I'm Nate Hegey, and this is Outside In.

This may well be the beginning of a historic weather event, the National Weather Service

warns of flash flooding.

This August, Tropical Storm Hillary barreled up the West Coast and hit parts of Southern

California.

These are arid regions that saw months or even years worth of rain in just a couple of

days.

People flock to social media to document the destruction in real time.

But, useful as social media can be for spreading news quickly, it's hard to know who to trust.

One guy posted a video on X, formerly called Twitter, of water cascading down the steps

of a flooded subway.

The LA Metro station on Wilshire, Vermont, is flooding from the storm, he captioned.

Turns out, that clip was not real.

Yes, Hillary did bring heavy rain in some flooding.

But this particular video was from the earthquake ride at Universal Studios.

During natural disasters and other emergencies, misinformation can be a distraction or even

downright dangerous, especially when it gets amplified by powerful people.

Some of Elon Musk's favorite accounts are sharing climate misinformation and health

misinformation and stuff like that.

Today on the show, we're talking to three people about recent falsities, fakeries, and

fraudulent information spreading across our online ecosystems.

Emotions are high and people are scared and people want information.

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