• last year
Spain's leading news agency EFE has been under fire over the past week for accidentally publishing misinformation on two separate occasions.

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00:00Did Spain use a false helicopter crash tweet to distract from the Valencia floods?
00:08Spain's deadly floods are fertile ground for false information,
00:12and this time the country's leading news agency EFE is at its center.
00:17It all began when EFE published a breaking news alert on X,
00:20saying that a helicopter had crashed into Madrid's iconic Torre de Cristal or glass tower.
00:26The agency deleted the post three minutes later,
00:28but not after it had been seen by thousands of people and shared across social media.
00:33EFE quickly admitted to the error, explaining that a technical issue caused the post to
00:37accidentally go out as part of a training exercise for students at the agency.
00:41Its president, Miguel Ángel Oliver, said the same,
00:45adding that there was no excuse for the error and that he took full responsibility.
00:49Nevertheless, conspiracy theories soon erupted online,
00:52claiming that the government encouraged EFE to put out the tweet to distract
00:56from its handling of the flooding in Valencia and elsewhere.
00:59Some social media users pointed to Oliver's links to Prime Minister Pedro SĂĄnchez.
01:04He previously served as his Secretary of State for Communication between 2018 and 2021.
01:10Nevertheless, there's no evidence that the conspiracy theories are true.
01:13Euroverify reached out to EFE, which reiterated its previous explanation for the helicopter post.
01:19The government has not responded to our requests for information as of the time of this fact check.
01:24The more likely explanation is that the conspiracy theories came about as part of
01:28the anger against the central and regional governments for their perceived inaction to
01:32the floods, which have claimed more than 220 lives.
01:36Carlos MatĂłn, the conservative president of the Valencian community, has been slammed for
01:41having lunch with a journalist when the floods hit, rather than focusing on the response to the crisis.
01:46SĂĄnchez, meanwhile, has faced harsh criticism for not invoking a national
01:50state of emergency to wrest control of the situation from local authorities.

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