7 ms·

>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

by 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?
  - sebastianz 2y ago
    I have no idea, but if you illegally want to get someone elected as president in a foreign country, I suggest talking to a very smart lawyer, not to a rando on hacker news :)
    - theultdev 2y ago
      He's not talking about getting someone elected, the inverse actually. An analogy would be buying github stars or reddit upvotes for an adversary to get them banned.
      - xuhu 2y ago
        It all depends on whether the candidate asked for the help.
        theultdev 2y ago
        Okay, so where is the proof he asked for the help?
        xuhu 2y ago
        https://snoop.ro/cazul-bunelu-firma-sustinatorilor-lui-georgescu-si-legaturile-rusesti-cum-se-fac-300-de-milioane-de-euro-pe-hartie/ https://snoop.ro/cazul-bunelu-firma-sustinatorilor-lui-georg... Explains the money trail, and there's even a nice picture with one of the sovereign candidates and the Tracia Unita group who paid for the campaign.
        theultdev 2y ago
        That's not proof, it's the ramblings of a conspiracy theorist trying to put loose connections together. They even threw in a tirade about Trump to top it off. But yeah, let's throw away an entire country's election because of the ramblings of Victor Ilie. Thank God he put it all together and saved Romania. No investigation needed, he figured it out.
  - avianlyric 2y ago
    Probably depends on how much money you spend. But spend enough and at a minimum it’ll be considered election interference (the exact rules depend on the country). If there’s evidence the candidate that benefited collaborated with you in any way, then it’s likely they’ll face sanctions as well. Europe is like the U.S. We don’t have Political Action Committees here, or anything similar. Political campaigns, particularly in the lead up to an election, are tightly controlled and limited to ensure candidates have to compete on an even playing field. They can’t just try and outspend their competitors. Heck in the UK, it’s illegal for political campaigning to occur outside the few weeks before an election. Obviously politicians will do everything they can to demonstrate their value to the people all the time. But they can’t engage in explicit campaigning, with calls to actions about how to vote, outside of the time limited campaign period. It’s all done to keep as much money as possible out of our political system, and prevent our politics becoming ruled entirely by money, like we see in the U.S. Hell there recently been huge controversy in the UK because out PM accepted some clothes (literally a few suits) from a party donor, and that was considered as being potentially illegal campaign support.
    - Amezarak 2y ago
      In the US, the past 2 of 3 Presidential elections were won by the candidate + PACs who spent less money.
      - avianlyric 2y ago
        U.S. presidential elections regularly result in campaign spending measured in billions of dollars per side. In the UK spending is capped at just £53,000 per constituency, which means a total of £34m of spending for a party with candidates in every constituency. Campaign spending in the U.S. is literally two orders of magnitude greater, the fact that someone wins while only spending $2billion rather than $3billion really doesn’t say that much. Musks contributions to Trump alone are an order of magnitude greater than the total spend allowed for an entire party in the UK.
- wyager 2y ago
  > 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. Do you really think this makes sense as a justification for a court to depose a candidate, or are you just being disingenuous for rhetorical purposes? If we actually apply your logic as stated, then anyone could unilaterally "disqualify" any candidate by buying political ads on their behalf and not reporting the ads.
  - deleted 2y ago
    [deleted]
TheRoque 2y ago
How can you advertise yourself if you spent 0€ ? What genius trick is at play ? Come on, it's much more plausible there's something fishy.
- theultdev 2y ago
  Elon companies spend $0 on traditional advertisements and only advertise through word of mouth, viral/social campaigns, etc. Many celebrities do the same as well via their social media presence.
jltsiren 2y ago
I don't think anyone is getting disqualified. The elections will be rerun with the same candidates, because the authorities were unable to do it properly the first time. If you pay a small amount of money for some political ads, nobody is going to care, because it obviously didn't affect the results substantially. If the amount is large enough, the situation may be different. And then both you and Google may face consequences for illegal election interference.
- theultdev 2y ago
  So next time Russia should buy ads for the candidate they want to lose. 1. Buy ads for opposition. 2. Opposition reports invalid figures not accounting for russian ads 3. People accuse opposition of being helped by russia and misreporting funds. 4. Opposition wins, recount stays the same, courts annul it because russia. Am I missing something here?
  - jltsiren 2y ago
    You are missing two things. First, the elections will be rerun. If people think the annulment was unfair, the opposition candidate may get even more votes due to organic publicity. Second, you can't just buy ads. You must also find someone with wide enough circulation willing to show the ads. And that someone may be liable for the consequences.
    - theultdev 2y ago
      No those two things are clear to me. First, yes they will be re-ran, and it's doubtful the winning candidate will even get to run. Also, where does it end, do we keep re-running it until we get the right candidate? What if it was the candidate you voted for, how would you feel? Second, yes apparently you can, it happened. If the whole country was able to be swayed by TikTok ads but apparently no politicians noticed then they aren't very good at politicking or governing. If they noticed an issue they should have dealt with TikTok earlier. So far TikTok hasn't been held liable, only the voters who choose to vote for this candidate.

by jdasdf 2y ago

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?
- sebastianz 2y ago
  I have no idea, but if you illegally want to get someone elected as president in a foreign country, I suggest talking to a very smart lawyer, not to a rando on hacker news :)
  - theultdev 2y ago
    He's not talking about getting someone elected, the inverse actually. An analogy would be buying github stars or reddit upvotes for an adversary to get them banned.
    - xuhu 2y ago
      It all depends on whether the candidate asked for the help.
      - theultdev 2y ago
        Okay, so where is the proof he asked for the help?
        xuhu 2y ago
        https://snoop.ro/cazul-bunelu-firma-sustinatorilor-lui-georgescu-si-legaturile-rusesti-cum-se-fac-300-de-milioane-de-euro-pe-hartie/ https://snoop.ro/cazul-bunelu-firma-sustinatorilor-lui-georg... Explains the money trail, and there's even a nice picture with one of the sovereign candidates and the Tracia Unita group who paid for the campaign.
        theultdev 2y ago
        That's not proof, it's the ramblings of a conspiracy theorist trying to put loose connections together. They even threw in a tirade about Trump to top it off. But yeah, let's throw away an entire country's election because of the ramblings of Victor Ilie. Thank God he put it all together and saved Romania. No investigation needed, he figured it out.
- avianlyric 2y ago
  Probably depends on how much money you spend. But spend enough and at a minimum it’ll be considered election interference (the exact rules depend on the country). If there’s evidence the candidate that benefited collaborated with you in any way, then it’s likely they’ll face sanctions as well. Europe is like the U.S. We don’t have Political Action Committees here, or anything similar. Political campaigns, particularly in the lead up to an election, are tightly controlled and limited to ensure candidates have to compete on an even playing field. They can’t just try and outspend their competitors. Heck in the UK, it’s illegal for political campaigning to occur outside the few weeks before an election. Obviously politicians will do everything they can to demonstrate their value to the people all the time. But they can’t engage in explicit campaigning, with calls to actions about how to vote, outside of the time limited campaign period. It’s all done to keep as much money as possible out of our political system, and prevent our politics becoming ruled entirely by money, like we see in the U.S. Hell there recently been huge controversy in the UK because out PM accepted some clothes (literally a few suits) from a party donor, and that was considered as being potentially illegal campaign support.
  - Amezarak 2y ago
    In the US, the past 2 of 3 Presidential elections were won by the candidate + PACs who spent less money.
    - avianlyric 2y ago
      U.S. presidential elections regularly result in campaign spending measured in billions of dollars per side. In the UK spending is capped at just £53,000 per constituency, which means a total of £34m of spending for a party with candidates in every constituency. Campaign spending in the U.S. is literally two orders of magnitude greater, the fact that someone wins while only spending $2billion rather than $3billion really doesn’t say that much. Musks contributions to Trump alone are an order of magnitude greater than the total spend allowed for an entire party in the UK.
wyager 2y ago
> 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. Do you really think this makes sense as a justification for a court to depose a candidate, or are you just being disingenuous for rhetorical purposes? If we actually apply your logic as stated, then anyone could unilaterally "disqualify" any candidate by buying political ads on their behalf and not reporting the ads.
- deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]

TheRoque 2y ago

How can you advertise yourself if you spent 0€ ? What genius trick is at play ? Come on, it's much more plausible there's something fishy.

theultdev 2y ago
Elon companies spend $0 on traditional advertisements and only advertise through word of mouth, viral/social campaigns, etc. Many celebrities do the same as well via their social media presence.

jltsiren 2y ago

I don't think anyone is getting disqualified. The elections will be rerun with the same candidates, because the authorities were unable to do it properly the first time. If you pay a small amount of money for some political ads, nobody is going to care, because it obviously didn't affect the results substantially. If the amount is large enough, the situation may be different. And then both you and Google may face consequences for illegal election interference.

theultdev 2y ago
So next time Russia should buy ads for the candidate they want to lose. 1. Buy ads for opposition. 2. Opposition reports invalid figures not accounting for russian ads 3. People accuse opposition of being helped by russia and misreporting funds. 4. Opposition wins, recount stays the same, courts annul it because russia. Am I missing something here?
- jltsiren 2y ago
  You are missing two things. First, the elections will be rerun. If people think the annulment was unfair, the opposition candidate may get even more votes due to organic publicity. Second, you can't just buy ads. You must also find someone with wide enough circulation willing to show the ads. And that someone may be liable for the consequences.
  - theultdev 2y ago
    No those two things are clear to me. First, yes they will be re-ran, and it's doubtful the winning candidate will even get to run. Also, where does it end, do we keep re-running it until we get the right candidate? What if it was the candidate you voted for, how would you feel? Second, yes apparently you can, it happened. If the whole country was able to be swayed by TikTok ads but apparently no politicians noticed then they aren't very good at politicking or governing. If they noticed an issue they should have dealt with TikTok earlier. So far TikTok hasn't been held liable, only the voters who choose to vote for this candidate.