows, actually. Okay, that's not true. The overwhelming scientific consensus is that without major reductions in carbon emissions, temperatures will continue to rise, and severe wildfire seasons like this one will become more common. So what does Facebook do about false information coming from the President of the United States?

I asked Facebook's Nick Clegg about this. He's doing interviews to promote Facebook's new Climate Science Information Center, which gathers reliable climate science news in one place, and its fact-checking system, which labels posts with inaccurate information. I asked Clegg about that Trump clip. So the fact-checkers do not fact-check the actual words that come from politicians directly for the simple reason that political speech is a highly scrutinized, commented on, analyzed, satirized form of speech. And political speech has always been full of sort of caricature, selective use of facts and so on. So fact checkers are entirely free, notwithstanding that rule, they're entirely free to apply fact checks as they do to what is said about climate science, or indeed climate misinformation. So help us understand, how is any of this useful?

You're doing this Climate Science Information Centre, but in the meantime, this issue is politicised, at least in this country. And in this case, we have a pretty obvious example of the President saying something that goes against the science. Where does that leave Facebook? Well, forgive me. Facebook's role is not to tell whoever is elected as president of the United States what they can and can't say within limits. No one, including President Trump and no politician, can say things which threaten impending real world harm. And our policies on hate speech apply to everybody but when it comes to the debate about climate science what we are trying to do why we are hopeful that this climate science

information center will be very effective is that it provides a simple easy to find repository for authoritative information about what is happening to our climate and how it's changing. If you look at the experience we've had in recent months of the COVID information hub, 2 billion people seeing that around the world, 600 million people double-clicking to find out even more information. That is a promising precedent. We've seen you take action when it comes to COVID, now climate change. There's a long running debate about how Facebook handles political misinformation. Does it feel like Facebook has a grasp or the capacity to handle managing these discussions at this scale? announcements we made just 10 days ago or so about additional guardrails we've put in place for the US elections, such as not running new political ads on our platforms for the last week, labelling any premature claims by any of the candidates that they have won the election before the certified results are finalised, removing content that claims that if you vote,

you're going to get COVID, expanding our voter suppression policies. These and many other steps are unprecedented steps, because yes, these are unprecedented times. I don't think, in answer to your question, I don't think one ever sort of stops in this process. I don't think there's ever a resting place, because politics and how it's conducted, and crucially how it's conducted online, mutates all the time. But we are, in my view, if you look at our actions, not just our words, we are constantly improving and iterating on how we put guardrails in place to safeguard that space for open debate, but at the same time to put guardrails in place that that takes place within certain limits. That was Nick Clegg, Facebook's Vice President of Global Affairs and Communications.

It's Consider This from NPR. I'm Audie Cornish.