He is nicknamed the “Tiktok messiah.” Călin Georgescu, nationalist and pro-Russian candidate in the Romanian presidential elections, won, to everyone’s surprise, this Sunday, November 24, the first round of voting. He thus obtained 23% of the votes.
However, this 62-year-old technocrat was until now little known in the country. He did not organize any meetings or campaign in the streets. The polls gave him just a few points. The candidate owes his dazzling popularity at the polls to his campaign conducted exclusively on Tiktok. Enough to raise questions at national and European level.
Many procedures
This Wednesday, November 27, Pavel Popescu, Secretary of State and Vice President of Ancom, regulatory authority for the media and the digital sector in Romania, announced that he wanted to start a procedure “to suspend the Tiktok platform in the territory of Romania.” until the end of the investigation into the manipulation of the electoral process”, after the publication of disturbing elements about the role of the social network, Reuters reports.
A day earlier, the Romanian National Audiovisual Council had already asked the European Commission to open an investigation, pointing out a violation of the Digital Services Regulation (DSA) following the candidate’s massive influence campaign. As part of this regulation, Tiktok has the obligation to “assess and mitigate systemic risks related to electoral processes.”
Finally, the current president, Klaus Iohannis, called a meeting of Romania’s Supreme Council of National Defense to discuss cyber risks related to the elections. On the agenda: “the possible risks to national security generated by the actions of state and non-state cyber actors on certain computer and technological infrastructures used for the electoral process,” states a statement from the presidency.
“Sells a utopian story”
It all started last September on Tiktok, a social network used by more than 9 million users in Romania. Călin Georgescu was not yet a candidate. “Videos with a hashtag in their name began to appear in September, they were quickly spread by hundreds of accounts that used the same hashtag and accumulated hundreds of millions of views,” Madalina Voinea, a social media specialist in the electoral sector, analyzes for Le Monde. . Monitoring of the NGO Expert Forum.
In October he officially announced his candidacy and his publications were a success. The politician, followed by 440,000 subscribers, has almost 5 million likes on his Tiktok account. His videos usually reach one million views and, in some cases, more than 6 million views.
In his publications he claims that Covid and the war in Ukraine do not exist, praises Russian President Vladimir Putin and calls the EU “the enemy of Romanians.” In one of his videos, he states that Ukrainian refugee children in Romania would receive 3,700 lei (about 745 euros) in social benefits, compared to “248 lei” [50 euros] for the same Romanian child of the same age. A statement that turns out to be false.
“Error and misleading” reports
For his part, Călin Georgescu maintains that he obtained these results only “thanks to his volunteers.” An argument refuted by many influencers. One of them told Le Monde that he had been paid to share messages asking for votes, without knowing that these publications were hidden propaganda for the extremist candidate. The cameramen had to mention the hashtag #echilibrusiverticalitate (“balance and verticality”, in Romanian), a keyword used by Călin Georgescu.
A method that raises concerns about possible manipulation of public opinion and a lack of transparency in the treatment of political content through the application of short videos.
“This inaccurate information about the Romanian elections is erroneous and misleading, because the majority of candidates established their presence on Tiktok and the winners campaigned on digital platforms other than ours,” Tiktok responded to AFP, stating that it “rigorously applies the rules.” against electoral disinformation”. ”.
If the social network is suspended due to suspicion of electoral manipulation, it would be a first in the European Union. The second round of the presidential elections will take place on December 8 in Romania. He will pit Călin Georgescu against the pro-European candidate Elena Kasconi. The elections are the subject of special attention from observers, as the current Romanian government provides essential support to Ukraine.
Source: BFM TV
