Will TikTok be suspended in Romania after ultranationalist’s stunning win?

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Alison Mutler
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Pavel Popescu, the deputy chairman of Romania’s national media regulator,ANCOM, has requested that TikTok platforms on the territory of Romania are suspended pending a probe into the manipulation of the first round of elections.

TikTok is under mounting pressure to explain how it handled political content in Romania after  ultranationalist, pro-Russian firebrand Călin Georgescu was propelled to a shock win  in part thanks to his sudden surge on TikTok.

“I request, starting tomorrow, 28.11.2024, the SUSPENSION of the TikTok platform on the territory of Romania, until the completion of the investigation by state institutions regarding the manipulation of the electoral process of 24.11.2024 (first round of presidential elections),” he said in an announcement posted on Facebook.

President Klaus Iohannis has convened Romania’s top security body on Thursday to discuss  “possible risks to national security generated by the actions of state and non-state cyber actors on some IT&C infrastructures, (and) support for the electoral process.”

Researchers are now examining how Georgescu who grew his audience to more than 370,000 followers on his TikTok account manipulated his sudden rise in the polls.

“We believed that Tiktok was misused and was led to be misused by him and an army of fake accounts that were used for his purpose,” said Bogdan Manolea, executive director of the Romanian campaign group, Association for Technology and Internet.

Others pointed to the use of influencers that did not label their content as paid advertising. TikTok bans paid political advertising.

The move came after Romania asked the EU to investigate TikTok’s election handling after an ultranationalist’s stunning win in the first round of presidential elections. Bucharest have authorities found “various irregularities” with election campaigns on TikTok.

Ancom informed the European Commission on Tuesday that TikTok had “not acted swiftly” to requests to secure the election, it said according to a press release.

A top EU lawmaker demanded  on Tuesday that TikTok’s chief executive appear before the European Parliament to answer questions. Romanian NGOs have asked the EC to loomk into whether TikTok and other platforms complied with Europe’s social media laws.

Officials had flagged “various irregularities related to the illegally distributed content” to TikTok and requested the platform to take measures to make sure the election was held “under legal conditions,” but the platform had not responded satisfactorily, it said.

The Romanian case is complicated for the European Commission as investigating TikTok’s role in how the vote unfurled could be seen as meddling in national elections. Romanians are scheduled to head to the polls for a parliament election on December 1 and a presidential runoff on Dec. 8.

Romanian Prime Minister Marcel Ciolacu on Tuesday said Georgescu’s campaign on TikTok needed to be reviewed: “It’s a system, I don’t know how legal it is, I understood how the system was used. The source of financing, in my opinion, is to be followed, ‘follow the money.'”

TikTok’s spokesperson in Brussels, Paolo Ganino, said in a statement that the “highly speculative reports about the Romanian elections are inaccurate and misleading, as most candidates have established a TikTok presence and the winners campaigned on other digital platforms beyond ours.”

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