The European Commission is tightening its scrutiny of TikTok over its involvement in the Romanian presidential election and concerns about its potential influence on election outcomes in the EU countries.
European Commission orders TikTok to “preserve internal documents”
The Commission mandated the video-sharing platform to “preserve internal documents and information” on the operations of its recommendation system and how it manages manipulation risks. TikTok is also required to maintain records of any violations of their restrictions on political advertising.
The European Commission made this statement on December 5. The decree goes until March and covers all national elections, not only those of Romania. That period spans information about the approaching German election.
The order of the EU executive body stipulates that TikTok must store data related to “actual or alleged systemic risks that the service may pose to electoral processes and civil discourse in the EU.”
This includes, among other things, the functioning of TikTok’s video recommendation algorithm and the response to “the risk of deliberate manipulation through coordinated inauthentic use of the service.”
TikTok influenced victory of far-right presidential candidate – Romanian intelligence
Romanian intelligence’s declassified documents revealed that TikTok influenced the victory of far-right presidential candidate Calin Georgescu in the first round of the presidential elections in Romania.
Romanian President Klaus Iohannis has declassified documents from the last meeting of the Supreme National Defense Council, the country’s highest security body, regarding the election campaign of far-right candidate Calin Georgescu, which secured his unexpected victory in the first round, Politico wrote.
The presidential administration said that Iohannis, at the request of the bodies that prepared the relevant documents, agreed to declassify the information reported by the internal intelligence service, foreign intelligence service, special communications service, and the Interior Ministry at a meeting of the Supreme National Defense Council on November 28.
“Aggressive promotion campaign bypassing national legislation”
The document from the Romanian Information Service, as quoted by the Romanian media, says that the data obtained indicate an aggressive promotion campaign bypassing national legislation and using the algorithms of “some social networks” to rapidly increase the popularity of Georgescu. The campaign began to expand about two weeks before the election.
According to the investigation, arround 25,000 TikTok accounts were part of a network directly associated with Calin Georgescu’s campaign and became very active in those two weeks.
They also point to the “zero” campaign expenses declared by Georgescu and, at the same time, indications that one of the Romanian TikTok account, “bogpr,” run by a Romanian, Bogdan Pesir, was involved in financing the campaign in favor of Georgescu and spent more than a million euros on it.
TikTok confirmed the identity of the person behind the account, and payments of about 381 thousand dollars from October 24 to November 24 were made to the accounts of some of the platform’s users involved in the promotion of Georgescu.
The special service also discovered that the FameUp platform monetized online promotion activities by paying influencers on TikTok. In some cases, the influencers were engaged in cooperation by contacting FA Agency, a South African-registered company, via email and offering a thousand euros for distributing the video they created.
Romania is the target of Russian hybrid operations – intelligence
In addition, Romanian intelligence service assessed in its report that Romania “is the target of Russian hybrid operations, including cyberattacks, information theft, and sabotage.”
It is reported that Russian political talk shows have been spreading the idea that pro-Russian forces could win more than 30% of Romania’s parliamentary elections.
The social network denied the allegations in a statement published by the AFP agency.
Romania’s presidential election and the far-right candidate
Populist, anti-European, and pro-Russian sentiments have increased in Romania, and propaganda has played a significant role in this. As a result, ultra-nationalist and pro-Russian candidate Calin Georgescu sensationally finished first in the first round of the presidential election.
On December 8, Romania will hold a second round of presidential elections, where Calin Georgescu and pro-EU liberal candidate Elena Lasconi will compete.
This week, Georgescu made statements that if he wins, he will ban the continuation of Ukrainian grain exports through Romania and further military aid to Ukraine.
Since Russia started an all-out war against Ukraine, Romania has helped export millions of tons of Ukrainian grain through its Black Sea port of Constanta, helped train Ukrainian pilots, and provided Kyiv with a Patriot air defense battery to help protect the country against Russian attacks. All of this will stop if he wins, Mr. Georgescu said.
