Russia shares AI images of Hurricane Milton as disinformation abounds in US

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

But after it made landfall and exited into the Atlantic Ocean, there’s a new propaganda target among conspiracists: Walt Disney World in Orlando.

On Thursday morning, pictures were circulating on X, formerly Twitter, showing a flooded promenade at Disney World in Orlando with the Cinderella castle at its center.

“Hurricane Milton has flooded Disney World in Orlando,” wrote one known vector of disinformation on X, with the photos, which X users immediately noted was probably created using an automated AI image creator. The post has already been viewed over 300,000 times.

Other versions of the same, allegedly deceptive post were also translated into Spanish and other languages then spread across X. The platform has added a warning indicating the images are AI-generated fakes.

Still, that didn’t stop RIA Novosti, one of Russia’s top state-owned news agencies from reposting the images to its official Telegram channel.

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

The RIA Novosti post has already garnered over 300,000 views.

In a storm update on its website, Disney World said the theme park is closed through 10 October, but made no mention of flooding and pointed out that it continues “to operate select dining locations for Guests currently staying in our Disney Resort hotels.”.

Disney did not immediately respond to questions about the flood photos of Cinderella Castle.

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, accusing the Federal Emergency Management Agency (Fema) of “abandoning” North Carolina residents in what is a hotly contested state in the November presidential election.

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

Russia is one of the most infamous offenders of such tactics.

“It’s well-known that Kremlin-backed outlets and the Kremlin itself often exploit natural disasters and political crises to sow chaos and spread misinformation for their own gain,” 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, far-right trolls seized on the moment Milton began to pick up steam and barrel towards Florida, using the suspicions around Helene as a catalyst.

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

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

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

Today, one adjacent channel, known for crafting neo-Nazi takes on the news, accused the government of using “stratospheric aerosols” to create Milton.

Some of the most blatant misinformation has come from the halls of Congress.

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

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

“Are you paying for it?” she blithely asked. “Of course you are.”

Last night, as Milton was hitting Florida, Joe Biden made it clear that the Republican presidential nominee was at the eye of the disinformation storm.

“Quite frankly, these lies are un-American,” Biden said in an address from the White House. “Former president Trump has led this onslaught of lies.”

The barrage of falsehoods has become so bad, Deanne Criswell, the Fema chief, was forced to respond to the conspiracy theories about how her agency has responded to the storms, which ranges from accusations that money is being diverted from storm victims to migrants, to Helene being some sort of meteorological Frankenstein.

Cover photo: By The Guardian