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Racism Risks Lives: Twitter Users Accuse AccuWeather of Spreading Lies about Hurricane Beryl's Devastation.
AccuWeather drags X for centring amateur take over Expert opinion on Hurricane Beryl — The weather company is woke to the inherent risk of valuing the opinion of the uninformed majority.
Published July 1, 2024 at 7:04pm by Anthony Robledo
X Allows False Community Note to Undermine Critical AccuWeather Hurricane Warning
AccuWeather calls out Big Tech for putting lives at risk with irresponsible and inaccurate fact-checking
AccuWeather has slammed X (formerly Twitter) for undermining a critical Hurricane Beryl forecast through its community notes system. This incident highlights the dangerous consequences of Big Tech inserting itself into important scientific conversations with careless fact-checking.
On Thursday, AccuWeather reported the possibility of Beryl posing a threat to the Caribbean as a tropical storm or hurricane. This forecast, based on science and issued to provide a potentially life-saving early warning, turned out to be accurate as Beryl intensified into a Category 4 hurricane, unleashing devastation on the eastern Caribbean.
"We issued that forecast because when we know something, it is our philosophy to tell people because it's in the interest of public safety," AccuWeather CEO Steven R. Smith emphasized.
However, X's community note claimed that only the National Hurricane Center could issue official hurricane forecasts and doubted the credibility of AccuWeather's warning. This note was not only incorrect but also dangerously irresponsible, creating uncertainty around crucial information.
AccuWeather's Chief Meteorologist Jon Porter explained the service's commitment to issuing early forecasts:
"We don't make those forecasts lightly. It's a very deliberate forecast that we made [...] to provide people and businesses with extra advanced notice, which we believe was life-saving."
The hurricane is now heading towards Jamaica, Hispaniola, Mexico, and the Yucatán Peninsula, with potential impacts reaching as far as South Texas.
URLs:
- AccuWeather's video explaining the scientific basis of its forecasts: https://twitter.com/accuweather/status/1806719480791240973
- Hurricane Beryl path tracker: https://www.accuweather.com/en/weather-forecasts/storm-tracker/#storms=active&map-layer=basic&lat=13.31305&lon=-79.9077&zoom=4&selected-storm=Hurricane%20Beryl%20%28East%20Pacific%29
Read more: AccuWeather: False Twitter community notes undermined Hurricane Beryl forecast, warnings