Introduction: Harmful information and operational realities

We are living through a moment in history as consequential as the invention of the printing press: one that is fundamentally altering how information is produced, distributed and trusted. As with the printing revolution, today’s digital technologies are redistributing power, accelerating the spread of ideas and challenging traditional gatekeepers of knowledge. They have also enabled the rapid proliferation of harmful information and narratives. The sheer volume and velocity of contemporary information flows, combined with unprecedented levels of internet access and connectivity, are having profound societal impacts. Information has become simultaneously a commodity, an asset and a risk.

This transformation directly affects humanitarian action, both the sector itself and the populations it serves. The widespread adoption of digital tools and platforms, unfolding at a pace and scale unimaginable just a decade ago, is reshaping how humanitarians operate and how communities experience and interpret information in crises settings.

In this new landscape, an urgent question arises: has information itself become an impediment to humanitarian response? This chapter draws on the perspectives of humanitarian practitioners to offer critical insights into how harmful information manifests in operational contexts – shaping decisions, straining relationships with communities and exposing challenges and risks that increasingly undermine humanitarian action.

Since the advent of the mobile phone, the gap between humanitarian responders and crisis-affected communities has steadily narrowed. Technological innovations over the last two decades have also revealed shortcomings in how humanitarian organizations listen, gather information and ensure accountability to affected populations – including through genuine feedback loops. Today, humanitarian actors can no longer choose whether to engage with communities, only how to do so. Yet in the digital age, a fundamental challenge lies in determining who is actually voicing their opinions. In digital spaces where identity, authenticity and influence are increasingly blurred, it is often unclear whose voices are being heard. Those affected by a crisis encompass a broad array of constituents from local communities to diaspora populations and distant individuals or networks with vested interests – all shaping the narrative.

At the same time the information ecosystem has become polluted, at times deeply toxic. Everyone now has a platform, including those with little understanding of the context or with deliberate intent to mislead or harm. This pollution may be organic or orchestrated, raising urgent questions about credibility, accountability and voice in the digital humanitarian environment. In today’s noisy and fragmented information environment, it is harder than ever to determine whether humanitarian actors are truly listening to – and able to hear – the people they aim to serve. The risks of misreading the information landscape have never been higher and the consequences of getting it wrong more severe.

It’s not just AI‑generated images – they also reused old background photos from the Nepal earthquake. Some people hadn’t been to the disaster site at all, but with today’s traffic model, online views equal money. Many people are profit‑driven, so they take old photos, feed them into GPT, add some current text and produce fake images.”

Local, national and international institutions – especially those operating in fragile contexts or in politically unstable environments – are increasingly vulnerable to false allegations and harmful narratives. Humanitarian organizations, in particular, have faced a rising tide of harmful information flows in recent years, mirroring broader global trends. Such dynamics threaten not only the credibility and safety of humanitarian workers, but also the legitimacy of institutions, the trust of communities and ultimately the effectiveness of humanitarian action. On social media, inaccurate or misleading content circulates, often without verification, context or oversight, creating fertile ground for harm. In fragile institutional settings where trust may already be weak, such narratives and immediacy can deepen internal divisions and exacerbate polarization.

A recent example involved the creation of Facebook pages with names suggesting affiliation with a component of the International Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement. Managed anonymously, these pages regularly published content purporting to reveal insider information, including allegations of corruption, leadership dysfunction or internal conflict. While appearing to serve as whistleblowing platforms, their posts were often based on partial or decontextualized information or documents. By using the Red Cross or Red Crescent emblem and adopting language that echoed humanitarian values, these pages cultivated an image of credibility and legitimacy – misleading both the public and members of the National Society and ultimately damaging the National Society’s reputation.

Such content – particularly video – is significantly more likely to mislead and go viral than text or images, amplifying their impact and reach. A notable example is the so-called ‘cash-in-trunks’ video,⁴ which has resurfaced repeatedly since 2011 in various contexts, despite consistent and unequivocal statements from the ICRC refuting its authenticity.

Humanitarian actors themselves have become both targets and, at times, inadvertent vectors of harmful information. Staff and volunteers may unknowingly share unverified content through informal networks, contributing to a climate of suspicion and discontent. Meanwhile, individuals or groups operating through unofficial channels may misuse or exploit the Red Cross and Red Crescent emblems, as well as the principled language of humanitarianism to pose as credible voices, misleading audiences and extending the reach of harmful narratives.

4.1 Narratives of harm

Humanitarian action is fundamentally local. Yet today, the narratives that shape perceptions of humanitarian action are increasingly influenced – and in some cases deliberately manipulated – by sophisticated, well-resourced actors, including private ‘disinformation-for-hire’ firms, state and non-state actors and proxy groups. Their reach and influence extend far beyond the traditional use of propaganda in times of peace or armed conflict. In today’s crises and armed conflicts, shaping the information space has become a strategic element, one that extends well beyond the context or battlefield. The goals to deflect, deceive, denigrate, distract, dismay and divide mark a profound transformation in the information environment of humanitarian action.

No longer confined to isolated local rumours or misperceptions, harmful narratives are now part of a dynamic, global and participatory information ecosystem, where content is produced, shaped and manipulated in real time. As humanitarian scholar Hugo Slim observes, individuals across the world are not merely witnesses to conflict, but are often actively engaging in shaping and/or amplifying narratives – sometimes without fully grasping the consequences. “Millions of people are using their social media accounts to visualize war, record its events, describe their experience and campaign around it. Many observers of war in countries far away have now become real-time spectators who encounter war as remote consumers and partisan camp followers on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and TikTok … Watching war and entering its information space by forwarding, liking and commenting on war is now routine.”⁵

Efforts to safeguard humanitarian space in the digital era must also consider emerging legal and policy guidance. For example, the Tallinn Manual on the International Law Applicable to Cyber Operations⁶ explores how existing international law applies to cyber activities. While the manual is not legally binding, it is widely regarded as an authoritative interpretation of how international legal norms govern state and non-state conduct in cyberspace, including during armed conflict. It affirms that international humanitarian law continues to apply in the digital domain, including protection for humanitarian personnel (Rule 69); that states must not interfere with impartial humanitarian assistance to civilians in an armed conflict, whether through cyber means or other methods (Rule 131), nor misuse protected emblems (Rule 70); and that the principle of distinction between civilians and combatants and between civilian objects and military objectives remains applicable (Rule 32).

In June 2021, a group of international legal experts released the Oxford Statement on International Law Protections in Cyberspace: The Regulation of Information Operations and Activities.⁷ The statement provides an interpretation of how existing international law applies to the conduct of information operations by state and non‑state actors, including those involving disinformation, misinformation, hate speech and other harmful speech acts. It affirms that states remain bound by existing obligations which continue to govern conduct in the digital information space, such as sovereignty, non‑intervention, human rights and international humanitarian law.

4.2 Harms and impacts of harmful information on humanitarian action

Harmful information is not an abstract threat: it has direct, tangible consequences for humanitarian operations, often in ways that undermine trust, disrupt access and endanger both staff and affected communities. From false accusations to targeted campaigns, humanitarian actors across the globe are increasingly confronted with the operational fallout of distorted narratives. These impacts are being felt in armed conflicts, during public health emergencies, in disaster responses and in the everyday functioning of humanitarian organizations, whether local or international. The following cases and examples, drawn from a range of humanitarian organizations, illustrate how harmful information has strained community relationships, exacerbated institutional fragility, hindered access to vulnerable populations and even put responses and lives at risk.

Harmful information has tangible consequences, both online and offline. These impacts can be direct or indirect, depending on how clearly the harm can be linked to a specific incident. The severity of harm is shaped by the scope, scale, duration and magnitude of the incident – to borrow language from cybersecurity – as well as the resilience of the targeted individual or group affected. Often, the harms are multiple, compounding and interconnected. Drawing on the examples and materials gathered for this report, a fram- ing of harms can support more effective response strategies and inform policy-making.

4.3 Do no harm in a harmful information age

The notion of ‘do no harm’⁸ remains a critical ethical lens for humanitarian actors, ensuring that interventions do not inadvertently contribute to suffering or exacerbate existing vulnerabilities. In today’s information-saturated environment, do no harm extends beyond physical interventions or material assistance to include how information is collected, managed, communicated and used. In the digital age, it requires treating information with the same level of care and responsibility as any other aspect of humanitarian programming. It means anticipating risks, minimizing unintended consequences and prioritizing the dignity, safety and agency of affected people in every communication or information-related decision. Building information resilience within humanitarian action involves several key commitments:

• Assessing the unintended consequences of how information is produced, shared and communicated.

• Evaluating how messaging and data practices interact with local political, social and cultural dynamics.

• Designing proactive risk mitigation strategies to reduce exposure to harmful information and misuse of data.

• Embedding digital and data responsibility at all stages of humanitarian planning and response.

To operationalize this, humanitarian actors must strengthen their understanding of six interrelated concepts:

1. Navigating information responsibly: Ensuring that organizational communications do not mislead, inflame tensions or stigmatize individuals or communities. Avoiding the amplification of unverified or emotionally charged content that could incite fear, mistrust or violence.
2. Protecting digital identities: Safeguarding personal data, location details and digital traces of vulnerable populations. Recognizing the risks of surveillance, digital profiling and exploitation.
3. Countering harmful narratives: Proactively addressing harmful information that delegitimizes humanitarian action or endangers affected populations and humanitarian actors. Engaging in context‑sensitive strategic communication that builds trust without oversimplifying or sensationalizing complex crises.
4. Understanding the information ecosystem: Assessing who creates, controls and consumes information and who is excluded. Recognizing power dynamics within local and global information landscapes and their impact on perceptions and trust.
5. Ensuring digital inclusion: Acknowledging the digital divide, particularly in terms of who is represented, heard and visible online and who is not. Avoiding assumptions based solely on digital visibility while ensuring that the voices of groups that are offline or marginalized are not neglected.
6. Strengthening information resilience: Supporting communities and partners to navigate, verify and produce reliable information. Fostering information literacy not just as a defensive tool, but as a participatory one that empowers individuals to shape their own narrative.

Incorporating these concepts into humanitarian practice is essential to uphold ethical standards and ensure that information is managed in line with the humanitarian imperative: to protect and assist without causing further harm.

4.4 Vulnerabilities and amplifiers

Why do you think some people refuse to evacuate or secure their homes? People refuse to move because they are afraid their belongings will be stolen, then also because of a lack of trust in the news they hear, fearing it is all lies, and especially because they do not listen to what others say.”

Across humanitarian contexts, harmful information does not emerge in a vacuum. Practitioners consistently point to a combination of structural vulnerabilities and systemic gaps that amplify the risk and impact of harmful information – both for affected populations and for humanitarian responders themselves.

A commonly cited vulnerability is low digital literacy, particularly among groups that are marginalized. Many people lack the skills or resources to critically assess the trust- worthiness of the information they receive, especially on social media and messaging apps, which are often their primary sources of news. This is compounded by weak or absent independent local media, leaving a vacuum easily filled by politically motivated or misleading narratives.

Poorly coordinated information management within and across agencies is also highlighted. In rapidly evolving crises, inconsistent or delayed communication from trusted actors can create confusion and leave space for rumours to flourish. The political exploitation of humanitarian narratives – where disinformation is intentionally used to discredit aid actors or manipulate perceptions of aid delivery – is a growing threat.

Many sector voices are also candid about what is missing in the humanitarian information ecosystem. There is currently no shared protocol or framework to manage rumours and counter disinformation that spans across organizations. Training on digital threats, media literacy and narrative analysis remains insufficient, particularly for frontline staff and volunteers. Furthermore, engagement with technology platforms, local media outlets and academic institutions is limited and often ad hoc, despite the critical role these actors play in shaping information environments.

4.5 From fragmentation to focus: Avoiding overwhelm and building humanitarian capacity

In the face of an unprecedented flood of information – fragmented, fast-moving and often harmful – humanitarian actors are finding ways to cut through the noise, avoid overwhelm and focus on building the capacity, trust and resilience needed to navigate an increasingly volatile information environment.

The IFRC’s community-based surveillance (CBS) system plays an important role in improving how humanitarian actors listen to and engage with communities. By enabling trained volunteers and local health actors to report unusual health events or concerns directly from within communities, CBS provides real-time insights – often before such signals are visible through formal health systems. Crucially, CBS captures both clinical and non-clinical signals, including community fears, resistance to health interventions and circulating rumours. These early signals help identify emerging misinformation, mistrust or behavioural shifts that could undermine humanitarian efforts. Because CBS is rooted in local engagement and implemented by trusted community members, it does more than enhance surveillance: it also fosters credibility and trust while reinforcing social cohesion. This participatory approach supports two-way communication between communities and humanitarian actors and enables adaptive responses based on community feedback. By feeding directly into risk communication and community engagement strategies, CBS helps close the loop between listening and action. In so doing, it demonstrates that meaningful participation can both strengthen operational effectiveness and build trust in humanitarian interventions.

4.6 When viruses go viral: Building resilience against harmful information in a pandemic

The COVID-19 pandemic created a perfect storm for harmful information to thrive. Two key factors contributed to this: widespread fear, uncertainty and doubt; and the unprecedented ability for information – alongside misinformation and disinformation – to be rapidly created and spread via the internet, mobile networks and social media platforms. The World Health Organization (WHO) observed that, alongside the spread of the COVID-19 virus itself, the world was experiencing an ‘infodemic’ – an overabundance of information, both accurate and inaccurate, circulating in digital and physicalof the COVID-19 virus itself, the world was experiencing an ‘infodemic’ – an overabundance of information, both accurate and inaccurate, circulating in digital and physical spaces during an epidemic or pandemic.¹⁶ This flood of information confused audiences, undermined trust in credible sources and made it more difficult for people to adopt protective behaviours.

To respond, WHO launched several initiatives. The Early AI-Supported Response with Social Listening (EARS) platform provided real-time insights into online discussions about COVID-19, enabling health authorities to better understand public concerns and deliver accurate, timely information. The WHO Information Network for Epidemics (EPI- WIN) helped make scientific information more accessible and offered online training to support health workers and communities.¹⁷ WHO also worked to amplify evidence-based public health messaging and guide users toward trustworthy sources. It encouraged the public to report misinformation and collaborated with major social media platforms to prioritize science-based COVID-19 content in search results.

The UN’s Pause campaign (‘PledgetoPause’)¹⁸ encouraged people to take a moment to verify the accuracy of any information before sharing it. A study¹⁹ conducted by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in the UK and the US found that this simple act of pausing to reflect on the origin, credibility, relevance and accuracy of content before sharing it on phones, computers or social media significantly reduced the likelihood of sharing misinformation. Participants exposed to the campaign were notably less likely to share false headlines. The campaign was based on a powerful premise: that interrupting, even for a few seconds, the impulse to share something – an urge often driven by emotions such as excitement, anger, sadness, elation or even altruism – can create space for more critical thinking, better judgement and less amplification of false or misleading claims.

The 2021 UN Open-ended Working Group on Information and Communications Technologies (ICTs) noted that “the COVID-19 pandemic demonstrated the risks and consequences of malicious activities that seek to exploit vulnerabilities in times when societies are under enormous strain”.²⁰ In doing so, the group drew a clear connection between the COVID-19 infodemic and the malicious use of ICTs. This underscores how pandemics can create fertile ground for both cyber threats and harmful information. This same report also highlighted that: “While agreeing on the need to safeguard all critical infrastructure and critical information infrastructure supporting essential services to the public, along with endeavouring to ensure the general availability and integrity of the Internet, States further concluded that the COVID-19 pandemic had accentuated the importance of protecting healthcare infrastructure including medical services and facilities through the norms addressing critical infrastructure, such as those affirmed by consensus through UN General Assembly resolution 70/237.”²¹

The global response to the COVID-19 infodemic set an important precedent. It demonstrated what is possible when there is a concerted, coordinated high-level effort to counter harmful information and underscored the critical importance of international solidarity in doing so. The May 2025 WHO Pandemic Agreement acknowledges “the importance of building trust and ensuring the timely sharing of information to prevent misinformation, disinformation and stigmatization”, and explicitly affirms the importance of effective communication and public awareness efforts. It emphasizes the importance of strengthening pandemic literacy and science- and evidence-based information, risk communication and community-level engagement.²² Notably, the Pandemic Agreement itself became the target of systematic disinformation. Its negotiation process was complicated by false claims related to national sovereignty, pandemic countermeasures, intellectual property rights and freedom of speech²³ – demonstrating how international frameworks can become entangled in harmful narratives.

Concluding remarks: Navigating a hostile information landscape

Virtual spaces are not neutral arenas for dialogue. Digital platforms have become battlegrounds where trust and truth are deliberately undermined and where individuals, communities and even nations are subjected to harmful information attacks. In this dense, volatile space, the boundaries between truth and falsehood blur. Humanitarian narratives must contend with an overwhelming flood of emotional, politicized and sometimes instrumentalized content.

A decade ago, there was a sense that the “information flows cannot be controlled nor do they need to be”.²⁴ This perspective reflected an earlier digital era, when social media platforms were emerging and user-generated content largely reflected the goodwill of individuals, rather than the calculated harmful intent of malicious actors. At the time, it was a progressive call for greater participation, transparency and accountability. But today’s landscape is profoundly different. The question is no longer whether information should be regulated, but what should be addressed, how, by whom and with what safe- guards – particularly in terms of protecting fundamental rights and freedoms. Striking this balance has become one of the central challenges of the current era.

At its core, humanitarian action is about meeting the needs of people in crises, not securing visibility or reputation of the organizations delivering it. Yet, when the spot- light shifts from communities and onto organizations – through unmerited criticism or targeted harmful information – their safety and ability to operate effectively is under threat. Increasingly, harmful narratives shape public and societal perceptions of humanitarian action, constrain access, erode trust and shrink the operational space for principled humanitarian action. While legitimate scrutiny is vital for accountability and improvement, it must be distinguished from deliberate distortion or harmful information designed to delegitimize and obstruct humanitarian efforts. The consequences, as highlighted throughout this report, are stark: diminished access, reputational damage, emotional strain and heightened security threats to staff and volunteers, operational delays and loss of public trust.

These dynamics underscore the urgent need for more coordinated and systemic responses. Addressing harmful information requires sector-wide collaboration and investment, and proactive engagement with those who shape and influence the informa- tion environment – not least governments and technology companies (see Chapter 5, on page 167 for a detailed examination of their role).

Above all, this landscape raises urgent questions that no single organization can resolve alone; the challenges transcend the mandate or influence of any individual organization. The dilemmas demand collective reflection and shared approaches:

1. Neutrality versus harmful narratives: When dehumanizing or discriminatory narratives spread – sometimes by state or political actors – should humanitarians remain silent to preserve neutrality and access, or speak out to prevent harm?
2. Debunking versus risking access: Should falsehoods be publicly challenged, even if doing so risks undermining neutrality or operational access? How can humanitarian actors respond without being drawn into politicized or polarized debates?
3. Integrity versus polarization: In fragmented and hostile information environments, how can humanitarian actors protect the integrity of their messaging and maintain trust without being co‑opted, misrepresented or silenced?
4. Collective action versus fragmented responses: What partnerships, mechanisms and international norms are needed to protect humanitarian organizations from information attacks? Should the sector advocate collectively for stronger platform policies and governance frameworks to safeguard humanitarian space?
5. Speak out versus silence: When harmful narratives systematically target groups in vulnerable situations – such as migrants – and are driven by state or political interests, what space remains for humanitarians to respond? How can they challenge such narratives without compromising neutrality? At what point is silence perceived as tacit approval of discriminatory or dehumanizing narratives, and when does silence risk becoming complicity?

Together, these dilemmas underscore the urgent need for the humanitarian sector to find collective strategies that preserve principled humanitarian action while protecting at-risk groups and safeguarding trust in an increasingly hostile information environment.

Asks, aims and recommendations

States and policy‑makers

• Build societal resilience through public information literacy and awareness initiatives.

• Integrate harmful information risks into disaster management and crisis response frameworks.

• Support mechanisms to identify and address harmful information incidents that endanger civilians or disrupt humanitarian operations, ensuring the mandates of principled humanitarian actors are respected.

• Support international cooperation and uphold cyber norms to protect humanitarian action and critical services.

• Establish flexible funding lines for harmful information response, with priority for building local resilience and community‑led rumour tracking.

Technology platforms

• Adapt or “cool” algorithms during humanitarian crises to reduce amplification of harmful narratives.

• Prioritize authoritative information from trusted humanitarian, health and local actors for the delivery of timely and life‑saving guidance.

• Implement crisis protocols that temporarily re‑weight algorithms in favour of safety and reliability over optimizing engagement.

• Collaborate with principled humanitarian actors to design context‑specific, transparent interventions on platforms that respect users’ human rights and protect the safety of crisis‑affected populations.

• Ensure independent oversight to balance freedom of expression with the need to prevent harm to civilians, humanitarian actors and operations.

Humanitarian actors

• Integrate harmful information monitoring into programmes, assessments and early warning systems.

• Document, analyse and share actionable insights and lessons learned from harmful information incidents and their operational impacts to inform real‑time adaptation and long‑term resilience, without impeding principled humanitarian action.

• Strengthen staff and volunteer capacity to identify, document and respond safely to harmful narratives. Strengthen internal communication systems to ensure staff and volunteers are informed, coordinated and able to respond safely and consistently to harmful narratives while upholding humanitarian principles.

• Invest in multilingual monitoring, two‑way communication, rapid verification systems and partnerships with trusted local moderators.

• Facilitate regional research hubs to strengthen monitoring, measurement and evidence‑based assessment of harms.

• Strengthen collaboration and training for humanitarian staff and volunteers on digital threats, information and media literacy, and narrative analysis.

Community and local leaders

• Co‑create rumour‑tracking and feedback systems to detect harmful information early.

• Verify and amplify accurate information through trusted local channels.

• Document harmful information incidents that affect safety, services or access.

• Foster dialogue and peer‑to‑peer engagement that reduces stigma, fear and division.

Endnotes