Amazon fires: how celebrities are spreading misinformation

Satellite image of the wildfires in the Amazon rainforest in northern Brazil, which have ignited a firestorm on social media. — AFP

Many high-profile figures seeking to denounce the fires in the Amazon – from Madonna and Cristiano Ronaldo to Leonardo DiCaprio and Emmanuel Macron – have unwittingly ended up misleading millions on social media, either sharing photographs of the region that are years old or images taken in other parts of the world.

Official figures show nearly 73,000 forest fires were recorded in Brazil in the first eight months of the year, the highest number for any year since 2013. Most were in the Amazon.