The European Union said on Friday it had urgently asked TikTok for more information about Romanian intelligence documents that showed Moscow coordinated influencers on its platform to promote a candidate who emerged as the unexpected front-runner in the country's presidential election.
In this election, far-right populist Calin Georgescu suddenly emerged and won the first prize in one fell swoop. But the election was thrown into chaos after Romania's Supreme Court invalidated the results of the first round of voting on Friday.
Declassified documents released by Romanian authorities earlier this week showed that a pro-Russian movement used the messaging app Telegram to recruit thousands of TikTok users to campaign for Georgescu.
It was unclear from the released intelligence whether Georgescu was aware of or assisted in the alleged activities.
European Commission officials said they asked TikTok to comment on the documents and provide information about the actions it is taking in response. This is the second time the European Commission has asked TikTok to provide information since the first round of voting on November 24. The day before, the European Commission ordered the Chinese-owned TikTok platform to retain all documents and evidence related to the election.
TikTok declined to comment.
Henna Virkkunen, the Commission's Executive Vice President for Technology Sovereignty, Security and Democracy, published an article on
TikTok officials said at a news conference in Brussels that TikTok has 24 hours to respond to the EU request. Verkunen also called on TikTok to "urgently correct" its content moderation and amplification policies and comply with the European Union's Digital Services Act, a broad set of rules aimed at cleaning up social media platforms.
She had urged TikTok to organize law enforcement resources in a "combat information operation" ahead of the final vote planned for Sunday, when Georgescu will face pro-EU reformist Elena Lasconi of the Save Romania League party. But now that Romania's Constitutional Court has made an unprecedented decision to cancel the preliminary voting results, the first round of voting will have to be held again.
Georgescu's unexpected rise to prominence at the polls has thrown the EU and Nato country into turmoil and prompted authorities to release the dossier.
Romanian intelligence said a TikTok user paid $381,000 to influencers on the platform to promote content about Georgescu. They said the information they obtained "revealed an aggressive promotional campaign" aimed at increasing and accelerating the candidate's visibility.
Documents show that among the thousands of social media accounts used in the campaign, some were allegedly created years ago but were only activated weeks before the first round of voting.
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