The hypothesis is raised by a group of researchers from ISCTE's Medialab, in a report released today, in partnership with the Portuguese National Elections Commission (CNE), to monitor disinformation during the campaign for the legislative elections on May 18.
In the report dedicated to the widespread power outage that affected Portugal and Spain last week, the researchers highlight that “the lack of effective institutional communication in the first few hours contributed to an information vacuum” and analyse one of the main theories circulated, which attributed the blackout to a Russian cyberattack.
This narrative began to circulate on Portuguese social media at around 11:50, about 20 minutes after the blackout began, in publications that reproduced an alleged news story from CNN International with statements attributed to the President of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen.
Read also European Commission finds no evidence of cyberattack during blackout
The origin of the publication is uncertain, but the analysis carried out by Medialab researchers indicates that the initial dissemination may have occurred in Portugal, with a version in Portuguese that later served as the basis for other translations, including in Russian.
At 13:55, the first ambiguous reactions from Russian media, such as BFM, also began to emerge, mixing reported elements and unverified rumors, with suggestions of a coordinated attack and transnational sabotage.
According to the report, the information was replicated on WhatsApp and Telegram channels associated with pro-Russian circles, reaching tens of thousands of views in the first few hours.
In the following days, pro-Russian cyberactivist groups claimed responsibility for the alleged attack, citing alleged evidence of distributed denial-of-service attacks.
“However, cybersecurity experts consulted ruled out any connection with the blackout, stressing that these groups do not have the operational capacity to cause failures in the electrical infrastructure,” says the report, which adds that these groups took advantage of the blackout to try to capitalize on the media.
In addition to this, other theories have circulated to try to explain the power outage, the origin of which is still unknown, and researchers even refer to disseminated messages that, on the other hand, presented an ideological 'spin' that favored Russia.
On Telegram, publications circulated suggesting that the blackout was a “resilience test” promoted by NATO, or a social engineering operation to justify a future military escalation.
Another theory linked the energy failure to environmental policies for energy transition, or to sanctions against Russia and the degradation of European infrastructure, and the report cites some of the messages shared in this regard, with evidence of automatic translation or of having been created using artificial intelligence.
Throughout that week, most posts related to the blackout were shared on X (58,21%) and Facebook (33,68%), followed by Instagram (6,03%), TikTok and Reddit (both 1,04%).
In addition to X's intelligence engine, which responded to user questions about the various narratives, media accounts were the ones that published the most about the misinformation content related to the blackout, especially to deconstruct it.
The overwhelming majority of posts (81%) made in that period are considered neutral, but those that appear to believe or propagate these narratives are more than double those that deny them (12% versus 6%) and reached many more people compared to fact-checking.
The National Elections Commission (CNE) and MediaLab, from ISCTE, in partnership with the Lusa agency, are monitoring social networks to identify and measure the impact of disinformation on the May legislative campaign, which will continue until May 24.
