Thursday afternoon, C-SPAN experienced some very unusual activity on their online broadcast. Rep. Maxine Waters (D-Calif.) was speaking about the Securities and Exchange Commission Regulatory Accountability Act, and the feed cut away to Russian propaganda station Russia Today. The interruption lasted about ten minutes before returning to the footage of the House of Representatives.
Deadspin editor Timothy Burke captured the moment and posted it to his Twitter:
Here's the moment Russia Today took over the C-SPAN1 feed. Unclear what happened. RT aired for about ten minutes before C-SPAN1 came back. pic.twitter.com/mhWVgCoFxF
— Timothy Burke (@bubbaprog) January 12, 2017
The takeover occurred during the online broadcast of C-SPAN1. C-SPAN released the following response, confirming the issue:
“This afternoon the online feed for C-SPAN was briefly interrupted by RT programming. We are currently investigating and troubleshooting this occurrence. As RT is one of the networks we regularly monitor, we are operating under the assumption that it was an internal routing issue. If that changes we will certainly let you know.”
Russia Today is Russia’s state television network, and they are heavily monitored and controlled by the Kremlin as a propaganda machine. Although this may have just been a random mistake, as C-SPAN seems to indicate with their response, the timing of the Russian propaganda network interrupting a United States news broadcast certainly seems fishy.
Reports of Russian hackers attempting to influence the presidential election (and ordered to do so directly by Russian President Vladimir Putin) has dominated the news cycle for weeks. And, just this week, unverified reports of the Russians having sensitive information about President-elect Donald Trump (and using it to blackmail and control him) have emerged to the public.
The rumors about this information indicate it could be anything from delicate financial documentation to a Donald Trump sex tape filmed with a hidden camera. These reports have apparently been circulating in between intelligence agencies and high-profile politicians for weeks, but only recently have they been thought to have any credibility.
Whether this was a coincidental mistake by C-SPAN, or another ominous Russian media attack, remains to be seen.
Featured Image via MARIAJONER / WikiMedia Commons CC Sharealike 4.0 International
