Romania’s presidential election has taken a dramatic turn. Far-right, pro-Russian ultranationalist candidate Calin Georgescu won the first round of voting on November 24, but President Klaus Iohannis (whose party’s center-right candidate failed to pass the first round) publicized declassified Romanian intelligence documents on December 5 purporting to show foreign interference in the election in favor of Georgescu. The next day, the nation’s top court cancelled a runoff election scheduled for December 8, even though polls had already opened for voters in the diaspora, and called for a rerun of the first round. At the heart of the interference allegations are influence campaigns on the social media platform TikTok, owned by Chinese Internet company ByteDance.
The intelligence documents provided evidence that strongly suggested—without directly specifying—that Russia was behind the foreign interference efforts. This includes thousands of cyber attacks on Romanian election websites and IT systems. Crucially, the documents also “revealed an aggressive promotional campaign, in violation of electoral legislation, and an exploitation of algorithms to increase the popularity of Calin Georgescu at an accelerated pace.” (Georgescu surged from being a mostly unknown figure, campaigning without a political party, polling at about one percent a month before the election, to obtaining nearly 23 percent of the vote in the first round.) According to the documents, 25,000 TikTok accounts were enlisted to boost Georgescu’s popularity in the two weeks before the election, and one Romanian TikTok celebrity paid $381,000 to over 100 Romanian influencers with a combined total of over 8 million followers. (About 9 million of Romania’s 19 million citizens use TikTok.) The influencers’ pro-Georgescu promotional posts were not marked as part of a paid political campaign. Carmen Paun at Politico described how TikTok failed to fully meet the Romanian government’s orders to comply with election laws:
Romania’s election authorities asked TikTok to delete Georgescu-related content four days before the first round of the presidential election because it didn’t comply with a requirement to identify who paid for the material.
In response, TikTok said it had blocked people in Romania from accessing the posts — but they remained available abroad and could still be shared according to one of the SRI [Romanian Intelligence Service] documents.
Subsequent checks showed the posts were still accessible in Romania, even on election day. Election campaigns in Romania must officially end 24 hours before polls open, according to the law.
But TikTok classified Georgescu-related posts as entertainment rather than political content and made them accessible without restrictions to a wide number of users, without proper election-related labeling, the SRI said.
This treatment increased Georgescu’s reach, while other presidential candidates’ content was filtered, lowering its visibility, the document said. [Source]
66 000 fake accounts and 10 million fake followers were removed, just on TikTok and just for Romania’s election.
The scale is SHOCKING: we’re not talking hundreds or thousands of posts, but MILLIONS – every single day! pic.twitter.com/Ai3qO6UKdH
— Nona Mamulashvili (@NonaMamulashvi) December 4, 2024
European Commission officials ordered TikTok to retain all election-related files and evidence, and then demanded that company officials disclose how they are responding to the allegations of interference. A top TikTok official was summoned to the European Parliament on December 3 and grilled by lawmakers. Dutch MEP Dirk Gotink asked, “What the hell were [TikTok’s content moderators] doing during the elections?” and described TikTok executives as the “fire brigade” who “let the fire rage for weeks” before coming to answer questions. Romanian MEP Dan Nica criticized what he called TikTok executives’ “contemptible responses.” On Friday, TikTok published a press release with more information about the situation, noting its discovery and removal of three covert influence networks in Romania, along with millions of fake followers:
A network of 22 accounts operating from Romania that attempted to target Romanian audiences in order to spread misinformation and promote narratives critical of the current Romanian government, which we transparently reported in September.
A network of 78 accounts operating from Romania, with 1,781 followers, that attempted to promote candidate Călin Georgescu on TikTok – which to-date is the only network we’ve identified that focused on promoting Calin Georgescu as a prominent topic. We assessed this network was operating from Romania and disrupted it in late November. This will be reflected in our November Covert Influence Operations Report.
A network of 12 accounts operating from Romania, with 1,704 followers, that attempted to amplify narratives in Romanian favourable to independent political candidate Mircea Geoană. We assessed this network was operating from Romania and disrupted it in late November. This will also be reflected in our November Covert Influence Operations Report.
[…] We also removed:
+115,000 fake accounts
+7,000,000 fake likes
+11,000,000 fake followers
+1,100 accounts impersonating presidential candidates. [Source]
Romania’s Constitutional Court stated that its annulment of the election was based on Article 146(f) of the Romanian Constitution and taken in order “to ensure the correctness and legality of the electoral process,” which it stated had been “flawed throughout its entire duration and at every stage.” Commenting on the legality of the affair, Mark Scott at the Atlantic Council wrote that much of the coordination to promote Georgescu was legal under Romania’s election laws, but failing to disclose payments for such promotion would be illegal. Reacting to the court’s decision, Georgescu claimed that the election was stolen from him, and even the center-right runner-up Elena Lasconi stated that “the Romanian state has trampled on democracy!” Meanwhile, the court’s decision was tacitly supported by the U.S. government, which emphasized its concerns about Russian interference in a NATO member state. European media and think tanks also called the situation a “wake-up call for democracies” and a “warning for NATO.” Finbarr Bermingham at the South China Morning Post described how Georgescu might steer Romania’s foreign policy, particularly in relation to China, if he were elected:
Like [Slovakian Prime Minister Robert] Fico and [Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor] Orban, Georgescu is also seen to be favourably disposed to China, and could open a door for Beijing to improve its standing in some European capitals.
“If Georgescu becomes president, he will definitely try to improve Romania’s relations with China,” said Andreea Brinza, vice-president at the Romanian Institute for the Study of the Asia-Pacific.
“He has said that if he has to negotiate with Hungary, Russia and China he will definitely do so – this may provide hints about Georgescu’s position regarding these countries and his admiration for their leaders.”
While the Romanian president does not set foreign policy on his own, they represent the country at international forums, meaning Europe “will feel a President Georgescu immediately”, said Jonathan Eyal, international director at the Royal United Services Institute, a British think tank.
“He’s not just simply cutting ribbons and opening schools. He is going to be there at the height of European deal-making, right from day one. So actually, it’s much worse than just the appearance of [a] figurehead, although it’s not as much powers as those of the French president,” Eyal explained. [Source]
The debate over the risks that TikTok poses to democratic elections is also playing out in the U.S., where the government passed a law in April forcing TikTok’s American operations to either be sold off from its Chinese parent company ByteDance or shut down. On Friday, a U.S. federal appeals court unanimously denied TikTok’s petition to overturn the law. TikTok has filed an emergency motion for an injunction to stop the law from taking effect on January 19—one day before Donald Trump will be officially sworn in as president—until the Supreme Court can hear its appeal. Trump, who was previously a leading voice in favor of banning TikTok, has now reversed his position, and this week his incoming national security advisor Mike Waltz said that Trump wants Americans to have full access to the app. In March, the Office of the Director of National Intelligence stated that the Chinese government is using TikTok to influence U.S. elections. Before and during the November U.S. presidential election, however, the most prominent social-media platform spreading distorted information was X (formerly Twitter), which its owner Elon Musk used to overtly “cheerlead for Trump,” as NPR wrote.
