As the Notre Dame cathedral burned on Monday, several conspiracy theories, hoaxes and deliberate disinformation campaigns went viral on social media -- some even gaining mention on live TV coverage of the devastating fire. Although the investigation is early and still ongoing, officials say the fire was likely accidental. Officials consider it was possibly the result of the ongoing restoration work at the global architectural treasure, The Associated Press reports. No government official, fire service or police service in Paris, has suggested any evidence of arson. Dissecting the arson theories that circulated online as the fire burned, here is a brief rundown separating fact from fiction. - - - FALSE CLAIM: Suspicious person wandering cathedral balcony At around 7:51 p.m. (EST), Twitter user @TipsyPianobar shared a low-quality, grainy video and spread the false claim that a suspicious person was walking on a cathedral balcony with the caption: “No workers onsite. Who tf is this?” The user later claimed the person was “not clergy” or “not a firefighter.” TRUTH: It was a worker wearing a high-visibility jacket But the Twitter video appeared to be directly taken from a live YouTube feed from CBNC of firefighters putting out hot spots on the historic building. At least one unidentified worker in a high-visibility jacket or firefighter attire is seen walking back and forth several times throughout the feed -- at around 30 min, 42 min, 43 min and 45 minutes, for example. Police officials have not stated any suspicious figures were on the scene. - - - FALSE CLAIM: Fire was set deliberately The aforementioned grainy Twitter video was picked up by internet message boards 4Chan and 8Chan; and encrypted chat service Gab at least 45 times, with users spreading the false claim that the fire was the result of arson. People on 4Chan message boards have claimed the person in the video was either a Yellow Vest protester or a person of the Muslim faith. Many users also repeated the same false claim that the person in the video didn’t look like a priest or a firefighter. On Reddit, two users, one called BigRedPillMachine and another called CMDRBottoms, spread the video and were responsible for most of the shares of this conspiracy theory. TRUTH: Officials say the fire was likely accidental No official from fire or police in France has speculated the cause of the fire was arson. In fact, the opposite appears to be the case. Officials consider the fire an accident related to restoration work at the cathedral, The Associated Press reports. Several religious statues --which were typically on the spire -- were spared because they had been removed from the cathedral roof last week, as part of that restoration. Paris prosecutor Remy Heitz said the investigation would be "long and complex," explaining that approximately 50 investigators had begun a probe into the 12-hour-long fire. The team will be interviewing workers from five companies who had been hired to work on renovations to the cathedral's roof, where the flames first broke out. Heitz said an initial fire alert was sounded at 6:20 p.m. Monday, but no fire was found. The second alert was sounded at 6:43 p.m. and a blaze was discovered in the roofing at that point. - - - FALSE CLAIM: Fire seemed ‘suspicious,’ related to Muslim extremists During live coverage of the fire, two guests on Fox News Channel tried to claim -- without any evidence -- that the fire was suspicious or connected to other earlier fires at other places. Catholic League president Bill Donohue told host Neil Cavuto that, “if it is an accident, it’s a monumental tragedy. But forgive me for being suspicious.” “Just last month, a 17th century church was set on fire in Paris,” Donohue continued. “We have seen tabernacles knocked down, crosses have been torn down, statues have been smashed.” Then, in another interview with Host Shep Smith, Philippe Karsenty — the deputy mayor of Neuilly-sur-Seine who was at the scene — claimed something similar. ‘We’ve had churches desecrated each and every week all over France” over the past few years, he said in a phone interview, “You will hear the story of the political correctness which will tell you it’s probably an accident, but I don’t think,” he said, before he was abruptly cut off by Smith. TRUTH: No evidence to suggest fire connected to earlier fires In both cases, the hosts shut down the baseless speculation within minutes. “Sir, sir, we’re not going to speculate of the cause of something that we don’t know,” Shep shot back. “No, sir, we’re not doing that here, not now, not on my watch.” “The man on the phone with us has absolutely no information of any kind about the origin of this fire and neither do I,” Shep said after the call ended. In Cavuto’s case, he ended his phone conversation with Donohue telling viewers: “we cannot make conjectures.”<doc-sep>The Interface is a daily column and newsletter about the intersection of social media and democracy. Subscribe here . The Notre Dame Cathedral inspires so much awe in visitors that seemingly everyone who steps inside it feels a powerful, and personal, sense of connection to it. I visited it myself for the first time two years ago and, like everyone else I know, was thrilled by its foreboding Gothic architecture. In spite of myself, I snapped a couple dozen pictures. Even knowing that every inch of the building had already been documented by far better photographers than me, I felt overwhelmed by the need to take a piece of Notre Dame home with me. And so to watch the cathedral burn today — helplessly, on a Periscope stream — was a tragedy. And while nothing will match the horror of seeing the world lose one of its most beautiful structures, the calamity showed once again how unprepared tech platforms are to process news events in real time. Conspiracy-minded goons continue to twist real-time events into nefarious plots in the absence of any facts, and platforms’ viral sharing mechanics help their narratives dominate users’ attention while the truth is still being uncovered. At BuzzFeed, Jane Lytvynenko shows how one Twitter account misrepresenting itself as CNN falsely stated that the fire was the work of terrorists, and how another misrepresenting itself as Fox News posted a fake quote from a Muslim congresswoman allegedly saying “they reap what they sow.” (She said no such thing.) Both accounts put “parody” in their bios, but their visual branding copied CNN and Fox News exactly, there was nothing evidently parodic about their tweets, and few people likely clicked to check their bios before retweeting them. On Facebook, a 2016 story about a plot to blow up a car outside the cathedral was linked from a site that regularly spreads Islamophobic misinformation, with no clear sign that it was totally unrelated to the fire. (Facebook’s story designs don’t make it clear when pages re-share older articles.) And on YouTube, well ... this happened. From Chris Welch: A fire has broken out at the iconic Notre Dame Cathedral today, and, as you’d expect, many news networks are offering live coverage of the breaking situation. What’s a little more unusual is that YouTube seemed to temporarily mix up the unfortunate burning of a historic cathedral with the 9/11 New York City terror attacks. Underneath live streams from CBS and others, viewers saw an explainer for the September 11th, 2001, attacks. These two things are completely unrelated, and there has been no indication that the Notre Dame fire is a result of terrorism or even criminal arson. The whole reason for the panel’s existence is to fight misinformation. And so the fact that a YouTube algorithm took a look at a video of a cathedral on fire and linked it to a terrorism attack is profoundly unfortunate. “These panels are triggered algorithmically and our systems sometimes make the wrong call,” a YouTube spokesperson told welch. “We are disabling these panels for live streams related to the fire.” If ever there were a case for “these panels” to be “triggered” editorially by humans, rather than algorithmically by math, a project designed to fight misinformation and conspiracy theories would surely be it. Of course, it didn’t help that the president of the United States — while the building was still on fire — made these bizarrely conspiracy-tinged remarks: “”They think it was caused by, at this moment, they don’t know, but they think it was caused by renovation. And I hope that’s the reason. Renovation, you know, what’s that all about?” I don’t want to overstate the case here: none of this misinformation went truly viral, and I imagine that most people who read about the fire will find an accurate account of what happened. But it’s easy to imagine how the combination of irresponsible speechifying by an elected official, combined with platform-related mishaps, will empower cathedral fire truthers. And even if you think some level of conspiracy theorizing is inevitable after a catastrophe, it’s possible to wish social media companies didn’t so powerfully enable their spread. Until then, I’m reading personal accounts of what Notre Dame meant to Paris and the world. Here’s a nice one from Mohamed A. El-Erian in Bloomberg. Here’s a history of royal moments at the cathedral from Ella Kay. And here’s a photo I took of the great church in 2017, when it still seemed as eternal as the Seine. Democracy EU countries give final approval to copyright reform aimed at Google and Facebook It’s official: the Copyright Directive is now law, with 19 of 28 countries voting in favor of it. It promises to have huge consequences for YouTube, Facebook, and other big tech platforms, and could make it more difficult for new tech companies to operate in Europe. It won’t go into effect immediately, though — countries have two years to design the implementation, and the law could be amended before then. Facebook to introduce livestreaming restrictions this month Jennifer Duke reports on Facebook’s latest move to self-regulate ahead of government action in Australia: Sources close to the social media platform said those who broke the site’s rules, such as spreading hate speech on Facebook, would be stopped from going live under the changes. The new restrictions will likely be introduced before a government-led taskforce meeting later this month and ahead of the business’ first quarter earnings call. WhatsApp Users Spread Antivaccine Rumors in India Same platform, different disinformation campaign. Newley Purnell reports: Anti-vaccine misinformation, some of it from social media posts in the West, is spreading in India on WhatsApp, undermining efforts to root out measles and rubella in a country where tens of thousands of people are struck by the diseases each year. Dozens of schools in Mumbai have refused to allow health officials to carry out vaccinations in recent months, largely because of rumors shared on Facebook’s popular messaging app about the supposed dangers. US White Nationalists Barred by Facebook Find Haven on Russia Site Masood Farivar reports that Russia is welcoming white nationalists onto its largest social network with open arms: For white nationalists banned from Facebook, VK, based in St. Petersburg, has become a favorite destination. Its laissez faire policy allows them to post hate-filled memes, praise Hitler, rail at immigrants and Jews, and doxx — publish private information about their enemies. China Wins Allies for Web Vision in Ideological Battle With U.S. Lulu Yilun Chen and Yoolim Lee write about China’s “stunning ideological coup” — persuading other nations to adopt its vision of a highly restrictive internet purpose-built for surveillance of its citizens: The more free-wheeling Silicon Valley model once seemed unquestionably the best approach, with stars from Google to Facebook to vouch for its superiority. Now, a re-molding of the internet into a tightly controlled and scrubbed sphere in China’s image is taking place from Russia to India. Yet it’s Southeast Asia that’s the economic and geopolitical linchpin to Chinese ambitions and where U.S.-Chinese tensions will come to a head: a region home to more than half a billion people whose internet economy is expected to triple to $240 billion by 2025. “For authoritarian countries in general, the idea of the state being able to wall off to some extent its internet is deeply appealing,” said Howard French, author of “Everything Under the Heavens: How the Past Helps Shape China’s Push for Global Power. “This is about the regimes’ survival in an authoritarian situation. So that’s why they like to do this. They want to be able to insulate themselves against shocks.” After WhatsApp and Facebook, TikTok fights fake news in India Good for TikTok for trying to get in front of its inevitable evolution into a fake-news distributor. Aria Thaker reports: TikTok, owned by Chinese tech unicorn Bytedance, recently began displaying a public-service announcement (PSA) to its users when they search for some politically relevant hashtags. The hashtags Quartz found that are shown with the PSA are the names of prominent politicians or political organisations, including “bjp,” “narendramodi,” “rss,” and “rahulgandhi,” among others.<doc-sep>But the far-right obsession with Notre Dame as an eternal lodestone of “Western” civilization is a distortion of history. Its very “Westernness” is a fuzzy construct: Historian Juan Cole noted that the French Gothic tradition is deeply shaped not only by Greek pagan thought, but by the influence of Islamic architecture likely encountered in Moorish Spain. Cole gestures to the migration of artistic styles from the other side of the Mediterranean: “Some art historians have argued for the pointed arch as a Muslim development of a Sasanian Iranian form, which was then taken over into the Gothic cathedral.”<doc-sep>
The Notre Dame Cathedral fire presented social media companies with one of the first major tests of their nascent programmes aimed at fighting misinformation in real time – and critics say they failed. As footage of the cathedral burning was uploaded to YouTube by major news providers, anti-misinformation algorithms launched by the video-sharing site last year kicked in. Unfortunately, the algorithms wrongly identified the videos as footage of the 9/11 terrorist attacks, apparently a result of the prominent plume of smoke common to both videos. As a result, multiple providers found their videos had been appended with a link to an Encyclopaedia Britannica article about the attacks. The feature is supposed to counter common conspiracy theories about subjects such as the moon landings and whether or not the earth is flat, as well as the 2001 attack on the World Trade Center. YouTube apologised for the mistake, saying its systems “sometimes make the wrong call”. Other aspects performed better: a search for Notre Dame is automatically recognised as a search for a news event, pushing videos from legitimate news agencies to the top of the results. This video has been removed. This could be because it launched early, our rights have expired, there was a legal issue, or for another reason. Video: Notre Dame's spire collapses in huge fire But that has failed to stop misinformation about the fire from raging on the video-sharing site and elsewhere. One video of the flames, with 36,000 views, has had the audio edited to suggest that Islamic observers were crying “Allahu Akbar” (“God is great”), in celebration. Another zooms in on a figure apparently wearing a hi-vis vest and hard hat, captioning it as a “Muslim at Notre Dame”. These have been accompanied by other claims, spread in comments on YouTube, Facebook and Twitter, and on “independent” media sites, that attempt to suggest the fire was deliberately started. One said it was “suspicious” that “officials have stated there was no work being done and the cathedral was empty”; another tweet, since deleted, claimed to be from someone who knew an employee at the church, and said they had been told it was an act of arson. There were also tweets from accounts purporting to be news outlets such as CNN and Fox News, claiming that the fire was caused by “an act of terrorism”, and spreading false claims about the reaction of the US congresswoman Ilhan Omar. The Paris public prosecutor, Rémy Heitz, said on Tuesday that “nothing indicates” the Notre Dame blaze, which brought the building’s spire and roof crashing down, was started on purpose. The cathedral had been undergoing intensive restoration work, which firefighters said could be linked to the inferno, investigators said. This video has been removed. This could be because it launched early, our rights have expired, there was a legal issue, or for another reason. Inside Notre Dame as fire swept through cathedral - video As well as outright lies, misinformation was spread in other ways. A 2016 news story about an apparent plot to blow up the church has been widely spread over the past 24 hours, frequently without mentioning that the story is three years old. The Guardian’s story on the plot was linked to from the homepage of the influential rightwing news site Drudge Report, sending tens of thousands of readers to a three-year-old story. The Guardian’s version of the story contains a clear disclaimer that the news is “more than two years old”. Many publishers do not include such disclaimers, and some outlets even rewrote the story after the fire. While not crossing into misinformation, key figures on the far right have used the fire to further stoke anti-Muslim fears. In a tweet, Alice Weidel, the parliamentary group leader of the far-right Alternative for Germany, the country’s largest opposition party, implied a connection between the fire and previous anti-Christian “attacks” in France. “During Holy Week Notre Dame burns. March: second largest church Saint-Sulpice burns. February: 47 attacks in France,” Weidel wrote. “The Observatory on Intolerance and Discrimination Against Christians in Europe speaks of a significant increase,” she added, including a link to a March article in a German Catholic magazine headlined “Catholic churches desecrated across France”.