The European Commission is set to hold a summit with Romanian authorities and TikTok as regulators in Bucharest threatened to suspend the Chinese-owned social media platform over its role in a presidential election stunner.
A first-round vote on Sunday propelled the ultranationalist, pro-Russian firebrand Călin Georgescu to a shock victory in part thanks to his sudden popularity on TikTok.
The app is under mounting pressure to explain how it handled political content in Romania. Bucharest has asked the European Commission to launch a formal investigation into the app under the bloc’s social media rules, and a top EU lawmaker demanded Tuesday that TikTok’s chief executive appear before the European Parliament to answer questions.
Pavel Popescu, vice president of the National Authority for Management and Regulation in Communications of Romania (ANCOM), said Wednesday he would launch the “official process” to block TikTok in Romania.
“I request, starting … 28.11.2024, the suspension of the TikTok platform on the territory of Romania, until the completion of the investigation by the state institutions regarding the manipulation of the electoral process,” Pavel Popescu wrote on Facebook, a remark widely reported by local media. Popescu’s Facebook account was deactivated later on Wednesday.
The country’s President Klaus Iohannis is holding a meeting Thursday with top national security officials to discuss possible risks “generated by the actions of state and non-state cyber actors.” Iohannis did not mention TikTok by name.
In a letter seen by POLITICO on Thursday morning, TikTok — owned by Chinese technology giant ByteDance — refuted allegations it had been used to influence the Romanian election.
“To date, we have found no evidence of a Covert Influence Operation on our platform within the last several weeks for the ongoing presidential election in Romania, nor evidence of foreign influence,” the platform said in the letter addressed to Romanian authorities. It added it had “removed over 150 impersonation accounts linked to” Georgescu and more than 650 accounts linked to other candidates.
European Commission spokesperson Thomas Regnier confirmed this week the EU executive had received a request to open “a formal investigation into TikTok’s role in the Romanian elections” under its flagship social media law, the Digital Services Act.
The roundtable between Commission representatives, Romanian authorities and TikTok officials is slated to occur before the second round of the presidential election on Dec. 8, Regnier told POLITICO on Thursday.
Popescu alleged “thousands of accounts” on TikTok “sponsored by sources external to the Romanian state” worked to amplify Georgescu’s message.
“Unfortunately, they led to this outcome that we see today,” he told local media, adding the platform had ignored ANCOM’s concerns ahead of the vote and “turned its back on communications with the institutions of the Romanian state.”
TikTok rejects accusations that it played an improper role in Georgescu’s win. Spokesperson Paolo Ganino said in a statement that “highly speculative reports about the Romanian elections are inaccurate and misleading.”
Georgescu, an EU and NATO skeptic who has pro-Russia leanings, will take on reformist Elena Lasconi in a runoff on Dec. 8 with potentially seismic implications for the bloc.
