C-Span Online Broadcast Interrupted by Russian Network

At 2:30 p.m. on Jan 12, Rep Maxine Waters (D-CA) was on the floor of the House of Representatives, arguing for the importance of the Securities and Exchange Commission, when she was cut off on C-SPAN.

Instead, viewers heard the jangling music of a feed from RT, a state-run Russian television network that has been accused of helping its government interfere in the American election. Some on social media immediately assumed that the interruption, which lasted about 10 minutes, had nefarious implications. C-Span, in a statement, had a simpler explanation: It was probably a technical error. C-Span’s television broadcast continued uninterrupted. Noting that RT is among the news feeds it regularly monitors, it said: “We don’t believe we were hacked. Instead, our initial investigation suggests that this was caused by an internal routing error. We take our network security very seriously and will continue with a deeper investigation, which may take some time.”