23/09/2026
Fear Is Profitable. And We're Paying the Price.
Scroll through Facebook or TikTok during rainy season and you'll see it: "MEGA-FLOOD COMING!" "Stock up on food NOW!" "War is closer than you think!"
These posts get thousands of likes and shares. And that's exactly the point.
Research shows that negative, fear-inducing content spreads faster and gets clicked more (Robertson et al., 2023). Content that triggers outrage is often shared without people even reading it (McLoughlin et al., 2024). On social media, engagement means money. For some content creators, the scarier the post, the bigger the paycheck.
This matters for Thailand, where 88% of us get news online and nearly half use TikTok for news (Newman et al., 2025). Many of us, especially younger people, now get information more from influencers than from official sources.
So what's the cost?
🌧️ We stop trusting real warnings. When scary predictions keep failing to happen, people learn to ignore warnings. Research calls this the "cry wolf" effect (Sawada et al., 2022). The danger is that when a real flood comes, people may not believe it.
💸 Small businesses suffer. When people panic, they stay home. Restaurants go empty, markets go quiet, and local businesses that are already struggling lose even more, all because of a disaster that may never come.
🎯 We worry about the wrong things. Europe's problems get blown up into Thai emergencies, while the risks that actually matter to us get less attention.
Being careful is good. Being prepared is good. But being manipulated for someone else's profit is not.
Before you share that scary post, ask yourself:
✅ Does this come from an official source like the Thai Meteorological Department?
✅ Is this person an expert, or just someone who gets paid for views?
✅ Am I sharing it to help people, or because it made me afraid?
Stay alert. But think before you share. 🙏
📚 References
McLoughlin et al. (2024). Science, 386(6725), 991–996.
Newman et al. (2025). Reuters Institute Digital News Report 2025.
Robertson et al. (2023). Nature Human Behaviour, 7(5), 812–822.
Sawada et al. (2022). Hydrology and Earth System Sciences, 26(16), 4265–4278.
