An Election Annulled Over a TikTok Surge
In December 2024, Romania's Constitutional Court annulled the first round of a presidential election after declassified intelligence alleged a Russia-linked influence operation on TikTok and Telegram had boosted a little-known outsider. It was the first time an EU member state voided a national vote over online manipulation.
On Dec. 6, 2024, Romania's Constitutional Court unanimously annulled the first round of the country's presidential election and ordered that the vote be run again from the start. The court said it acted “to ensure the correctness and legality of the electoral process,” according to Al Jazeera. The unanimous ruling rested on Article 146(f) of the constitution, which charges the court with guarding the correctness of the presidential vote, the Atlantic Council reported. The decision came just two days before a scheduled runoff.
The first round, held Nov. 24, had produced a surprise leader: Calin Georgescu, an independent, ultranationalist candidate who had polled in low single digits weeks earlier and took about 22.9 percent of the vote, according to The Conversation. Much of his rise had played out on TikTok, where his campaign built a large following outside traditional media.
What the intelligence alleged
Ahead of the ruling, President Klaus Iohannis declassified intelligence reports alleging that Romania had been the target of a coordinated foreign influence operation benefiting Georgescu on TikTok and Telegram, the Atlantic Council reported. The declassified material described “aggressive hybrid Russian attacks” during the campaign and thousands of social media accounts promoting the candidate, according to Al Jazeera.
Analysts who examined the surge pointed to signs of coordination rather than organic virality. By the time of the vote Georgescu's TikTok account had more than 400,000 followers, and a dedicated campaign sound was used in some 11,800 posts, while one viral clip drew 3.1 million views and more than 85,000 likes, according to The Conversation, which reported that thousands of fake accounts had promoted him through coordinated videos and comments.
An official verdict of distortion
Prime Minister Marcel Ciolacu said the annulment was “the only correct solution after the declassification of the documents,” which he said showed “that the result of the Romanians' vote was blatantly distorted as a result of Russia's intervention,” according to Foreign Policy. The move was widely described as unprecedented for the European Union: a national court voiding a presidential vote over alleged online manipulation.
Brussels and the platform
On Dec. 17, 2024, the European Commission opened formal proceedings against TikTok under the Digital Services Act, focused on the platform's handling of election-integrity risks in the Romanian vote, including its recommender systems and rules on political advertising, Euronews reported. “Whenever we suspect such interference, especially during elections, we have to act swiftly and firmly,” Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said, according to Euronews. A company found in breach of the act can face fines of up to 6 percent of global turnover.
A TikTok spokesperson told Euronews that the company had “protected the integrity of our platform through over 150 elections around the world,” adding that it does not accept paid political ads and removes content that violates its policies on misinformation, harassment and hate speech.
The aftermath stretched into 2025. On March 9, Romania's Central Electoral Bureau barred Georgescu from the rerun, prompting protests in Bucharest, Euronews reported. In a Facebook post that day, Georgescu wrote: “If democracy in Romania will fall, the whole democratic world will fall. This is just the beginning,” according to Euronews. The episode left European officials debating how far a democracy can go to defend a vote from manipulation without undermining the vote itself.