Conspiracy theories went viral after C-SPAN’s regular footage was replaced by RT’s news feed for 10 minutes, switching from their live coverage of proceedings in the House of Representatives on the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC).

Representative Maxine Waters (D-California) was in the middle of a speech about an SEC regulation on the House floor at 2:30pm ET when the picture switched to an RT newscast from Moscow.



Deadspin editor Timothy Burke was the first to note the incident, which he tweeted about, saying that it was “unclear what happened.”

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

Speculation and conspiracy theories went viral on Twitter after the event happened, with some saying that it was a hack and others calling it cyber warfare.

Wow. Disturbing in its own right but notably cutting off Waters who is one of the most vocal opponents of Trump https://t.co/mPfRJexlDA — Sarah Kendzior (@sarahkendzior) January 12, 2017

@nytimes this is no accident. We are obviously in a cyber war with Russia — Jen Nossib (@JenNossib) January 12, 2017

C-SPAN Says Online Feed Was "Interrupted" by Russia Today Programming https://t.co/z4YHibNrY1 — Newsdesk Film (@NewsdeskFILM) January 12, 2017

In any other year, I'd assume someone at C-SPAN hit the wrong button. But in 2017? Who knows? https://t.co/Kq9UREKIhe — Punning Pundit (@punningpundit) January 12, 2017

When an 'internal routing issue' becomes a #Russianhack in your tiny American mind. https://t.co/QvaaacKPcW — IvorCrotty (@IvorCrotty) January 12, 2017

“We are operating under the assumption that it was an internal routing issue,” C-SPAN said in a statement, adding that RT is one of the networks that they regularly monitor, and that they are “investigating the occurrence.”





RT had no way of cutting into the C-SPAN broadcast.



The entire broadcast footage from C-SPAN can be viewed without interruption on their site.