7 ms·

So no evidence to show, except a "declassified document" allegedly proving that TikTok gave preferential treatment to Georgescu. I'd be curious to know what pr

So no evidence to show, except a "declassified document" allegedly proving that TikTok gave preferential treatment to Georgescu. I'd be curious to know what preferential treatment means, how preferential, and how it balances out if we include treatment of all candidates across all media, but alas, that is not for us to know. Even Georgescu's opponent, Elena Lasconi, condemned the court's ruling as "illegal" and "immoral". This just looks like a soft coup to me.

throw_pm23 2y ago
The documents explain clearly that thousands of sleeper accounts were activated days before the election and shared and promoted campaign material that was not marked as such in a highly coordinated way that suggests a state actor.
- ossobuco 2y ago
  So what is the problem here, that a state actor tried to influence the elections? Then why aren't we talking about the influence of NATO&co as well? Because that can be found everywhere, starting from google search results. Search "elena lasconi campaign donors" on google, you'll get exclusively results about "far right kremlin backed election interference". Repeat the search on yandex.ru and you'll get actual results about Elena Lasconi. The problem isn't really a state actor here; it's that people didn't vote the right way™. As to the effect a last minute campaign on TikTok can have on the elections, I wonder can you really sway 9 milions of votes in a few days on a platform that basically nobody over 30 years old uses? That must have been some incredibly good propaganda!
  - throw_pm23 2y ago
    It was only ~2 million votes, as it was a first round with 10+ candidates. I disagree it was about voting the right way, it was about campaign law violation.
  - cbg0 2y ago
    > Then why aren't we talking about the influence of NATO&co as well? Because that can be found everywhere, starting from google search results. Search "elena lasconi campaign donors" on google, you'll get exclusively results about "far right kremlin backed election interference". Repeat the search on yandex.ru and you'll get actual results about Elena Lasconi. NATO is a defensive military alliance. Has there been any proof that they're manipulating search results or social media sites? Also, regarding your Google search: the reason why you're getting poor results is because you're searching in English for a subject predominantly connected to romanian language sites.
    - ossobuco 2y ago
      > NATO is a defensive military alliance. Has there been any proof that they're manipulating search results or social media sites? Plenty, if you accept the possibility[0]. The US army is openly recruiting for PSYOPs[1] - https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-63731751 https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-63731751 - https://www.goarmy.com/careers-and-jobs/specialty-careers/special-ops/psychological-operations https://www.goarmy.com/careers-and-jobs/specialty-careers/sp... > the reason why you're getting poor results is because you're searching in English for a subject predominantly connected to romanian language sites. Easily disproven by repeating the search in Romanian. Again, on google I get mostly results about Kremlin foreign election interference, while on yandex I only get relevant results. I tried several combinations of keywords.
      - data_maan 2y ago
        Does getting other results on Yandex make you trust them more? Is "different" for you "more true"?
        I-M-S 2y ago
        Depends if it's different from a lie I guess
  - exe34 2y ago
    how about filing your expenses according to the law?
  - data_maan 2y ago
    [flagged]
    - ossobuco 2y ago
      Yeah that works great if you don't care about the truth. I do care, and I live within NATO borders, where NATO propaganda is incredibly pervasive and much stronger than any other propaganda from outside can be.
      - aguaviva 2y ago
        NATO propaganda is incredibly pervasive and much stronger than any other propaganda from outside can be. Only because you don't see the latter (as propaganda). But rather as a sequence of neat-sounding, worldview-confirming factoids.
- culi 2y ago
  This happens all the time on major social media sites including reddit (in fact, it's quite easy for anybody to buy a reddit account with high karma). In the Depp vs Heard case that swept the internet it was found that both sides heavily used online bots to influence online dialog (tho Depp was better funded and obviously more successful)
  - kspacewalk2 2y ago
    When your astroturfing is targeted at an election, and you get caught, the election can be annulled to ensure its integrity. What's the problem here, exactly?
    - ossobuco 2y ago
      The problem is simple, either that astroturfing is so effective because it's rooted in truth and resonates with the issues the electors are concerned with, or electors are so easily influenceable that we can't have democracy without giving up free speech. Pick one.
      - sebastianz 2y ago
        There are electoral laws that state how political advertising can be done, and how it can be funded for an election campaign. Social media companies have to adhere to these laws - for example to say when something is an "Ad" paid by someone for the benefit of the candidate. In this case, apparently although TikTok was notified that a bot network controlled and paid for by nobody-knows-who was spamming election ads (untagged as such), and they ignored everything. This is all illegal.
      - RealityVoid 2y ago
        Nothing this dude said is rooted in truth. It's just we're so stupid we'd turn out country into a dictatorship for nothing. There are real grievances, no doubt, but this guy was so full of hot air there is no reasonable explanation for buying into him except us being irreparably dumb.
scythe 2y ago
>Even Georgescu's opponent, Elena Lasconi, condemned the court's ruling as "illegal" and "immoral". This seems like pretty important information as an observer with little knowledge of Romania's inner workings.
- culi 2y ago
  Elena Lasconi would be highly favored to win in a 1v1. Also keep in mind that both of these candidates are rightwing. Also keep in mind that the leading candidate only got 22.94% of the vote while Lasconi only got 19.18% If they do a redo and a center, liberal, or leftwing candidate makes it to the second round, Lasconi would have a much more challenging battle
  - kspacewalk2 2y ago
    >Elena Lasconi would be highly favored to win in a 1v1. Not according to polling[0] [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Opinion_polling_for_the_2024_Romanian_presidential_election#Georgescu_vs_Lasconi https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Opinion_polling_for_the_2024_R...
  - mariusor 2y ago
    > both of these candidates are rightwing Just curious by what metrics do you consider Lasconi to be a right winger?
    - RealityVoid 2y ago
      The USR party is liberal right wing. They get accused of being "sexomarxisti" but that's mostly brainless chants. They're pro free trade, freedoms, equality, all your runoff the mill liberal stuff.
      - mariusor 2y ago
        Yeah, I would call that a centrist party. To me the "right" includes trampling on individual and social freedoms. But maybe I've been brainwashed by American politics.
madaxe_again 2y ago
I take it you voted for Meloni?
- ossobuco 2y ago
  Do you take it that Elena Lasconi voted for Meloni as well? Because she's stated that the court ruling is "illegal" and "immoral".
  - deleted 2y ago
    [deleted]
- blub 2y ago
  People were hysterical about Meloni before the elections and then nothing actually happened. This could be yet another case of the EUSA establishment crying wolf.
sebastianz 2y ago
The main issue is he declared his election campaign cost 0. Literally, that is what he declared he spent on his election campaign. The million euros for the TikTok & social media storm that got him elected has to have been paid by someone though, and according to law this money has to be clean and have clear sources. He does not have clear sources. Probably also does not have clean money. The source of this dirty money is what is suspected to be Russian-adjacent actors that wanted him to win.
- jdasdf 2y ago
  >Literally, that is what he declared he spent on his election campaign. >The million euros for the TikTok & social media storm that got him elected has to have been paid by someone though, and according to law this money has to be clean and have clear sources. What if he did indeed spend 0€ ? If i pay some money to google to run some ads for the 2 main parties, and don't report it, do they also get disqualified?
  - sebastianz 2y ago
    > If i pay some money to google to run some ads for the 2 main parties, and don't report it, do they also get disqualified? If you pay money to run electoral ads, for someone's campaign, this money has to be declared, and the ads should be marked as such. In this case, neither has happened. TikTok also did not ban these bot networks as they should have according to the electoral laws, so there will be a separate investigation that I think the EU commission has started to find out why they are not complying with electoral laws in the countries they operate in.
    - jdasdf 2y ago
      I see you didn't answer the question i asked (probably because it would make it obvious how untenable your argument is), so I will ask again. If i pay some money to google to run some ads for the 2 main parties, and don't report it, do they also get disqualified?
      - 2y ago
piombisallow 2y ago
Why the scare quotes on declassified document? It's a declassified report from the national intelligence agency, which was made public.
- ossobuco 2y ago
  Because it's too easy like this. Who's checking the national intelligence agency? Otherwise, whenever something they don't like comes up, they can pull out another document to declassify. It's basically a cheap tool for secret services to subvert elections or democratically elected powers.
xg15 2y ago
I'm not sure about this particular case, and absolutely no question that the specific interest in this case probably has very little to do with concern about democracy and a lot with power struggles in that new cold war we're in. (Gonna agree with it being a soft coup if they limit the new election to only pro-western parties. So far, it's "only" the repeat of an election) But, having said that, there really is a lot of pro-russian propaganda on TikTok and the way the algorithm selects it can't always be explained with user preferences. An Austrian newspaper recently posted results of an experiment they did themselves: They added a bunch of brand new accounts, pretending to be teenagers. The given interests were diverse, but all of them unpolitical and typical kids stuff. Nevertheless, after a short habituation period of benign posts, the feeds of all but one of the accounts quickly shifted from typical teenager stuff to "political" content, mostly hard right-wing, islamist and pro-russian clips. All of that without any of the users ever having given any indication that they were interested in political posts, let alone pro-russian ones. The report is here (in German) : https://dietagespresse.com/selbstversuch-so-radikalisiert-tiktok-oesterreichische-teenager/ https://dietagespresse.com/selbstversuch-so-radikalisiert-ti... The newspaper usually posts satire, but this article was about a real self-experiment.
- jowea 2y ago
  Medium hot take: this is why closed-source social media post promotion algorithms should be banned. We should not let a foreign private company with government links influence society in a hidden way like that.
mihaic 2y ago
It pretty much is a soft coup, yes. The general population is apologetic for it, since the concept of rule-of-law is not that important to Romanian culture.
RealityVoid 2y ago
I do not think it was a soft coup. I look around me and all I can feel around except the most diehard CG or Lasconi fans is, honestly, relief. You can't really get the atmosphere in the country when that fascist was about to be voted in. I listened to a couple of journalists in the last couple of days, they were tearing their hairs out in frustration. Radio broadcasters and political commentators were saying the closing of their shows like it was a funeral and the end of free speech. Me and many people around me could not sleep for 2 weeks straight because we knew what this meant. CG victory would have meant we needed to flee the country, sooner or later. I am fully convinced we narrowly avoided something terrible. I'm also not convinced that we're out of the woods yet.
danicriss 2y ago
> I'd be curious to know what preferential treatment means, how preferential, and how it balances out if we include treatment of all candidates across all media Iirc all candidates were supposed to mark their promotional material as electoral material. CG was the only one who didn't. This was considered illegal in Romania and TikTok was supposed to not promote the material. Yet they did The second thing I vaguely remember is that the secret service report surmised that TikTok has swarming detection algorithms, that CG's posts were clearly swarmed, yet TikTok allowed the material as if it hasn't been swarmed, despite its own policies

throw_pm23 2y ago

The documents explain clearly that thousands of sleeper accounts were activated days before the election and shared and promoted campaign material that was not marked as such in a highly coordinated way that suggests a state actor.

ossobuco 2y ago
So what is the problem here, that a state actor tried to influence the elections? Then why aren't we talking about the influence of NATO&co as well? Because that can be found everywhere, starting from google search results. Search "elena lasconi campaign donors" on google, you'll get exclusively results about "far right kremlin backed election interference". Repeat the search on yandex.ru and you'll get actual results about Elena Lasconi. The problem isn't really a state actor here; it's that people didn't vote the right way™. As to the effect a last minute campaign on TikTok can have on the elections, I wonder can you really sway 9 milions of votes in a few days on a platform that basically nobody over 30 years old uses? That must have been some incredibly good propaganda!
- throw_pm23 2y ago
  It was only ~2 million votes, as it was a first round with 10+ candidates. I disagree it was about voting the right way, it was about campaign law violation.
- cbg0 2y ago
  > Then why aren't we talking about the influence of NATO&co as well? Because that can be found everywhere, starting from google search results. Search "elena lasconi campaign donors" on google, you'll get exclusively results about "far right kremlin backed election interference". Repeat the search on yandex.ru and you'll get actual results about Elena Lasconi. NATO is a defensive military alliance. Has there been any proof that they're manipulating search results or social media sites? Also, regarding your Google search: the reason why you're getting poor results is because you're searching in English for a subject predominantly connected to romanian language sites.
  - ossobuco 2y ago
    > NATO is a defensive military alliance. Has there been any proof that they're manipulating search results or social media sites? Plenty, if you accept the possibility[0]. The US army is openly recruiting for PSYOPs[1] - https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-63731751 https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-63731751 - https://www.goarmy.com/careers-and-jobs/specialty-careers/special-ops/psychological-operations https://www.goarmy.com/careers-and-jobs/specialty-careers/sp... > the reason why you're getting poor results is because you're searching in English for a subject predominantly connected to romanian language sites. Easily disproven by repeating the search in Romanian. Again, on google I get mostly results about Kremlin foreign election interference, while on yandex I only get relevant results. I tried several combinations of keywords.
    - data_maan 2y ago
      Does getting other results on Yandex make you trust them more? Is "different" for you "more true"?
      - I-M-S 2y ago
        Depends if it's different from a lie I guess
- exe34 2y ago
  how about filing your expenses according to the law?
- data_maan 2y ago
  [flagged]
  - ossobuco 2y ago
    Yeah that works great if you don't care about the truth. I do care, and I live within NATO borders, where NATO propaganda is incredibly pervasive and much stronger than any other propaganda from outside can be.
    - aguaviva 2y ago
      NATO propaganda is incredibly pervasive and much stronger than any other propaganda from outside can be. Only because you don't see the latter (as propaganda). But rather as a sequence of neat-sounding, worldview-confirming factoids.
culi 2y ago
This happens all the time on major social media sites including reddit (in fact, it's quite easy for anybody to buy a reddit account with high karma). In the Depp vs Heard case that swept the internet it was found that both sides heavily used online bots to influence online dialog (tho Depp was better funded and obviously more successful)
- kspacewalk2 2y ago
  When your astroturfing is targeted at an election, and you get caught, the election can be annulled to ensure its integrity. What's the problem here, exactly?
  - ossobuco 2y ago
    The problem is simple, either that astroturfing is so effective because it's rooted in truth and resonates with the issues the electors are concerned with, or electors are so easily influenceable that we can't have democracy without giving up free speech. Pick one.
    - sebastianz 2y ago
      There are electoral laws that state how political advertising can be done, and how it can be funded for an election campaign. Social media companies have to adhere to these laws - for example to say when something is an "Ad" paid by someone for the benefit of the candidate. In this case, apparently although TikTok was notified that a bot network controlled and paid for by nobody-knows-who was spamming election ads (untagged as such), and they ignored everything. This is all illegal.
    - RealityVoid 2y ago
      Nothing this dude said is rooted in truth. It's just we're so stupid we'd turn out country into a dictatorship for nothing. There are real grievances, no doubt, but this guy was so full of hot air there is no reasonable explanation for buying into him except us being irreparably dumb.

scythe 2y ago

>Even Georgescu's opponent, Elena Lasconi, condemned the court's ruling as "illegal" and "immoral". This seems like pretty important information as an observer with little knowledge of Romania's inner workings.

culi 2y ago
Elena Lasconi would be highly favored to win in a 1v1. Also keep in mind that both of these candidates are rightwing. Also keep in mind that the leading candidate only got 22.94% of the vote while Lasconi only got 19.18% If they do a redo and a center, liberal, or leftwing candidate makes it to the second round, Lasconi would have a much more challenging battle
- kspacewalk2 2y ago
  >Elena Lasconi would be highly favored to win in a 1v1. Not according to polling[0] [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Opinion_polling_for_the_2024_Romanian_presidential_election#Georgescu_vs_Lasconi https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Opinion_polling_for_the_2024_R...
- mariusor 2y ago
  > both of these candidates are rightwing Just curious by what metrics do you consider Lasconi to be a right winger?
  - RealityVoid 2y ago
    The USR party is liberal right wing. They get accused of being "sexomarxisti" but that's mostly brainless chants. They're pro free trade, freedoms, equality, all your runoff the mill liberal stuff.
    - mariusor 2y ago
      Yeah, I would call that a centrist party. To me the "right" includes trampling on individual and social freedoms. But maybe I've been brainwashed by American politics.

madaxe_again 2y ago

I take it you voted for Meloni?

ossobuco 2y ago
Do you take it that Elena Lasconi voted for Meloni as well? Because she's stated that the court ruling is "illegal" and "immoral".
- deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]
blub 2y ago
People were hysterical about Meloni before the elections and then nothing actually happened. This could be yet another case of the EUSA establishment crying wolf.

sebastianz 2y ago

The main issue is he declared his election campaign cost 0. Literally, that is what he declared he spent on his election campaign. The million euros for the TikTok & social media storm that got him elected has to have been paid by someone though, and according to law this money has to be clean and have clear sources. He does not have clear sources. Probably also does not have clean money. The source of this dirty money is what is suspected to be Russian-adjacent actors that wanted him to win.

jdasdf 2y ago
>Literally, that is what he declared he spent on his election campaign. >The million euros for the TikTok & social media storm that got him elected has to have been paid by someone though, and according to law this money has to be clean and have clear sources. What if he did indeed spend 0€ ? If i pay some money to google to run some ads for the 2 main parties, and don't report it, do they also get disqualified?
- sebastianz 2y ago
  > If i pay some money to google to run some ads for the 2 main parties, and don't report it, do they also get disqualified? If you pay money to run electoral ads, for someone's campaign, this money has to be declared, and the ads should be marked as such. In this case, neither has happened. TikTok also did not ban these bot networks as they should have according to the electoral laws, so there will be a separate investigation that I think the EU commission has started to find out why they are not complying with electoral laws in the countries they operate in.
  - jdasdf 2y ago
    I see you didn't answer the question i asked (probably because it would make it obvious how untenable your argument is), so I will ask again. If i pay some money to google to run some ads for the 2 main parties, and don't report it, do they also get disqualified?
    - 2y ago

piombisallow 2y ago

Why the scare quotes on declassified document? It's a declassified report from the national intelligence agency, which was made public.

ossobuco 2y ago
Because it's too easy like this. Who's checking the national intelligence agency? Otherwise, whenever something they don't like comes up, they can pull out another document to declassify. It's basically a cheap tool for secret services to subvert elections or democratically elected powers.

xg15 2y ago

I'm not sure about this particular case, and absolutely no question that the specific interest in this case probably has very little to do with concern about democracy and a lot with power struggles in that new cold war we're in. (Gonna agree with it being a soft coup if they limit the new election to only pro-western parties. So far, it's "only" the repeat of an election) But, having said that, there really is a lot of pro-russian propaganda on TikTok and the way the algorithm selects it can't always be explained with user preferences. An Austrian newspaper recently posted results of an experiment they did themselves: They added a bunch of brand new accounts, pretending to be teenagers. The given interests were diverse, but all of them unpolitical and typical kids stuff. Nevertheless, after a short habituation period of benign posts, the feeds of all but one of the accounts quickly shifted from typical teenager stuff to "political" content, mostly hard right-wing, islamist and pro-russian clips. All of that without any of the users ever having given any indication that they were interested in political posts, let alone pro-russian ones. The report is here (in German) : https://dietagespresse.com/selbstversuch-so-radikalisiert-tiktok-oesterreichische-teenager/ https://dietagespresse.com/selbstversuch-so-radikalisiert-ti... The newspaper usually posts satire, but this article was about a real self-experiment.

jowea 2y ago
Medium hot take: this is why closed-source social media post promotion algorithms should be banned. We should not let a foreign private company with government links influence society in a hidden way like that.

mihaic 2y ago

It pretty much is a soft coup, yes. The general population is apologetic for it, since the concept of rule-of-law is not that important to Romanian culture.

RealityVoid 2y ago

I do not think it was a soft coup. I look around me and all I can feel around except the most diehard CG or Lasconi fans is, honestly, relief. You can't really get the atmosphere in the country when that fascist was about to be voted in. I listened to a couple of journalists in the last couple of days, they were tearing their hairs out in frustration. Radio broadcasters and political commentators were saying the closing of their shows like it was a funeral and the end of free speech. Me and many people around me could not sleep for 2 weeks straight because we knew what this meant. CG victory would have meant we needed to flee the country, sooner or later. I am fully convinced we narrowly avoided something terrible. I'm also not convinced that we're out of the woods yet.

danicriss 2y ago

> I'd be curious to know what preferential treatment means, how preferential, and how it balances out if we include treatment of all candidates across all media Iirc all candidates were supposed to mark their promotional material as electoral material. CG was the only one who didn't. This was considered illegal in Romania and TikTok was supposed to not promote the material. Yet they did The second thing I vaguely remember is that the secret service report surmised that TikTok has swarming detection algorithms, that CG's posts were clearly swarmed, yet TikTok allowed the material as if it hasn't been swarmed, despite its own policies