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EU Summons TikTok CEO After Romanian Election Shocker

58 points by preaching5271 2y ago

pavlov 2y ago
It’s well known that TikTok uses human curation and weighting to a far greater extent than other social media platforms. The others primarily try to hide and remove unwanted content, but TikTok actively picks what gets shown. (Twitter apparently now has a patchwork of hacks like the famous “author_is_elon” multiplier that slipped into their public source code release, but that’s nothing like TikTok’s meticulous selection process for algorithmic boosting.) It would be good to have more visibility into this process because it wields massive influence among the 13-28 demographic, roughly.
- arkh 2y ago
  > massive influence among the 13-28 demographic So not really the people who vote.
  - yakshaving_jgt 2y ago
    Most people in the stated age range can vote.
    - arkh 2y ago
      Yes but unfortunately they're often the people who vote the less. https://national-policies.eacea.ec.europa.eu/youthwiki/chapters/romania/52-youth-participation-in-representative-democracy https://national-policies.eacea.ec.europa.eu/youthwiki/chapt... > Turnout among young people in Romania is generally lower than the turnout of elder people.
infotainment 2y ago
It is a travesty that western countries haven't banned TikTok altogether.
- jumping_frog 2y ago
  Western countries do the same thing with colour revolutions.
- isoprophlex 2y ago
  The information warfare situation is highly asymmetric, and we seem to just let it fester on. The west doesn't have ubiquitous mind control devices deployed behind the great firewall. That this situation persists is a signal, to me, that our leaders aren't well equipped to deal with the realities of tech in 2024.
  - kranke155 2y ago
    Pretty much.
  - garte 2y ago
    Our leaders do their job by trying to uphold our values like freedom of expression and equality and that other stuff. This makes us vulnerable and we have to adapt. But hopefully not by banning these things, but by educating ourselves about the risks and gains of using addictive technology. At least that's the theory, I guess. TikTok should be handled like an addictive substance. It and things just like it should be heavily regulated and watched over (e.g. by protecting and educating our youth).
    - hkpack 2y ago
      > but by educating ourselves about the risks and gains of using addictive technology Teenagers are educated by these platforms instead, as people around have limited free time, while algorithms have all of it.
    - rdm_blackhole 2y ago
      > Our leaders do their job by trying to uphold our values like freedom of expression and equality and that other stuff. Is that so, what about Chat Control then? is that law upholding freedom of expression? I guess I was not aware that automated reports to the EU cops of "suspicious" messages could be seen as maintaining freedom of expression in the EU. Have we crossed the Rubicon here? War is peace, freedom is slavery and freedom of expression is 24/7 monitoring of your private conversations.
switch007 2y ago
That's certainly easier than sitting down and questioning your own decisions over the last couple of decades and wondering why people are voting in ways you don't like (For the record I'm not a Tiktok user and I think it's a net negative to society)
- consumer451 2y ago
  You seem to be denying the fact that humans are easily programmed meat machines, even the best of us. https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC8116821/ https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC8116821/
  - naiv 2y ago
    You make the assumption that social media is the main source of truth for voters. But people are waking up and vote because of what they see with their own eyes.
    - consumer451 2y ago
      OK, please stealman the argument for Georgescu's platform.
      - snapplebobapple 2y ago
        what was this guy's platform anyway? The internet doesn't have much detail in english as far as I can tell from a few quick searches. wikipedia has "Among his campaign stances were strengthening Romania's defence capabilities, diversifying Romania's diplomatic relations, increased support for farmers, promoting energy and food production, and reducing dependency on imports" which is kind of vague and could be great ideas or a mixed bag depending on the actual details. (i.e. strengthening defence capabilities and diversifying diplomatic relations seem pretty spot on if they are middle of the road in that direction policies, but could be very bad if they are not. "supporting farmers" could mean anything from good ideas (decreasing over-regulation [that in itself needs a book to explain it accurately so just assume it means something you think is good for getting rid of a regulation]) to very terrible ideas (explicit subsidy,etc).)
deleted 2y ago
[deleted]
consumer451 2y ago
The US VP elect has threaten withdrawal from NATO if Twitter is regulated in the EU. There appears to be no such threat regarding TikTok. This is a test of the EU. If TikTok is not banned quickly, it's not a good sign.
ckdarby 2y ago
Every platform has problems. Not being a US citizen or living in the US I can still understand how the upcoming president was elected - regardless of how one feels politically about if they should or should not have been. Reddit has become an extreme echo chamber of a particular ideology to the point I find myself even with agreement on many points leaning the other way out of the exhaustion of the echo chamber. It feels like some amount embrace, get off on the echo chamber and then there are others (myself?) who get so sick of the constant echo chamber end up being just opposed to engaging even in things we normally would support. It's not a perfect analogy, but it reminds me of kids who left to their own free will, will eat boat loads of candy to the point of being sick of candy and don't want it anymore even though they did/do enjoy candy they're simply maxed out on having it.
dauertewigkeit 2y ago
I cannot believe that people are calling for the ban of TikTok or X or any other social platform. It's just a gut feeling but it feels to me as though the more the economic situation in Europe deteriorates the more the continent descends into totalitarianism.
- ben_w 2y ago
  We have a lot of experience of, and fear of, propaganda in this continent. More so than fear of the lack of knowledge about government failures. "Freedom from, not freedom to", to paraphrase a recent video I've seen by US migrants to France.
- logicchains 2y ago
  Given the scale of Europe's economic problems, gaslighting people is the path of least resistance for governments there, as solving the economic issues would be extremely difficult, especially given Europe's demographic crisis/aging population.
  - consumer451 2y ago
    > especially given Europe's demographic crisis/aging population. This is a problem for all developed nations, is it not?
- lm28469 2y ago
  Most countries have laws on TV and radio time per political parties to regulate these things, why not do it on social medias? Democracy isn't just about voting every X years, it's also about being able to make well informed decisions, which is not the case when a foreign state agent employs bot farms to skew the story. I'm not saying the current system is perfect but clearly sprinkling it with foreign influence isn't going to make it better. Social medias are the only thing that are still mostly unregulated black boxes, the government knows about the secret recipe of coca cola, or the secret recipe of KFC spices, &c. But the algos of TikTok, Instagram, &co aren't discussed anywhere If RussCola sold bottles of soda with mercury in Germany would you say it would be totalitarian to ban them? If people want mercury in their cola who are we to judge?
cbg0 2y ago
I'm Romanian, and to add some more context here's what TikTok sent Romanian authorities about the situation: > The company that it found no evidence of a covert influence operation on the TikTok platform in recent weeks related to the Romanian presidential election and no evidence of external influence. > "Although it has been alleged that there were 5,000 fake accounts involved in election interference, our investigations have found no evidence to support these allegations," the company said in its letter, which notes that it is "still investigating." > From September through the beginning of this week, the company has removed more than 66,000 fake accounts, 7 million fake likes and 10 million fake followers from the platform, TikTok says in its letter. The figures refer to posts and activity in English. Note that it does not specify whether they were electoral or in favor of a specific candidate. > TikTok also says it has prevented 40 million likes and blocked more than 216,000 "spam accounts" before they went online. Translated with DeepL from https://www.paginademedia.ro/stiri-media/tiktok-scrisoare-autoritati-romania-21850979 https://www.paginademedia.ro/stiri-media/tiktok-scrisoare-au... It's a bit of "we've investigated ourselves and found nothing wrong". There's been a huge uproar about this candidate which was polling below 5% reaching the 1st spot in the 1st round of the presidential election in Romania. The candidates need to report spending to a state organization overseeing elections and this guy reported that he spent nothing on his election campaign, which is a bit impossible as there have also been flyers with his name on them, so there's definitely something fishy going on. There are also a lot of TikTok influencers that have come forward claiming to have received payments through a third party company to present the candidate in a positive light, and the issue is that these videos should have been tagged correctly as "electoral ads" according to Romanian law, which did not happen. Purely from an observation perspective there has been a huge amount of spam activity on Romanian tiktok, with accounts spamming random videos with copy paste messages similar to "We're massively voting for Calin Georgescu" which led a lot of people to believing there was a massive bot campaign promoting this guy. A criminal investigation has been requested by The Supreme Council of National Defence, which is the autonomous administrative authority in Romania invested by the Constitution with the task of organising and coordinating, by unanimous decisions, the activities related to the country's defence and national security.
macronitis 2y ago
[flagged]
- sofixa 2y ago
  > EUSSR Brussels so-called "democracy" Anyone comparing the EU to the USSR cannon be taken seriously.
  - cbg0 2y ago
    The account was made minutes before posting the comment. I come from Romania, an ex-communist country and it's insane to compare the EU with the USSR.
trabant00 2y ago
A bit of context: the presidential candidate in question was predicted below 1% on all polls days before the election. He declared a campaign budget of absolute zero. He had no posters, no tents, no apparitions on TV, absolutely nothing. After a massive presence on TikTok in the last couple of weeks he won 23% of the votes, placing him first and wining a spot in the final elections where just the first two placed candidates run. Currently the elections in Romania are in an total chaos. The Romanian Constitutional Court ordered an unprecedented recount of the votes, even though the count was sanctioned by all the parties through their observers. Also the country's Defense Council declared they have proof of cybernetic attacks which influenced the elections.
- Izkata 2y ago
  That sounds like either the pollsters or the people running the election have significantly bigger problems than whatever that candidate might or might not have done. How did they not find any of the people swayed by TikTok? Why are they even looking at TikTok at that point?
  - kreetx 2y ago
    "It didn't go as we wanted, someone else must be to blame!" If TikTok (or any other platform) can have this kind of real impact then other political forces should consider using it as well.
    - gls2ro 2y ago
      This is not a really easy thing to do: Lets analyze a bit just on the top of our heads what kind of content goes viral on social media? I so far almost (I write here almost just in case I missed one case) NEVER saw any rational, sensible discussion. So no, not all parties or arguments get the same amount of exposure even if they use TiKTok. Only the simplest (as in ignoring the complexity of situations), conspirationist, false and sometimes stupid challenges ones go viral.
      - kreetx 2y ago
bilekas 2y ago
> Many of Georgescu’s voters admit to not knowing too much about him. There seems to be a greater problem than Social Media abuse, to me there's a lack of education around the candidates and the actual meaning & process of voting. That said, everyone can vote for whoever they want so I'm not really sure what can be done.
chvid 2y ago
Why single TikTok out? Was there more campaigning that EU doesn't like on TikTok compared to Facebook, Instagram, Youtube, Twitter? Does Facebook et all promote / filter political contents different from TikTok?
- latexr 2y ago
  It’s in the article: > Georgescu based his campaign on TikTok It’s not “singling out” if that’s the principal hub.
cokeandpepsi 2y ago
[dead]
suraci 2y ago
China!
Caius-Cosades 2y ago
Maybe EU should enforce crippling economic sanctions and trade embargo against Romanian population for daring to vote wrong?
gls2ro 2y ago
Adding to this discussion here one point of view: So if we say in almost every country that social media is bad and oh my people are using it wrong and we should change people to better handle social media, could it not be the case that maybe people are not wrong but social media is? Why do we have to do such amount of change to accommodate the way our current social media works? Could it be that people are using it wrong or that social media is a negative influence and we should fix that.
bgdnpn 2y ago
the situation is simple: the guy that got 1st place with 22% (after being invisible until just 2 weeks before the elections) posted a shitstorm of content (without labelling it as political content), via some obscure hashtags, paid micro influencers to share and post and then sent a lot of bots to comment, share and broadcast. all while the other candidates were not allowed to post anything. the guy took advantage of tiktok algorithms and manipulated micro influencers into reaching his audience.. everything in 1-2 weeks. tiktok is not to blame, but it wasn't real democracy.

58 points by preaching5271 2y ago

It’s well known that TikTok uses human curation and weighting to a far greater extent than other social media platforms. The others primarily try to hide and remove unwanted content, but TikTok actively picks what gets shown. (Twitter apparently now has a patchwork of hacks like the famous “author_is_elon” multiplier that slipped into their public source code release, but that’s nothing like TikTok’s meticulous selection process for algorithmic boosting.) It would be good to have more visibility into this process because it wields massive influence among the 13-28 demographic, roughly.

arkh 2y ago
> massive influence among the 13-28 demographic So not really the people who vote.
- yakshaving_jgt 2y ago
  Most people in the stated age range can vote.
  - arkh 2y ago
    Yes but unfortunately they're often the people who vote the less. https://national-policies.eacea.ec.europa.eu/youthwiki/chapters/romania/52-youth-participation-in-representative-democracy https://national-policies.eacea.ec.europa.eu/youthwiki/chapt... > Turnout among young people in Romania is generally lower than the turnout of elder people.

infotainment 2y ago

It is a travesty that western countries haven't banned TikTok altogether.

jumping_frog 2y ago
Western countries do the same thing with colour revolutions.
isoprophlex 2y ago
The information warfare situation is highly asymmetric, and we seem to just let it fester on. The west doesn't have ubiquitous mind control devices deployed behind the great firewall. That this situation persists is a signal, to me, that our leaders aren't well equipped to deal with the realities of tech in 2024.
- kranke155 2y ago
  Pretty much.
- garte 2y ago
  Our leaders do their job by trying to uphold our values like freedom of expression and equality and that other stuff. This makes us vulnerable and we have to adapt. But hopefully not by banning these things, but by educating ourselves about the risks and gains of using addictive technology. At least that's the theory, I guess. TikTok should be handled like an addictive substance. It and things just like it should be heavily regulated and watched over (e.g. by protecting and educating our youth).
  - hkpack 2y ago
    > but by educating ourselves about the risks and gains of using addictive technology Teenagers are educated by these platforms instead, as people around have limited free time, while algorithms have all of it.
  - rdm_blackhole 2y ago
    > Our leaders do their job by trying to uphold our values like freedom of expression and equality and that other stuff. Is that so, what about Chat Control then? is that law upholding freedom of expression? I guess I was not aware that automated reports to the EU cops of "suspicious" messages could be seen as maintaining freedom of expression in the EU. Have we crossed the Rubicon here? War is peace, freedom is slavery and freedom of expression is 24/7 monitoring of your private conversations.

switch007 2y ago

That's certainly easier than sitting down and questioning your own decisions over the last couple of decades and wondering why people are voting in ways you don't like (For the record I'm not a Tiktok user and I think it's a net negative to society)

consumer451 2y ago
You seem to be denying the fact that humans are easily programmed meat machines, even the best of us. https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC8116821/ https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC8116821/
- naiv 2y ago
  You make the assumption that social media is the main source of truth for voters. But people are waking up and vote because of what they see with their own eyes.
  - consumer451 2y ago
    OK, please stealman the argument for Georgescu's platform.
    - snapplebobapple 2y ago
      what was this guy's platform anyway? The internet doesn't have much detail in english as far as I can tell from a few quick searches. wikipedia has "Among his campaign stances were strengthening Romania's defence capabilities, diversifying Romania's diplomatic relations, increased support for farmers, promoting energy and food production, and reducing dependency on imports" which is kind of vague and could be great ideas or a mixed bag depending on the actual details. (i.e. strengthening defence capabilities and diversifying diplomatic relations seem pretty spot on if they are middle of the road in that direction policies, but could be very bad if they are not. "supporting farmers" could mean anything from good ideas (decreasing over-regulation [that in itself needs a book to explain it accurately so just assume it means something you think is good for getting rid of a regulation]) to very terrible ideas (explicit subsidy,etc).)

deleted 2y ago

[deleted]

consumer451 2y ago

The US VP elect has threaten withdrawal from NATO if Twitter is regulated in the EU. There appears to be no such threat regarding TikTok. This is a test of the EU. If TikTok is not banned quickly, it's not a good sign.

ckdarby 2y ago

Every platform has problems. Not being a US citizen or living in the US I can still understand how the upcoming president was elected - regardless of how one feels politically about if they should or should not have been. Reddit has become an extreme echo chamber of a particular ideology to the point I find myself even with agreement on many points leaning the other way out of the exhaustion of the echo chamber. It feels like some amount embrace, get off on the echo chamber and then there are others (myself?) who get so sick of the constant echo chamber end up being just opposed to engaging even in things we normally would support. It's not a perfect analogy, but it reminds me of kids who left to their own free will, will eat boat loads of candy to the point of being sick of candy and don't want it anymore even though they did/do enjoy candy they're simply maxed out on having it.

dauertewigkeit 2y ago

I cannot believe that people are calling for the ban of TikTok or X or any other social platform. It's just a gut feeling but it feels to me as though the more the economic situation in Europe deteriorates the more the continent descends into totalitarianism.

ben_w 2y ago
We have a lot of experience of, and fear of, propaganda in this continent. More so than fear of the lack of knowledge about government failures. "Freedom from, not freedom to", to paraphrase a recent video I've seen by US migrants to France.
logicchains 2y ago
Given the scale of Europe's economic problems, gaslighting people is the path of least resistance for governments there, as solving the economic issues would be extremely difficult, especially given Europe's demographic crisis/aging population.
- consumer451 2y ago
  > especially given Europe's demographic crisis/aging population. This is a problem for all developed nations, is it not?
lm28469 2y ago
Most countries have laws on TV and radio time per political parties to regulate these things, why not do it on social medias? Democracy isn't just about voting every X years, it's also about being able to make well informed decisions, which is not the case when a foreign state agent employs bot farms to skew the story. I'm not saying the current system is perfect but clearly sprinkling it with foreign influence isn't going to make it better. Social medias are the only thing that are still mostly unregulated black boxes, the government knows about the secret recipe of coca cola, or the secret recipe of KFC spices, &c. But the algos of TikTok, Instagram, &co aren't discussed anywhere If RussCola sold bottles of soda with mercury in Germany would you say it would be totalitarian to ban them? If people want mercury in their cola who are we to judge?

cbg0 2y ago

I'm Romanian, and to add some more context here's what TikTok sent Romanian authorities about the situation: > The company that it found no evidence of a covert influence operation on the TikTok platform in recent weeks related to the Romanian presidential election and no evidence of external influence. > "Although it has been alleged that there were 5,000 fake accounts involved in election interference, our investigations have found no evidence to support these allegations," the company said in its letter, which notes that it is "still investigating." > From September through the beginning of this week, the company has removed more than 66,000 fake accounts, 7 million fake likes and 10 million fake followers from the platform, TikTok says in its letter. The figures refer to posts and activity in English. Note that it does not specify whether they were electoral or in favor of a specific candidate. > TikTok also says it has prevented 40 million likes and blocked more than 216,000 "spam accounts" before they went online. Translated with DeepL from https://www.paginademedia.ro/stiri-media/tiktok-scrisoare-autoritati-romania-21850979 https://www.paginademedia.ro/stiri-media/tiktok-scrisoare-au... It's a bit of "we've investigated ourselves and found nothing wrong". There's been a huge uproar about this candidate which was polling below 5% reaching the 1st spot in the 1st round of the presidential election in Romania. The candidates need to report spending to a state organization overseeing elections and this guy reported that he spent nothing on his election campaign, which is a bit impossible as there have also been flyers with his name on them, so there's definitely something fishy going on. There are also a lot of TikTok influencers that have come forward claiming to have received payments through a third party company to present the candidate in a positive light, and the issue is that these videos should have been tagged correctly as "electoral ads" according to Romanian law, which did not happen. Purely from an observation perspective there has been a huge amount of spam activity on Romanian tiktok, with accounts spamming random videos with copy paste messages similar to "We're massively voting for Calin Georgescu" which led a lot of people to believing there was a massive bot campaign promoting this guy. A criminal investigation has been requested by The Supreme Council of National Defence, which is the autonomous administrative authority in Romania invested by the Constitution with the task of organising and coordinating, by unanimous decisions, the activities related to the country's defence and national security.

macronitis 2y ago

[flagged]

sofixa 2y ago
> EUSSR Brussels so-called "democracy" Anyone comparing the EU to the USSR cannon be taken seriously.
- cbg0 2y ago
  The account was made minutes before posting the comment. I come from Romania, an ex-communist country and it's insane to compare the EU with the USSR.

trabant00 2y ago

A bit of context: the presidential candidate in question was predicted below 1% on all polls days before the election. He declared a campaign budget of absolute zero. He had no posters, no tents, no apparitions on TV, absolutely nothing. After a massive presence on TikTok in the last couple of weeks he won 23% of the votes, placing him first and wining a spot in the final elections where just the first two placed candidates run. Currently the elections in Romania are in an total chaos. The Romanian Constitutional Court ordered an unprecedented recount of the votes, even though the count was sanctioned by all the parties through their observers. Also the country's Defense Council declared they have proof of cybernetic attacks which influenced the elections.

Izkata 2y ago
That sounds like either the pollsters or the people running the election have significantly bigger problems than whatever that candidate might or might not have done. How did they not find any of the people swayed by TikTok? Why are they even looking at TikTok at that point?
- kreetx 2y ago
  "It didn't go as we wanted, someone else must be to blame!" If TikTok (or any other platform) can have this kind of real impact then other political forces should consider using it as well.
  - gls2ro 2y ago
    This is not a really easy thing to do: Lets analyze a bit just on the top of our heads what kind of content goes viral on social media? I so far almost (I write here almost just in case I missed one case) NEVER saw any rational, sensible discussion. So no, not all parties or arguments get the same amount of exposure even if they use TiKTok. Only the simplest (as in ignoring the complexity of situations), conspirationist, false and sometimes stupid challenges ones go viral.
    - kreetx 2y ago

bilekas 2y ago

> Many of Georgescu’s voters admit to not knowing too much about him. There seems to be a greater problem than Social Media abuse, to me there's a lack of education around the candidates and the actual meaning & process of voting. That said, everyone can vote for whoever they want so I'm not really sure what can be done.

chvid 2y ago

Why single TikTok out? Was there more campaigning that EU doesn't like on TikTok compared to Facebook, Instagram, Youtube, Twitter? Does Facebook et all promote / filter political contents different from TikTok?

latexr 2y ago
It’s in the article: > Georgescu based his campaign on TikTok It’s not “singling out” if that’s the principal hub.

cokeandpepsi 2y ago

[dead]

suraci 2y ago

China!

Caius-Cosades 2y ago

Maybe EU should enforce crippling economic sanctions and trade embargo against Romanian population for daring to vote wrong?

gls2ro 2y ago

Adding to this discussion here one point of view: So if we say in almost every country that social media is bad and oh my people are using it wrong and we should change people to better handle social media, could it not be the case that maybe people are not wrong but social media is? Why do we have to do such amount of change to accommodate the way our current social media works? Could it be that people are using it wrong or that social media is a negative influence and we should fix that.

bgdnpn 2y ago

the situation is simple: the guy that got 1st place with 22% (after being invisible until just 2 weeks before the elections) posted a shitstorm of content (without labelling it as political content), via some obscure hashtags, paid micro influencers to share and post and then sent a lot of bots to comment, share and broadcast. all while the other candidates were not allowed to post anything. the guy took advantage of tiktok algorithms and manipulated micro influencers into reaching his audience.. everything in 1-2 weeks. tiktok is not to blame, but it wasn't real democracy.