João Relvas / Lusa
The Assistant Minister and Territorial Cohesion, Manuel Castro Almeida, was the first to speak of Ciberataque.
Contradiction between Leitão Amaro and Castro Almeida created “informative vacuum exploited by viral content”says medialab report with the CNE. On Facebook, the news that puts the hypothesis of cyberatoque obtained three times more interactions than the government was following the case.
ISCTE Medialab investigators consider that “absence of effective institutional communication”The government contributed to speculation and disinformation diffusion regarding the causes of blackout.
In a report developed by Medialab and the National Elections Commission (CNE), it appears that the information released by the Government created an “informative vacuum exploited by viral content” whose impact was “expanded by media errors”.
The document also points to contradiction among statements by members of the government, namely the Minister of the Presidency, António Leitão Amaroand the minister of territorial cohesion, Castro Almeidawhich reflected “distinct initial answers in the government communication and in a very short time”.
The presidency minister was the first member of the government to pronounce by having announced the creation of a working group to solve the situation, and ensured that the origin of the problem was outside Portugal.
Shortly thereafter, the assistant and territorial cohesion minister said on RTP3 that POSSIBILITY OF A CYBERATAQUE Being at the origin of the blackout and also mentioned that the phenomenon would be affecting other countries – later, the minister confessed to what he said, although so far there was no concrete proof that a cybership has been at the origin of historical energy failure.
Investigators considered that the Declaration of Leitão Amaro reflected “a stance of containment and communicational prudence” in an attempt to avoid “speculation as to the origin of the incident”. On the other hand, Castro Almeida’s statement introduced “an unconfirmed hypothesis of a European scope”, which contributed to “the amplification of uncertainties and the feeding of speculative interpretations in public and media space ”.
On April 28 25 News in media on the statements of the Minister of Cohesion and 18 articles with the statements of the Minister of the Presidency.
According to the report, at Facebook level the news that puts the hypothesis of cyberataque obtained three times more interactions than the news that the government was accompanying the case and that on the origin it only said that it would be outside Portugal.
The Mini Medialab/CNE report “Disinformation on blackout on social networks and impact on the campaign” analyzes the period between April 28 and May 4 and was prepared by researchers Gustavo Cardoso, José Moreno, Inês Narciso and Paulo Custoiro.
