Exploring the aftermath of the annulment of Romanian election results – social media platforms, the democratic process, and the role of the DSA

Presidential elections’ result annulled in December 2024, social media platforms to blame

In December 2024, the Constitutional Court of Romania annulled the first round of presidential elections just a few days before the second round was set to take place. The court justified its decision by citing both foreign interference in these elections, and also the failure of Romanian authorities to ensure an equal playing field for all electoral candidates. A previous EDRi-gram article detailed how TikTok catalysed extremist views and breached electoral legislation in Romania during the first round of the election.

This decision sent a shock-wave through Romanian society, leading some to claim that they have lost their faith in the democratic process.

With the election taking place again later this year, has anything changed? Can today’s social media platforms ensure that the voices of political candidates are heard in a fair and equitable manner? EDRi member, Association for Technology and Internet (ApTI) has documented and taken a stand against the social media platforms’ failure to fulfill their obligations during the elections.

Investigations point to social media platforms’ role in extremist candidate’s win

The Digital Services Act (DSA) defines an obligation for every Very Large Online Platform (VLOP), like TikTok, to put in place reasonable, proportionate, and effective mitigation measures for risks related to electoral processes. In April 2024, the EU Commission published a set of guidelines to help ensure that platforms comply with these obligations. These best practices were later reiterated in a report by the European Board for Digital Services after the European elections in July 2024.

In December 2024, ApTI and other Romanian civil society organisations raised alarm about political advertisement on TikTok breaching European and national laws and how that benefited an extremist candidate in the elections.

Now, numerous investigations have also pointed at TikTok as the leading enabler for the political campaign of the presidential candidate who took the first place. This is also backed by declassified documents from the Romanian national security council, which stated that this candidate benefited from disproportionate algorithmic amplification of his online campaign. This phenomenon was further confirmed by reports from BROD-EDMO (observatory countering misinformation and disinformation)revealingresults which would be almost impossible without interference or amplification.

Investigations by journalists revealed signs of coordinated activity by fake online accounts, some of which have posted paid electoral promotion in the extremist candidate’s favour – a practice that goes against TikTok’s own terms and conditions. This practice also breaches the Romanian electoral legislation, which does not allow paid electoral ads on content not clearly marked as such.

Aftermath of the 2024 election results

The first round of presidential election was held on 24 November 2024. ApTI signaled the fact that TikTok may have failed not just at upholding its own terms of service, but also at complying with the DSA in mitigating the risk of fraudulent use and coordinated inauthentic manipulation.

Five days later, the EU Commission sent TikTok an additional request for information, asking for details about its management of the risks of information manipulation.

Meanwhile,the vice president of the Digital Service Coordinator (ANCOM) – which is the Digital Services Coordinator in Romania – stated on his personal Facebook account that he would ask for TikTok to be blocked. He later retracted this statement after it caused a public uproar. ApTI, along with other Romanian NGOs, published an open letter reinforcing the importance of free speech, online and offline, and calling for investigations into the failings of social media companies to comply with the electoral law and the DSA.

During a hearing at the European Parliament, TikTok maintained that it had already disrupted networks of coordinated accounts that exhibited inauthentic behaviour. These, however, were very small networks compared to thousands of obviously fake accounts already discovered by ExpertForum, a civil society organisation monitoring the elections.

The European Commission issued a retention order to TikTok, under the DSA, on 5 December. The order concerns national elections in the European Union between 24 November 2024 until 31 March 2025. Finally, the Commission also opened formal proceedings against TikTok for a suspected breach of the DSA.

ApTI members have already written about the dangers that social networks’ recommender systems pose in the context of democratic discourse.

What’s next?

The re-run of the presidential elections are scheduled on 4 and 18 May 2025. But there seem to have been little to no consequences for those responsible for the debacle so far – no public officials in Romania have resigned, no VLOPs have admitted to even a small mistake. The Romanian government has made some of the rules for the electoral process even stricter with an Emergency Government Ordinance, but did so without any public debate.

Doubts remain – would the rules be enforced better when one candidate intentionally does not respect them (and publicly asks its supporters to do the same thing)? If a simple rule was not enforced, does making it more complex help? If a VLOP did not respond properly in the first place, why would the second time be better, if nothing changes? Will anything be learnt after this experience?

ApTI will continue to document the way in which online social media platforms are failing their duties, by ignoring local efforts to create a fair electoral campaign and by bowing down to mounting political pressure from the new administration in the US. – This was evident from Meta’s announcement of a a drastic cut to its fact-checking efforts, changes to the community guidelines, as well as blocking certain hashtags on Instagram around the time of Donald Trump’s inauguration.

Contribution by: Alex Stefănescu, EDRi member, ApTI