As the official death toll from Monday’s earthquake in Turkey and Syria surpasses 22,000, fact-checking organizations that operate out of the region described the chaotic state of information, the effects of Twitter’s brief shutdown and the emotional toll of fact-checking in the rattled territory.
“In the first 10 hours, we were unable to do anything because of our presence in the heart of the event. We were captured between the missing, the homeless and the dead,” said Ahmad Primo, a Syrian journalist and founder of Verify-Sy, a fact-checking organization staffed by journalists from Syria. Primo works out of Norway. “After we were able to absorb that shock, we started receiving verification requests from the public and began working on what we could. Our focus was on verifying information that spread panic among people, such as false expectations of other earthquakes.”
Primo said one dangerous trend in misinformation was the fear-mongering on social media after the quake, spreading panic about potential floods, tsunamis and other earthquakes.
“People need to know that the situation is probably worse than it seems now,” said Simge Akkaş, an editor at Doğruluk Payı, a large Turkish fact-checking outfit and signatory to the IFCN code of principles. “We’ll need weeks to figure out what has happened to people.”
Akkaş said the biggest challenge of fact-checking in the aftermath of the quake was that most of the terrible images and news that were circulating were actually true this time.
“There was a lot of misinformation surrounding the politics of this issue, but we prioritized claims relating to the rescue process and safety, and saved the rest of the claims for later,” Akkaş said. “After the first two days of trying to share safety information with our community, we began to search for and debunk secondary claims about the first days of the earthquakes.”
Doğruluk Payı’s fact checks about the earthquake can be viewed here.
Social media is often chaotic in the aftermath of disasters. Media organizations — including Teyit, a large Turkish news outlet — recommend seeking out reliable sources of information following catastrophe.
“It is very important for people to refer to official institutions, reliable NGOs and platforms when it comes to their calls for help, so that the aid reaches the right place,” said Can Semercioglu, head of communication at Teyit. “Some malicious organizations may try to gain financial benefits by using people’s emotions in times of crisis.”
Posts that capitalize on heightened emotional states of victims — circulating messages of division, polarization and discrimination — often follow major disasters.
“It is very important not to spread such posts,” said Semercioglu.
Primo suggested social media companies create a policy to limit access to misinformation specifically related to natural disasters, similar to COVID-19 misinformation policies.
The Turkish government briefly throttled access to Twitter the day after the earthquake to limit the spread of misinformation. Semercioglu said there were benefits and drawbacks to that action.
”Although the reason the Turkish government performs this action is to allegedly prevent mis- and disinformation, it also affects news consumers in terms of accessing verified information as well as help and support campaigns,” Semercioglu said. “But (in Turkey) we are used to preventative actions, so most people set up VPNs and continue using Twitter.”
Teyit partnered with Verify-Sy Friday morning to create an Arabic information line, to deliver important facts and counter false information surrounding the quake.
