The European Commission decided this Tuesday to open a file against TikTok for violating the Digital Services Law and not stopping far-right speeches during the presidential election campaign in Romaniasuspended by justice after the victory of the radical Calin Georgescu. In fact, Brussels considers that the electoral process has been subject to foreign interference, which is why the elections will have to be repeated at Christmas.
The Community Executive emphasizes that the work will focus on managing risks for elections or civic discourse, linked to TikTok’s recommendation systems, in particular the risks related with coordinated inauthentic manipulation or automated exploitation of the service. They also have to do with TikTok’s policies on political ads and paid political content.
Regarding both elements, one of the suspicions that the Commission will investigate is whether TikTok “has diligently mitigated the risks posed by specific regional and linguistic aspects of national elections“The Chinese company, in fact, has been under scrutiny from Brussels for months now for being considered a strategic and at times destabilizing tool under the direction of Beijing.
This decision to open an investigation, the Commission adds, takes into account the information received from intelligence reports declassified by Romanian authoritiesas well as third party reports. The investigation also follows the analysis of risk assessment reports submitted by TikTok in 2023 and 2024, responses to the Commission’s requests for information and internal documents provided by the company.
On the matter, the president of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, pointed out that “we must protect our democracies from any type of foreign interference”, in this case through China and Russia, since Moscow is targeting countries like Romania. “Whenever we suspect from such interference, especially during elections, we must act quickly and firmly. Following serious indications that foreign agents interfered in the Romanian presidential election using TikTok, we are now fully investigating whether TikTok has violated the Digital Services Law by failing to address such risks. “It must be crystal clear that in the EU all online platforms, including TikTok, must be held accountable,” concluded the German leader.
On November 25, the ultraconservative Calin Georgescu won the first round of the Romanian presidential elections with a pro-Russian speech and against both NATO and the European Union. The independent finished ahead of the conservative Elena Lasconi and the socialist Marcel Ciolacu. The polls gave Georgescu only 8% of the votes and at the polls he exceeded 20%. Weeks later, the justice system suspended the elections when it understood that there had been significant foreign interference. The elections are still pending a new date.