Shortly before the election, a campaign using the hashtag “stability and integrity” flooded Romania’s Tiktok. The influencer uploaded a video explaining what he was looking for in the future president: “Stability”, “Progress”, “Patriot”.
They did not name any particular candidates.
They were paid to upload videos using these messages via a marketing platform called Fameup. This allows brands to hire large influencers to promote their products. But the influencers say they didn’t know who paid for it.
Fameup declined to comment to the BBC.
Cristina, an influencer for Iasi City, says she felt “nothing is suspicious about it” when she worked. She said, “Behind [her] Minds” She thought one of the 14 candidates would likely pay for it. It does not make political propaganda. It just encourages people to go out and vote.”
Some influencers did not mark the posts as paid content. This goes against Tiktok’s rules, which prohibit paid political advertising.
The ad did not mention Georgescu’s name, but the influencer we spoke to described a “wave of comments” in support of him, appearing under the video. “I started receiving comments within tens of seconds, right after posting the video within a few seconds. Ultimately, I received around 300 comments,” said Romeo Russ, a city of Constanca microinfluencer with 25,000 followers.
Comments focused after Tiktok said in a report that removed a network of over 27,000 fraudulent accounts saying that Tiktok “used a fictional persona to post comments related to the Romanian election.”
It is not yet clear who created these bot accounts.
Experts say that flooding unrelated videos with Pro-Georgescu’s comments is a tactic to game Tiktok’s algorithms and his name gets trends.
A Tiktok spokesperson told the BBC during the presidential election that the company “blocked millions of fake engagement attempts, removed hundreds of thousands of spam accounts, prevented spoofing political candidates, and disrupted three secret influence networks with limited reach.”
“We work closely with local and EU authorities and partner with local organisations to enhance reliable election information,” they said.
Uncertainty about the campaign continued into the New Year until January brought an astonishing twist.
Romanian tax authorities have revealed that the #StabilityandIntegrity campaign was paid by the Liberal Party of Central Right (PNL), who was supporting their candidates in the election.
In response, PNL told Romanian journalists on news outlet snoop that their campaign had been hijacked to support Georgescu.
