The 13 organizations say that the Romanian public has the right to know this information and that its non-publication contributes to increasing risks and threats to the electoral process. Signatory organizations say that Romanians need to know:
- The nature and extent of the cyberattacks targeting the electoral process.
- The way in which the TikTok platform artificially influenced the visibility of candidate Călin Georgescu.
- Evidence regarding the involvement of “state and non-state actors” in the electoral campaign.
- Details of the operations that manipulated the preferences of the electorate.
- Which institutions were notified to take measures regarding the verification of these facts.
- Any other information discussed or presented in the aforementioned CSAT meeting.
“This request is supported by recent journalistic and NGO investigations that have revealed coordinated manipulation operations through social platforms and other guerrilla marketing techniques to influence voters,” the open letter to Klaus Iohannis states.
The signatory organizations say that “delaying the publication of this information only contributes to the negative impact of the vote. Maintaining secrecy over this vital and necessary information only contributes to the threats and risks discussed in the CSAT press release of 11/28/2024.
“We believe that in the spirit of transparency and democratic values, all materials that formed the basis of the CSAT meeting, as well as the annexes to the resolution, must be declassified,” the request of the 13 civic organizations states.
Signatory NGOs include Funky Citizens, the Declic Association, the Center for Independent Journalism, Center for Public Innovation, ApTI – Association for Technology and Internet, CeRe: Resource Center for public participation, ActiveWatch, Átlátszó Erdély/Transilvania Transparentă, Expert Forum, Geeks for Democracy, CIVICA, Mediawise Society, Ecopolis Center for Sustainable Policies.
USR candidate for Presidency, Elena Lasconi also asked for the support of President Klaus Iohannis to declassify information about the influence of Russia and the Russian secret services in Romania.
“I would also ask Mr. Iohannis. He has little time left at Cotroceni. To declassify that important information. It’s about the influence of Russia, the implications of the former KGB, it’s about a lot of bad things. I don’t want to think that Russian tanks could end up on Romanian territory,” Elena Lasconi told Antena 3 CNN.
Members of the Supreme Council for National Defense found on Thursday, November 28, four days after the first round of the presidential elections, that there were cyber attacks aimed at influencing the fairness of the first round of the presidential elections, the Presidential Administration announced. The institution specified that representatives of the authorities with responsibilities in the field of defense, public order and national security presented at the CSAT meeting on Thursday “assessments regarding possible risks to national security, generated by the actions of state and non-state cyber actors on IT&C infrastructures, supporting the electoral process.”
TikTok denies before the European Parliament that it favored Călin Georgescu in the first round of the presidential elections
On the other hand, TikTok platform denied, on Tuesday, before the European Parliament (EP) that it had favored candidate Călin Georgescu in the first round of the presidential elections, who came in first place, with 22.94% of the votes, reports the EFE agency.
Speaking before the European Parliament’s Internal Market and Consumer Protection Committee, the company’s representatives stressed that “all candidates were taken into account in the system without differentiating between independents and those who were part of a party”, therefore they faced “the same restrictions”.
This is what TikTok’s global director for Product, Authenticity and Transparency, Brie Pegum, explained, who assured that of the networks blocked in recent months for prohibited political content, only one supported Georgescu, and it had much fewer followers than others supporting other candidates.
“In general, we have worked continuously to try to avoid disinformation and coordinate authentic behavior”, the TikTok representative also said. She stressed that the TikTok platform has eliminated over 66,000 fake accounts in Romania, about seven million fake “likes”, about ten million fake followers and about 1,000 accounts that imitated profiles of candidates.
In turn, TikTok’s Director of Public Policy and Government Relations, Caroline Greer, explained that the platform applied its internal rules for electoral processes during the elections in Romania and stated that in the months preceding the elections she had meetings with various authorities of the country, including several political parties and the Romanian electoral authority.
Furthermore, she mentioned that TikTok has over 6,000 content moderators in the languages of the European Union, of which 95 moderate content in Romanian.
The algorithm used by the social network to display content for users “responds to their activity signals”, so that it favors the appearance of content that each user stops to view, the TikTok representative also explained.
The answers of TikTok representatives did not convince the MEPs present at the debate and the respective committee of the European Parliament will study the possibility of sending additional questions to the platform in writing.
In a letter seen by Politico.eu last Thursday, the social network TikTok – owned by the Chinese company ByteDance – rejected accusations that it used its influence in the Romanian elections.
“To date, we have not found any evidence of a Covert Influence Operation on our platform in the last few weeks for the ongoing presidential elections in Romania, as well as no evidence of foreign influence,” TikTok said in a letter to Romanian authorities, according to the cited publication.
TikTok adds that it has “removed over 150 impersonal accounts attributed” to candidate Călin Georgescu and over 650 accounts attributed to other candidates. “The highly speculative reports about the Romanian elections are inaccurate and misleading,” said a TikTok spokesman, Paolo Ganino, quoted by Politico.eu.
Sure why not. We can declassify CSAT minutes… only if firstly they (those NGOs) disclose the origin of their funding.