Published daily by the Lowy Institute. In late October, fear set in following a set of online stories about men in dark-tinted vehicles without licence plates kidnapping children and young people in Honiara, Solomon Islands.
Schools closed, communities erected roadblocks to outsiders, and there were at least two non-fatal attacks on foreigners suspected of being involved in kidnapping.
However, most of the stories igniting panic are fake β to date, police have received only two reports of an attack. New social media accounts, from which kidnap stories originated, are now closed. The fake kidnap stories featured a standard formula for disinformation, generally defined as the intent to mislead people or publics with false information. Hurting children is the ultimate abuse of power, and ignites two powerful emotions in motivating behaviour β fear and anger.
In the worst cases, fear and anger mobilises people to violence, such as a string of murders in India in by community members of suspected kidnappers.
In the Honiara kidnap stories, certain cues helped stories to seem real. Firstly, Honiara is an unsafe city for children and women, even though most violence happens at home.
