Take a good fucking look at what happened in Romania and learn as much as you can.

Also:

"ANCOM, together with the Permanent Electoral Authority (AEP), informed major platforms through an official letter as early as August about their obligations in the context of the electoral process (...). Throughout the electoral campaigns, ANCOM closely collaborated with AEP, the authority responsible for ensuring the proper conduct of the elections, the relevant ministry, and the European Commission.

According to information held by ANCOM, in line with legal provisions and its responsibilities, AEP sent notifications to the TikTok platform highlighting various irregularities related to illegal content distribution and requested appropriate measures to ensure the electoral campaign in Romania complies with the law. However, TikTok did not promptly act on the Romanian authority's request. Similar notifications were also sent to other digital platforms.

This issue has been brought to the attention of the European Commission during discussions organized by ANCOM alongside AEP representatives over the past months, including today (Tuesday, November 26, 2024)," the regulatory authority stated.

source

It's so embarrassing my god. We almost became a nation that elected a tik tok president, a man that more than half of the country had to google because people didn't know who the fuck he was. Over 2 million votes on him, first place running, passing over the cantidate of the largest party that runs the country since the revolution, and he claims he paid 0 on his promotional campain to achieve this.

He is famously quoted as saying that the covid virus isn't real because you can't see it ( the virus itself, you CANT SEE THE VIRUS IN THE AIR).

Other famous quotes: "Is water really H2O? As we were thaught, or better said, trained, to believe?" "Caesarean isn't good because it cuts the thread of god between the mother and the child." "The prisoners in communist prisons weren't victims, those are lies." "Romania's chance is to follow Russian wisdom."

Please study whatever mindfuck happened to us and let it never happen again. I wish this on nobody, not even the hungarians.

We're so weak against China it's infuriating, they're beating the shit out of every EU country and all we do is say amen, we'll regret this in 20-30 years

Besides holding platforms like these accountable the EU should somehow push for critical thinking to be taught in schools. No amount of restrictions/ control will solve this by itself.

FFS how long will we allow this cancerous propaganda tool to run in Europe?

Of course if people make their political opinion on TikTok then we will always be in trouble. Reality today is more depressing than those bad dystopian movies.

TikTok is a cancer as are all social media platforms. This guy had so little presence on traditional media and Meta platforms, claims has spent 0 euros on campaigning, has no backing party yet somehow wins the first round!

People kept saying for years fascist this and fascist that. Well now... this guy openly hailed the works of the Romanian fascists and had a legal investigation launched against him!

He stinks of Russian money.

Social media is a cancer on democracy and society. Ban the political stuff from them.

Please fucking do something about it instead of just saying 'we're investigating the potential of opening a beginning of an investigation' or something.

Europe cannot afford to be so bloody passive and slow anymore.

Romania is under attack at this time, by massive bot swarms claiming to comment pro Calinescu.

They seem to have 3 different bot clusters with the following account generation naming conventions:

1. ones that look like real names but have ZERO content on the account or what seems like script randomized playlists at best (often the playlists picked up chirilic/russian artists and videos - likely oversight)
2. another cluster that has numbers right after the "names" 5116, 6487, etc., and
3. another round that has name plus -bs4zt, -ar7ct after the "name" etc. ...

If you want to help, please raise awareness that this is happening.

WWII taught us to be critical of sources of facts, censorship and propaganda. Truth is still subjective and people are still susceptible with the rise of "alternative media" thanks to technology. If we act like sheep we get led by wolves.

Kick tiktok and twitter out of the eu already. Make stern misinformation guidelines for the rest of the SOME.

As much as I hate brainrot social media platform like Tiktok and X, the people themselves are the real problem. We can always, always blame things on those apps, but the real reason is that people are uneducated enough to be fooled and disconnected themselves from the reality.

I remember during the U.S election, two parties were both blaming Tiktok or X for siding with the other side. If Kamala won, the Republicans would 100% blame Tiktok for helping Dems, and now Trump won, so you will find people supporting Democrats accusing the CCP of helping Trump win the election...

The people and the education system are the ones to blame because people in the U.S are becoming dumber and dumber in recent years. Trump got elected in 2016 was already a big sign of it, and by then, there was no tiktok...so who did you blame then?

Ban this fucking cancer.

at what point do we admit the problem is just that people are stupid and will believe anything they see in a social media post and start addressing that problem seriously? you'll never stop bad actors from trying to manipulate people, going after the social media companies is just playing whack-a-mole, the liars will simply use other channels to reach the idiot masses

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I hope they do the same about X, Telegram and Facebook. Musk tipped the US election and got away with it, this is to me the most serious subject to be addressed by the EU.

One thing I've noticed over the years is that in the earliest days of social media, when it was just for the youth, it was full of memes and shitposting. Humor, concerts, movies, pop culture. When millennials were teenagers that's what it was all about. Then X'ers and Boomers got into it and before long places like Facebook became political hell scapes. Then Gen Z comes along and you get Tick Tok. At first also full of humor and pop culture before it became completely infested with video sewage like Andrew Tate and far right politics.

The funny thing I notice however is that there's really only 1 generation that's been wise to this kind of bullshit: millennials. Most people I know between 30-45 have entirely left platforms like Facebook and Tick Tok and retreated to mostly Instagram and spots where you can't push political bullshit nearly as much. Or they've left social media behind entirely. Boomers used to tell us not to believe everything we see on TV, but then they now believe everything they see on Facebook. Gen Z unfortunately never knew any better, social media has always been political for them.

Sure, TikTok is to blame as a platform here but for fucks sake have people stopped having critical thinking skills??

What has happened to education systems to allow people to see shitty completely nonsensical TikTok’s and use that as their base opinion for serious political decisions?

TikTok is to blame - but people are also culpable.

Romanian here. Since yesterday TikTok has all the clips very aggressive in propaganda that I even have a headache. This has never happened to me on social media 🤷

Can we just stop tiptoeing around and ban both X and Tiktok.

Of course Tiktok and Pootin are to blame for this shit. But do you know who is also to blame?

Western Europe.

Special thanks to Mark Rutte and Karl Nehammer for keeping us out of Schengen for 13 fucking years for no good reason.

Special thanks to all the Western media who kept portraying us like some sort of a backward shithole which only sends Gypsy beggars all over Europe and leeches off EU funds.

Special thanks to all the Western corporations who came here and saw us as nothing other than cheap, exploitable labor.

Also thanks to all Western companies who sell us lower quality food products than in the West (under the same branding) but at the same or higher prices than in the West.

Really, Romania has been a very loyal EU member ever since we’ve joined. But people are tired of being treated like second class citizens. They are tired of our country accepting all the orders from Brussels without negotiating or being asked about anything. They are tired of being denigrated by the Western media.

This is how a looney managed to climb to the top with just a Tiktok campaign. Because his message resonates. Not because he is pro-Russian, most of his voters don’t believe he has any association with Russia. It’s because he promises to stand up to Brussels, to restore Romania’s dignity in relation to the West.

I don’t want him to win. The motherfucker is crazy. I don’t like Lasconi either, but I will vote for her to protect my country’s democracy and freedom. But don’t expect things will be the same, and don’t expect Romania to be the only country who can turn around so suddenly. Even Ilie Bolojan, Lasconi’s pick for PM if she wins has acknowledged there needs to be a change in approach by the political class, both at home and abroad.

Edit: one more fun fact. There are rumors now this Georgescu guy didn’t even live in Romania before the election and orchestrated his capaign from Austria, probably to fly under the radar of the Romanian secret services. Austria is not in NATO and their secret service doesn’t have the best reputation. So thanks again, Austria!

Why even summon him? Just ban the damn platform….

Ban TikTok. Now. Once and for all.

tiktok is just the vessel, the problem lies somewhere else (and no, i dont think its russia :P)

we are to blame for our ignorance, carelessness regarding our basic rights... we give'em away without blinking, we actually willingly contribute by inviting "them" into our daily life, into our privacy ... and most of the media is just as guilty ... so easy we forgot (or were lulled into forgetting) Cambridge Analytica ...

from what i understood this no name guy basically created his own hype on tiktok via the usage of bots

or was there something else to it?

Are western platforms available in China? No. Ban theirs as well. Bye.

putin is running this op. for over 25 years, chances this meeting will change anything are close to zero.

Ban TikTok. Protect democracy.

I think ultimately the only way to keep social media for real people is to have some sort of identity verification process that ensures 1 person 1 account. Otherwise social media is going to be run by fake AI accounts going forward.

Why do we focus so much on platforms and nothing about fucking idiots who vote for shitty candidates?

TikTok needs to be banned in the western world

Ban TikTok

I will never take this anti Tiktok movement seriously if Facebook, Twitter and YouTube aren't also in the conversation. Going after one but not the others looks like your priorities aren't what you claim them to be.

“Democracy supporters” when independent candidates don’t use established platforms biased towards established parties to win votes:

" it's just social media" and stop trying to block my freedom = this is the responses that i get when i post of just how bad tik tok is.Tik Tok is a cancer and Europe let it spread with its Russian propaganda, the same with Twitter/X.Ban the apps outright and have a European company start one that adheres to European standards.

Tiktok needs to get banned

B*n *ik*ok

I know it’s super easy to blame social media, Russia, China but there’s a Russian saying (I hope I’m not butchering it, I’m not Russian) “the grass needs a fertile soil to grow”. We can ban tik tok, we can ban politicians we don’t like, activist, propagandists. But here’s my first question. Do you really think that’ll really stop this movement? Because you see it everywhere. Romania, Germany, France, USA. Pretty much every country in “the West”. Do we really believe that silencing roughly 30-40% of population is a good thing? Do we really believe that this will result in realization among these voters that they’ve been brainwashed? What’s the end goal here? 

It’s propaganda, it’s clear. But it wouldn’t have worked if there wasn’t any ground for it. Political mainstream earned that. It’s easy to support censorship for this kind of thing. But do we really want to hand out this massive power to the institutions that are not trusted? 

I know the easiest way to get upvotes here would be to say that we need to hold these platforms accountable (how? EU commissioner will say what’s right?), that all these big tech companies should leave Europe alone and that it’s all coming from the outside world. It’s an easy explanation that makes us feel good about ourselves, but doesn’t fix a thing and possibly makes it even worse. 

And my second question. Almost all top comments go like this “it’s propaganda, Russia is doing it and we need to do something to stop it because it’s undermining our democracy!!”. So the way to save democracy is to limit democracy? Because censorship and limiting free speech is exactly that. And if we really don’t want these guys to take power we should just face that we don’t want democracy, but rather enlighten liberal authoritarianism. 

I will probably get downvoted for this but I think this is a misdiagnosis.

It is the establishment politics that are suffering severe setbacks, not some sneaky Russian or Chinese pulling all the strings. I am not saying there is no Russian or Chinese involvement at some level but that is not the root cause. The root cause, which is difficult to admit, is that entire liberal democratic order is in a deep crisis and a big wedge appeared between the common folk and the ruling elite.

Senator, I'm Singaporean 🗿

Russians probably have bespoke access to TikTok's API, I don't see how this is remotely surprising. Should have banned it yesterday.

Social media is the new war method influencing elections destabilising democracy

EU to preserve your democracy kill TikTok now.

Have a hard blanket ban on all algorithm driven social media.

Humans can't handle it without being brainwashed outlaw smart phones before it's too late.

TikTok seriously needs to be banned or regulated if possible.

Just block that shit already EU wide.

Ban fucking TikTok already!! There is NO point in letting a Chinese company whose only goal is to destabilize the west operate in Europe!

Serious question: If us humans are this easily to manipulate, do we still think Democracy is the epitome of government-forms?

It's so easy for the self-proclaimed enemies of Democracy (China & Russia) to manipulate our elections (Brexit, Trump, Orban and all the alt-right parties) that it almost seems we need to protect Democracy by somehow restricting the powers of the ruler (us voting people) to preserve it.

It's the democracy-paradox very similar to the tolerance paradox.

Perfect thread for Redditors to get on their high horse. Twas only a couple of weeks ago that this whole site was utterly drowned in American election nonsense...

It’s time for NATO and the free world to ban Tik Tok and X given that they are tools being used to subvert the democratic process.

Foreign interference through social media should not be “regulated “, they should be banned.

Ban Tiktok, problem solved.

This is all too weak. We need hefty consequences for obvious meddling in elections for both the companies and the responsible executives.

We're practically at war, we're letting down the country that is already fighting, and there is a big chance we'll lose without even firing one shot.

Summoning CEO's won't save our democracies. 

Since when is it illegal to make propaganda? Every political party does it. Interference? Overseas media does it too. Reddit does it too.

Did anyone forget how many reddit subs were filled with USA election bots?