The social media company TikTok has said in a report that during Romania’s 2024 presidential election campaign, far-right party AUR and independent pro-Russia candidate Călin Georgescu benefited from the content of more than 27,000 fake accounts.
Romania annulled a presidential election last December following intelligence reports that Russia had interfered in the vote and was responsible for the surprise first-round victory of outsider Georgescu. Georgescu has been barred from standing in a re-run of the ballot to be held in May.
TikTok’s report was submitted to the European Commission under the company’s obligations as a signatory to the Code of Practice on Disinformation. The Chinese-owned video-sharing platform said it had removed 27,217 accounts as part of a network targeting Romanian users.
“We assess that this network was operated through a fake engagement provider (online interactions) and targeted a Romanian audience,” the report states. “The people behind this network used inauthentic accounts to promote the political party AUR and the independent candidate Călin Georgescu, in an attempt to manipulate the discourse of the elections in Romania.”
TikTok said the number of impressions for advertisements removed under its political content policy stood at over 27 million for Romania last year. The network said more than 10,000 ads were removed for Romania.
In addition, over 11 million fake ‘likes’ were removed, and more than 14 million fake followers.
TikTok said the 27,000 fake accounts it deleted were followed by more than 70,000 other accounts at the time of their removal. It said the network “operated via a fake engagement vendor, which attempted to promote the AUR political party and independent candidate Călin Georgescu through posting comments at scale.”
TikTok’s report was submitted to the European Commission under the company’s obligations as a signatory to the Code of Practice on Disinformation. The Chinese-owned video-sharing platform said it had removed 27,217 accounts as part of a network targeting Romanian users.
“We assess that this network was operated through a fake engagement provider (online interactions) and targeted a Romanian audience,” the report states. “The people behind this network used inauthentic accounts to promote the political party AUR and the independent candidate Călin Georgescu, in an attempt to manipulate the discourse of the elections in Romania.”
TikTok said the number of impressions for advertisements removed under its political content policy stood at over 27 million for Romania last year. The network said more than 10,000 ads were removed for Romania.
In addition, over 11 million fake ‘likes’ were removed, and more than 14 million fake followers.
TikTok said the 27,000 fake accounts it deleted were followed by more than 70,000 other accounts at the time of their removal. It said the network “operated via a fake engagement vendor, which attempted to promote the AUR political party and independent candidate Călin Georgescu through posting comments at scale.”
Russia-linked troll farm
The Romania Journal news site reported that Romanian authorities have only investigated Georgescu’s TikTok activity rather than AUR’s.
George Simion, leader of the AUR party, which has been accused of being pro-Russian, was accepted as a presidential candidate in May’s election rerun.
The news service also wrote that Romania has requested assistance from officials in Turkey, where a Russia-linked troll farm is believed to have operated to Georgescu’s benefit.
Romania Journal claimed the troll farm had created over 20,000 TikTok accounts using Russian email addresses.
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