EDITORIAL — Confusion and panic

A few days ago, a devastating 7.7-magnitude earthquake hit parts of Myanmar and Thailand. There is no shortage of footage coming from the affected areas as well as calls for action and prayer on the internet.

Unfortunately, the situation has also given rise to people who do more harm than good to the situation; those who make and spread false reports and footage, and those who cause panic and misunderstanding.

Everyone’s social media account or news feed is now being flooded by videos of the tragic event. But look again, not all of those videos are real. Along with reels and footage from legit news sources are reels and footage from questionable sources that are clearly AI-generated or just plain fake.

Some AI-produced content is easy to spot, like the video of a dog carrying a baby from the ruins even as it clearly has no hands, another shows a seaside building collapsing into the water even as people nearby don’t react, while another is a CGI scene taken from a Hollywood disaster movie.

Those who are posting or spreading AI-generated videos should stop. It doesn’t help the situation any and only creates confusion about what is actually happening.

Then there are those who cause panic. Disasters like these tend to bring out those who are holier-than-thou who quickly blame the victims themselves for what happened. Such people claim that this quake was a punishment from God because they don’t believe in him, or simply because they aren’t Christians.

They cause panic because sometimes they go further to claim more punishment will come unless those people change or unless some specific action is done.

It doesn’t just show poor taste and judgment; it also reeks of a self-righteousness that won’t sit well even with most Christians. It doesn’t help the situation any and only creates fear and misunderstanding about something that is a natural phenomenon.

Nature’s wrath can be unleashed upon anyone anywhere and at any time, it doesn’t matter if one is rich or poor, old or young, Christian or otherwise, sinner or not.

Given this reality it is best to be always prepared for anything.