The interference that you don't expect and makes you look unclean…
As you all know by now, the presidential elections in Romania were completely canceled – with a coup intervention by the Constitutional Court – on the grounds that the “wrong” candidate had won in the first round, the little-known Georgescu, of the far right but considered “pro- Russian” because he is against NATO and greater Romanian involvement in the war in Ukraine.
The “credit” for its unexpected success was found in a campaign on Tik Tok, which also cost very little (around 300 thousand euros), which would only have been possible due to direct intervention by Russia.
This was enough to decide to cancel the entire electoral process, waiting to find a way to prevent the situation from happening again and guarantee the victory of the “pro-European” and pro-Ukraine candidate.
Furthermore, raising general dismay, because in every Western country every candidate resorts to a vast series of campaigns on social media (Obama's success, in his time, thanks to Facebook and Twitter is memorable), and no one had ever dreamed of canceling for this an election.
But we are now in times and mentalities of war (Mark Rutte, secretary of NATO, arrived late for the umpteenth time), and therefore nothing matters anymore except “which side are you on”: with the EU and NATO or against or “neutral”. And if you are not an enthusiastic warmonger (Nazi or Dembratico-liberal. It's all the same) then you are necessarily “a Putinian, paid by Russia”.
Now the header Politicocertainly oriented on the “right” side, discovered that in reality that campaign on Tik Tok had been paid for by the liberal candidate Nicolae Ciucă – i.e. the party currently in government! – finished in fifth place, probably in an attempt to divert votes from the main far-right candidate, Simion.
But the “script” relating to the messages was applied so badly (or copied) that it favored the other candidates, and especially Georgescu.
If instead they had ended up with a “right” candidate – pro-Nato, in short – everything would have been “democratically correct” and the “popular will” to be respected without any ifs or buts.
Now it will certainly be fun to see how Western politicians, institutions, states and media will climb the mirrors… But it is all too clear that the “centrality of the vote” within a parliamentary democracy is becoming a joke. Which isn't funny…
Happy reading.
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Romania's center-right National Liberal Party (PNL) funded a campaign on TikTok which, according to a new report from the investigative site snoop.roended up benefiting the far-right independent candidate Călin Georgescu.
Georgescu rose from anonymity to lead the first round of Romania's presidential election on November 24.
However, the country's Constitutional Court annulled the vote due to a TikTok campaign that heavily promoted Georgescu, known for his pro-Russian positions, with a possible impact on the election results, similar to influence operations run by the Kremlin in Ukraine and Moldova.
According to the report of snoop.roRomania's tax agency found that the liberals had paid for a social media campaign on TikTok using influencers and promoting a hashtag that was later hijacked to benefit Georgescu.
The Liberals, who are a minority partner in the outgoing government coalition, had candidate Nicolae Ciucă, who placed fifth in the canceled first round.
The National Liberal Party had outsourced the management of the social media campaign to an external agency, Kensington Communication.
In a statement, Kensington Communication said: “If the campaign has been cloned or hijacked in favor of one candidate or another, we ask the competent bodies to verify and take the necessary legal measures.”
The company also said that the script distributed to influencers for the campaign had been altered.
The cancellation of the first round of the Romanian presidential elections has thrown the country into a deep political crisis. The European Commission has launched a formal investigation into how TikTok handles the risks of election interference in response to the situation in Romania.
* Yes Politico
December 22, 2024 – © Reproduction possible WITH EXPLICIT CONSENT of the CONTROPIANO EDITORIAL TEAM
Last modified: December 22, 2024, 6.35 pm
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