EXAMINING CLIMATE MISINFORMATION ON X: A STUDY OF PAKISTAN’S FLOOD 2025

Abstract

Globally, flood catastrophes have become more frequent and severe due to climate change, and social media platforms are increasingly serving as a means to obtain, comprehend, and disseminate information about disasters. In this context, the objectives of the study are to identify types of climate-related misinformation about Pakistan’s 2025 floods that create uncertainty on Twitter/X (2 May-31 October 2025) and to examine the dominant frames of climate misinformation tweets on Pakistan’s 2025 floods. This quantitative study analyzed the content of 300 tweets purposively selected on Twitter (X) related to misinformation about the 2025 floods in Pakistan. The study identifies the types of misinformation in circulation and the dominant frames used to communicate such content between 2 May and 31 October 2025. The tweets were coded according to misinformation type and dominant frame. Descriptive statistics and Chi-square goodness-of-fit tests were used to analyze the data. The findings demonstrate that false causal explanations constituted the most prominent form of climate misinformation in flood-related discourse. Responsibility and blame framing emerged as the dominant framing approach, directing attention toward the actions, failures, or responsibilities of particular actors and institutions. Overall, the findings highlight how different forms of misinformation and framing patterns interacted in the Twitter/X discourse surrounding the 2025 Pakistan flood.