has led Brussels to open a formal investigation. The European Commission wants to find out if the application of the Chinese company ByteDance does enough to prevent its social network from being used to stop foreign interference and manipulate elections, “especially in the context of the recent Romanian presidential elections,” says the Community Executive in a statement. However, they are not the only elections that are of concern in the capital of the Union: at the end of this month there are also presidential elections in Croatia, legislative elections in Germany in February and presidential elections in Poland in the spring as well.
Early on November 24, the European Union woke up with a start: the Eurosceptic and pro-Russian candidate Calin Georgescu, whom few were counting on, had won the first round of the elections, without the polls giving him any indication. Suspicions of interference from Moscow through social networks soon arose. Already on December 5, Brussels ordered, based on the digital services regulation (DSA), to preserve all the documentation and information it had produced about these elections between November 24 and March 31. The next day, December 6, it was Romania’s Constitutional Court that went further. He did so on the basis that there was a campaign of “aggressive Russian hybrid attacks”, in which context it was discovered that more than 25,000 TikTok accounts had been created to promote the extremist candidate.
. The objective is to focus on paid advertisements and content on the social network and also on the recommendation systems it uses, especially automated campaigns, as explained by the Commission itself. For the technicians of the Community Executive, it is of special importance to know if the Chinese company has done enough to mitigate the risks that arise “due to regional and linguistic aspects.” This is based on the assumption that it is easier to control misinformation and manipulation in majority languages such as English or French than in others of lesser use, such as Romanian.
To take this step, the Commission points out that it has relied on the intelligence reports that the Romanian authorities have declassified. These documents were also taken into account by the Constitutional Court to annul the elections.
Commission sources point out that in the Romanian elections they have also detected payments to owners of Telegram channels to disseminate content. However, this investigation, which may have criminal sanctions, corresponds to the Romanian authorities. The same sources indicate that, for now, there is no formal attribution to Russia of the attacks, but they have observed a pattern of action already known from destabilization agents in that country.
The investigation opened this Tuesday has no predetermined deadlines. It depends on the complexity of the investigations, points out the Commission, which also remembers, as it always does, that the opening of a file does not imply a conviction nor does it prejudge an incriminating result for the company concerned.
“We must protect our democracies from any type of foreign interference. Whenever we suspect such interference, especially during elections, we must act quickly and firmly. “Following serious indications that foreign agents interfered in the Romanian presidential elections using TikTok, we are now thoroughly investigating whether TikTok has violated the law,” said , who does not usually make statements about specific files, unless they are of particular importance.
Voices have also been raised in the European Parliament about the need to control what happened. “What has happened in Romania has left the country mired in one of its biggest political crises in decades. It is an alarm signal for us, since it could happen in any future electoral process if we do not act quickly against algorithmic influence,” warned Alex Saliba, MEP of the Socialist Party of Romania, the ruling party in Bucharest.
