Caught in a storm of misinformation, getting the right info is a disaster

What’s the difference between Cyclone Alfred and ex-Cyclone Alfred? Forty-eight hours of proof that getting good information in 2025 is a disaster.

As a South East Queensland resident waiting for Alfred to cross the coast, my algorithm flooded me with relentless updates on the cyclone – from everyone, for days. There was no hierarchy to what I saw. Media outlets, local government, the Bureau of Meteorology (BoM), independent weather accounts, influencers catastrophising or downplaying events, TikTokers filming exploding powerlines and Brisbane residents packing emergency kits under sunny skies – all competing for attention with equal weight.

A Weatherzone forecast of the wind Cyclone Alfred was expected to produce.Credit: Weatherzone.com.au

Everyone was tracking Alfred. Everyone had an opinion on its path. But with each update, I was no more informed.

On Friday, someone in my local community group posted a map showing the cyclone’s eye passing directly through my suburb. Like anyone could know that. It was confusing. Scary. Ultimately, the information rollercoaster was more intense than my cyclone experience.

By Saturday afternoon, Alfred had not yet crossed the coast. When it did, it was no longer a cyclone but still brought extreme winds, flooding rains and widespread power outages throughout Sunday. Authorities were right to warn the community. And had the storm moved slightly north or intensified, the impact could have been much worse for Brisbane.

Spectators battered by waves at Brunswick Heads.Credit: Nick Moir

But social media doesn’t reward measured warnings. The worst-case scenario always leads because alarmism feeds the algorithm. Misinformation, disinformation and opinion overload result in people tuning out when they need to stay well-informed.

Before the cyclone affected Brisbane, I walked into a yoga class where a classmate told me she was highly sceptical about the cyclone coming because “the media always catastrophises everything.” She’s not alone in her belief. The Edelman Trust Barometer shows trust in journalists is at an all-time low, with 70 per cent believing they lie. Nine out of ten people report news fatigue on a normal day. Many young people are more likely to trust an online influencer than an official source.

And some of those influencers should know better. Former meteorologists – no longer privy to all BoM data – produced their own cyclone updates, vaguely citing they had “been looking at the modelling” instead of directing people to the BoM, SES, or trusted media outlets.

Then there’s the chief executive of Flight Centre, Graham Turner, a man whose business relies on flights operating safely, using his platform to argue that the government shut down airports and public transport too early – without providing any evidence for his strongly held “opinions”.

The lack of hierarchy in information isn’t just frustrating – it’s dangerous. People caught in LA’s January wildfires struggled to get reliable emergency advice because misinformation ran rampant online, even fanned by the US president.

It was rife during Cyclone Alfred too: a fake video claiming to be footage of Brisbane enduring 220km/h winds on March 5 before the cyclone hit the city, multiple images of the radar claiming to be evidence Alfred was engineered by humans!

There was a time when you opened your newspaper and the most important stories were placed in order from front to back. Now, we’re bombarded every second with a mix of fact, fiction, misinformation, disinformation, AI-generated nonsense, and complete bollocks – all in equal measure.

We are lucky in Australia to have some of the best-resourced agencies in the world – like the BoM and SES – providing expert emergency information for an increasingly unpredictable climate. We need to elevate informed voices in an emergency, not compete with them.

After Alfred was downgraded, the BOM Radar Fan Club Facebook group (660,000 members) shared a post from an account called The Weather with a dramatic warning that it might “reintensify” into a major cyclone before hitting Brisbane. Technically possible – but extremely unlikely, according to the BoM. Unfortunately, that expert detail was buried because hysteria grows audiences.

A boy kayaks over a flooded cricket oval in Tingalpa on Brisbane’s Eastside.Credit: Dan Peled

In a world of runaway climate change, where weather systems are becoming more dangerous and harder to predict, this confusion will only worsen. Schools in Brisbane were closed for almost two full days of sunshine while we waited for Alfred. It was a frustrating and stressful disruption for families, forcing parents to juggle work, childcare and home preparations.

However, at its core, the decision was about protecting lives. With Alfred’s path uncertain and community members harder to reach, engage, and inform – and people choosing to listen to social media influencers over official sources – authorities must be more cautious.

In my previous life as digital director for the premier of Queensland, there was criticism of the size of government communication units, especially during COVID-19 and natural disasters like the 2022 floods. However, in addition to getting information out, governments must also actively combat rapid-fire misinformation to keep the public informed and safe. This isn’t easy, but has to be done and it will only get more challenging.

Social media platforms need to take some responsibility too and enforce a hierarchy into people’s feeds so that information from trusted sources gets to the people who need it.

Our communications landscape is rapidly evolving, and AI is making its insidious entry. We don’t know what impact AI will have on how we receive our news and, like Alfred, it’s impossible to predict. When the printing press was invented, people feared it would destroy civilisation. Instead, it democratised knowledge. Let’s hope AI brings a net positive change, too.

For now, accurate information is increasingly difficult to find in all the noise. And when we do find it – during a natural disaster, an election – too many people no longer trust it.

Play your part. If you see a friend or influencer sharing misleading or irresponsible content, challenge them. Encourage them to be a good community member because in an emergency, bad information isn’t just annoying – it’s dangerous. Posting online during an emergency shouldn’t be about growing audiences, but about saving lives.

Erinn Swan is a digital strategist based in Brisbane.