Importance Score: 65 / 100 🔴
In the lead-up to the election, a promotional drive utilizing the hashtag “stability and integrity” deluged Romanian TikTok users. Social media personalities shared videos outlining their preferences for a future leader: “stability,” “advancement,” and “a patriot.” The visuals posted failed to endorse an explicit candidate.
Investigation Into Shadowy Influencer Campaigns
Influencers were compensated to upload videos containing these slogans through a marketing service named FameUp, which enables brands to engage influencers en masse to endorse products. However, the influencers asserted they were unaware of the true funders.
FameUp refrained from offering a response to inquiries.
Influencers Unaware of Campaign Backers
Cristina, a content creator from Iasi, stated that when she accepted the assignment, she sensed “nothing dubious about it.” She mentioned that in the back of her mind, she suspected one of the fourteen aspiring candidates might be behind it and considered it “a clever strategy.” She believed it was not political propaganda but rather an encouragement for citizens to participate in the voting process.
Several influencers neglected to label the posts as sponsored material, which defies TikTok policies that prohibit paid political advertisements.
Suspicions of Political Bias in Comments
Despite the ads avoiding direct mention of Georgescu’s name, influencers intervieweed reported an influx of comments favoring his campaign that surfaced beneath the clips. Romeo Rusu, a micro-influencer from Constanta with 25,000 accounts, mentioned, “Immediately after posting the video, within a few seconds, I began receiving numerous comments. In the end, I received approximately 300 comments, all endorsing the independent candidate Calin Georgescu… I was genuinely astonished.”
TikTok’s Battle Against Inauthentic Engagement
The comments garnered attention after TikTok disclosed in a report that it had eliminated a network exceeding 27,000 deceptive accounts that “employed fictitious personas to publish comments related to the Romanian elections.”
The origin of these bot accounts remains unclear.
Experts note that inundating unrelated videos with pro-Georgescu comments was a method to manipulate TikTok’s algorithm, aiming to make his name a trending topic. This would subsequently increase his content’s reach to more users’ feeds.
TikTok’s Efforts During the Election Campaign
A TikTok representative disclosed to the BBC that during the presidential campaign, the company “blocked millions of counterfeit engagement attempts.” They also stated that they removed hundreds of thousands of spam accounts, prevented impostors from posing as political candidates, and disrupted three clandestine networks attempting to influence the election with limited success.
“We persist in liaising closely with local and EU authorities and collaborate with local organizations to amplify accurate election information,” the spokesperson added.
The Truth Behind the “Stability and Integrity” Drive
The ambiguity surrounding the campaign linged to the new year until a surprising development emerged in January. In January, Romanian fiscal authorities disclosed that the #stabilityandintegrity campaign had been financed by the center-right National Liberal Party (PNL), who were backing their own candidate in the elections.
In reply, the PNL communicated to Romanian journalists that their campaign had been commandeered to endorse Georgescu.