Almost two weeks since a massive blackout paralysed the Iberian Peninsula, unfounded claims and conspiracy theories continue to run rampant online.
These are fuelled by the lack of official confirmation as to the cause of the outage, which the Spanish government says will take “three to six months” to determine.
Both the governments in Madrid and Lisbon are conducting their own investigations, while an independent probe will also be led by an expert panel at European level.
The Spanish grid operator, Red Eléctrica, has signalled the likely cause to be two consecutive “disconnection events,” barely 1.5 seconds apart, in energy generation plants in Spain’s south-west.
But the theory is yet to be corroborated and the exact cause of these events has not been determined.
Euroverify already debunked viral allegations of a cyberattack, a “rare atmospheric phenomenon” or a government-led cover-up in the hours following the power cut.
But a raft of false theories are still circulating, and coordinated disinformation actors are taking advantage of the ongoing speculation to sow further confusion.
No, The Telegraph and France 24 have not linked blackout to sanctions on Russia
A falsified article purporting to come from British newspaper The Independent has been circulating on Telegram, claiming the blackout was a “consequence of European sanctions on Russia.”
Another falsified video carrying the branding of broadcaster France 24 makes the same unfounded claims.
These doctored reports falsely claim European grids have been fitted with Polish equipment unable to withstand the “level of load on the power grids” due to sanctions on Moscow.
“Even if replacement with Russian equipment begins immediately, it will be technically impossible to replace the systems by the end of the year,” the false France 24 video alleges, adding that this means several regions of France will be “cut off from power supply in 2025.”
There is no evidence at all to back up these claims.
Ukraine’s Centre for Countering Disinformation, a government agency, says pro-Russian disinformation actors are behind the false claim.
“The goal of this disinformation is to create the impression that sanctions against Russia are ineffective and only harm EU countries — aiming to weaken European support for Ukraine,” the agency said.
Many of the accounts spreading the false claim on platforms such as Telegram, Facebook and X are linked to known Russian disinformation networks.
Fact-checkers for Spanish news agency EFE working together with the associations Antibot4Navalny have traced the campaign to pro-Moscow operations such as Matrioska and Pravda.
Claims blackout was caused by solar flare are unfounded
Other social media users have alleged that the Spanish, Portuguese and French authorities have blamed the power outage on “solar flare activity,” which is when intense magnetic energy is released from the sun’s surface.
One post on X spreading the claim has been viewed almost two million times.
But no government or official sources from any of the three countries affected by the blackout have pointed to a solar flame, and there was no solar flare activity detected on the day of the blackout according to the US’ Space Weather Prediction Centre.
A closer look at the video shared with the unfounded allegations reveals it shows solar flare activity recorded on 10 May 2024.
Reports of post-blackout looting by irregular migrants are also false.
Claims circulating online that the Spanish army was deployed to prevent “irregular migrants” from looting on the day of the blackout are also untrue.
A YouTube video that is formatted as a news report falsely alleges that a wave of irregular migrants had looted supermarkets, pharmacies and small businesses in Spanish cities, prompting a military response.
These reports are completely unfounded and the report threads together unrelated stock images and AI-generated videos.
There is no evidence to suggest there was looting in the aftermath of the blackout. On the morning of 29 April, the day after the outage, Spain’s Interior Ministry said that the previous night had been “calm” with “no notable security incidents.”
No evidence of intentional sabotage
Neither is there any proof to back viral claims that the blackout was the result of an act of sabotage.
Some social users have suggested – without providing any evidence – that nuclear energy companies could have intentionally provoked the blackout in order to show the fragility of the grid and prompt the Spanish government to reconsider its planned phase-out of nuclear energy, which is considered to have a stabilising impact on electricity grids.
One X post sharing the unfounded claim has been viewed more than 250,000 times.
Other theories circulating online have blamed an intentional act of sabotage at the hands of Russia, France, Morocco or a terrorist organisation without any evidence to back those claims, as previously verified by Euroverify.
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