TikTok is facing accustions from regulators in Romania that content on the platform improperly influenced the country’s presidential election.
Romania’s Supreme Council of National Defense said in a statement on Thursday that one candidate “benefited from massive exposure due to preferential treatment” from TikTok.
Călin Georgescu, a far-right populist and ally of Russian President Vladimir Putin, defeated leftist Prime Minister Marcel Ciolacu, the heavy favorite, in the first round of presidential voting on November 24. Georgescu, who was virtually unknown before the election, catapulted from obscurity thanks in part to his viral TikTok videos.
The win secured Georgescu a place in a runoff vote scheduled for December 8. The Romanian Constitutional Court ordered a re-verification of the result following his surprise victory.
Georgescu has courted controversy with his pro-Russian and anti-NATO rhetoric, calling Ukraine an “invented country,” according to the Associated Press. Romania borders Ukraine and is a NATO member.
In its statement, the Romanian defense council said there is growing interest inside Russia to “influence the public agenda in Romanian society” and disrupt social cohesion.
Georgescu’s sudden popularity on TikTok appears to have helped fuel his election victory. One Romanian think tank told the AP that his TikTok following and engagement — his posts garnered over 100 million views in the weeks before the election — appeared “sudden and artificial.”
The Supreme Council of National Defense said TikTok, owned by the Chinese company ByteDance, failed to label the videos of one candidate — presumed to be Georgescu — as campaign content. The defense council said that not labeling the content as campaign-related drastically increased its visibility on TikTok.
“Thus, the visibility of that candidate increased significantly in relation to the other candidates who were recognized by the TikTok algorithms as candidates for the presidential elections, and the content promoted by them was massively filtered, exponentially decreasing their visibility among platform users,” the statement said.
The accusation against TikTok in Romania mirrors similar claims against Facebook during the 2016 US presidential election when Russia used the social media platform to sow discord that favored Republicans and Donald Trump.
TikTok has also faced scrutiny in the United States for allowing political ads that included disinformation in the lead-up to the 2024 presidential election.
TikTok did not immediately return a request for comment from Business Insider. A spokesperson for the company told Politico that it 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.”
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