Did a Romanian fascist manipulate TikTok to take lead in race for presidency?

Effective social media strategies work in politics. But observers and critics say a far-right candidate from Romania, Calin Georgescu, might have manipulated TikTok with the help of thousands of bots to win the first round of the presidential elections.

Georgescu took a shock lead in the first round by securing 22.9% of the vote, followed by center-right opposition leader Elena Lasconi with 19.2%. They’re set to face off in the second round of voting on December 8th.

No one expected Georgescu to perform so well, but hey, in a democracy, you’ve got to respect the electorate's choice. Unless, of course, the candidate’s camp messed with the playing field during the campaign.

Georgescu’s critics say that’s precisely what happened on the internet because he allegedly skewed the democratic process by conducting a covert operation on social media platforms, especially TikTok.

Catchy clips online

Sure, Georgescu, previously virtually unknown in the EU member country of 19 million people, has managed to use platforms like TikTok effectively to sway voter opinion and convince quite a few of them with his ideas.

The latter are controversial. He’s called Ukraine, Romania’s neighbor at war with Russia, an “invented country,” praised the Russian president Vladimir Putin, and denied the existence of COVID-19.

Georgescu has also said that Romania’s former dictator and Nazi ally during WWII, Marshal Ion Antonescu was a “martyr who also did good deeds” – even though Antonescu’s forces collaborated with the Germans to kill 350,000 Romanian Jews.

Controversial isn’t illegal, of course, and if Georgescu’s platform attracted enough votes to get him through to the second round of the election, these statements have clearly worked.

But observers and Romanian authorities say that Georgescu’s campaign has been using fake bot accounts to fabricate comments on social media, thus creating fake virality and catapulting the candidate’s content into users’ feeds.

If you were wondering how elections can be influenced. This is a bot farm that spawned an unknown candidate from Romania and placed him in the top to everyone's surprise. This is how a tik tok bot farm looks like:https://t.co/9M4RP1Myoz#alegeriprezidenţiale2024… pic.twitter.com/01jw68ZWvL

undefined Dan's Odyssey (@dan_tfhc) November 25, 2024

To be fair, though, the TikTok clips were truly catchy. Accompanied by dramatic music and subtitles, they showed Georgescu working out, doing judo, or riding a white horse in a traditional Romanian shirt.

The posts garnered over 100 million views in the weeks before the vote. That’s stunning for Romania where eight million people use TikTok.

However, Romania’s Supreme Council of Defense also said in a statement that TikTok had failed to mark Georgescu’s videos as campaign content, meaning his clips weren’t categorized under an election code as required by Romanian law.

The council said this increased Georgescu’s visibility and had an impact on the final result of the vote, adding that other candidates were recognized by TikTok’s algorithms and had their content “massively filtered.”

Why did they vote for him, then?

A spokesperson for TikTok told Politico that the company denies that Georgescu was treated differently by the platform than other candidates.

“It is categorically false to claim his account was treated differently to any other candidate,” spokesperson Paolo Ganino told the outlet. Ganino added that Georgescu was treated "in the same way as every other candidate on TikTok, and subject to exactly the same rules and restrictions."

Even if Georgescu’s camp somehow manipulated his reach online, this still wouldn’t explain why so many Romanians chose to vote for him.

Still, TikTok has actually banned all political advertising on the app since 2019 and claims that it “doesn’t fit” with the company’s goal of making the platform a place that “brings people together.”

Romania’s National Audiovisual Council has also already urged the EU social media regulators to intervene. In 2022, the bloc passed the Digital Services Act, requiring online platforms to fight systemic risks, including disinformation and election interference.

The country’s Constitutional Court is even mulling over a decision on whether to annul the results of the first round of a presidential election. The ruling is expected on Monday.

However, some observers also say that Romanian elites have simply missed Georgescu’s rise by concentrating on traditional campaigning while the firebrand has targeted – and reached – disappointed voters with direct messaging on social media.

According to the Reuters Institute, many Romanians consider online media, including social networks, a bigger source of news than TV or print. Only 27% trust the traditional news media.

Finally, even if Georgescu’s camp somehow manipulated his reach online, this still wouldn’t explain why so many Romanians chose to vote for him.

Surely, if his ideas are so repulsive, their increased visibility would deter voters from supporting him. Maybe Romanians really like what Georgescu is saying?