Pacific Islands, explained.
Getting the wrong word out (Alicja Nowakowska/Getty Images)
Islanders have long joked about “coconut wireless” storytelling – but more understanding of these networks is needed in the digital age.
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Fake kidnaps and real dangers of disinformation in Pacific IslandsFake kidnaps and real dangers of disinformation in Pacific Islands
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 – 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. Stories of kidnapping and/or abuse of children run by secret unknown actors or groups are commonly used by disinformation actors in different contexts to manufacture and expand hatred or prejudice against target groups.
Hurting children is the ultimate abuse of power, and ignites two powerful emotions in motivating behaviour – fear and anger.
Fake kidnap stories are usually short on details on who is hurting children and point blame at a broad group, such as “outsiders” or a political or ethnic group, mobilising in-group solidarity and action. In the worst cases, fear and anger mobilises people to violence, such as a string of murders in India in 2018 by community members of suspected kidnappers.
Disinformation “feels real” because people will fill in gaps in information themselves, based on what they know and what their friends say, and swear a false story is true.
One widely circulated early version claimed kidnappers were extracting organs from their victims and selling them to Australians, playing into broader narratives that Australia’s engagement with Solomon Islands is extractive and self-interested.
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. Women’s groups have called on police to be more responsive to attacks on women and girls, and there are low rates of success in getting police to respond to reports of violence against women and girls. Dark-tinted vehicles in particular are suspected to hide sexual activities, including consensual marital affairs, prostitution and rape. Solomon Islands had a violent civil conflict from 1998-2003 in which people were actually kidnapped, murdered and suffered physical and sexual violence. So the kidnap story is borrowed from a playbook used by former militant groups, and by sexual violence perpetrators more recently.
Secondly, the kidnap stories took on certain twists to do with political, ethnic and geopolitical alliances. In some versions of the fake stories offline, the kidnappers were targeting Malaitans – one of Solomon Islands’ larger ethnic groups. This offered an emotive twist as there has recently been a clampdown with the arrest of Malaitan leaders on charges of unlawful assembly. Malaitans are also known to be involved in group violence against perceived threats to their kin, both in mobilisation of militant groups in the civil conflict in the late 1990s and early 2000s, and in tribal or other fights on a smaller scale.
In one of the most widely circulated and early versions of the fake stories, the kidnappers were extracting organs from their victims and selling them to Australians. This plays into broader narratives that Australia’s engagement with Solomon Islands is extractive and self-interested, a narrative that also is applied to China’s engagement with the country. Even though online the kidnap stories were fake tales of extracting organs to export to Australia for money, in real life community members threw stones and physically attacked Asian people unknown to them that they accused of kidnapping in East Guadalcanal. This targeted violence is more akin to what happens in Pacific urban riots, where narratives of foreign exploitation lead rioters to target Asian businesses for looting and burning.
Social media discussion sites and the mainstream media were useful in countering fake stories, by questioning the credibility of the posters of kidnap stories and the stories themselves. The police also did arrest people over the initial incident and conduct media conferences, but trust in police is low and perception of corruption in government is high in Solomon Islands, meaning that authorities that could set the record straight on disinformation stories may not be believed. One spin on the fake stories was that the police themselves were involved in the attempted kidnaps in order to direct attention away from their lack of investigation and arrest of corrupt actors. The fake kidnap stories coincided with the release of a report into misuse of government funds and growing calls for action by civil society.
Fake kidnap stories have created havoc in other parts of the Pacific recently. In Papua New Guinea in 2019, a person was killed after police shot at a crowd. In Fiji, in May 2019, a false kidnapping claim involving an 11-year-old student in Valelevu led to a public outcry until the police intervened, revealing it to be fabricated. More recently, in August 2023, a similar rumour in Lautoka about three children being targeted prompted further police clarification that no such incident had occurred. In most cases, even just identifying who creates and posts fake stories and why, has proved beyond local authorities’ capacity.
Beyond the short-term chaos, the experience of disinformation in other contexts tells us that longer-term effects can be distrust in institutions, in media, and local communities having reduced trust in each other. For example in Taiwan, said to be the most targeted by foreign disinformation campaigns, disinformation’s longer-term impacts are to divide society, by polarising discussions and sowing discord.
What the fake kidnap stories alert us to is the need to have strategies that promote more digital media literacy, including working regionally and with platforms. Islanders have long joked about the pros and cons of “coconut wireless” or gossip and storytelling across networks, as it can enable, for example, the spread of disaster warnings or ruin a person’s reputation with innuendo. More research and dialogue on what stops and spreads disinformation is needed to make sure islanders can set their “coconut wireless” to the right frequency.
About the author
Anouk Ride
Dr Anouk Ride is a sociologist with an interest in development and peace and conflict in the Pacific Islands region. She was based in Solomon Islands for two decades doing policy orientated research and has managed over 20 projects with Pacific governments, media, police and correctional services, regional organisations and universities.
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