The centre-right Romanian National Freedom Party paid for a TikTok campaign that ended up endorsing far-right independent candidate Călin Georgescu, according to a new report from investigative outlet snoop.ro.
Georgescu rose from obscurity to the frontrunner in the first round of Romania’s presidential election on November 24. However, Romania’s Supreme Constitutional Court eventually canceled the vote due to a TikTok campaign that strongly promoted the pro-Russian Gheorgescu. Similar to the influence operations run by the Kremlin in Ukraine and Moldova to influence election results.
According to a snoop.ro report, Romania’s National Tax Service discovered that the Liberal Party had used influencers to pay for social media campaigns on TikTok and instead promoted hijacked hashtags to benefit Georgescu. The Liberals are the outgoing government’s junior coalition partner, and their candidate Nicolae Ciuca finished fifth in the annulled first round of voting.
The National Liberal Party paid an external company, Kensington Communication, to implement the social media campaign. Kensington Communication wrote in a statement: “If the campaign has been copied or misappropriated in favor of a particular candidate, we ask them to check with the competent authorities and take necessary legal action.” The company also said the script it sent to influencers for the campaign had changed.
The first round of the Romanian presidential election was canceled, plunging Romania into a serious political crisis. The European Commission has launched a formal investigation into how TikTok manages the risk of election interference in response to the situation in Romania.
