How TikTok can potentially get a president elected – DW – December 5th, 2024

Romanian-born Corneliu Bjola is Professor of Digital Diplomacy at the University of Oxford. He is an expert in the methods to combat digital propaganda.

Many experts believe that TikTok played a major role in propelling Calin Georgescu, a virtually unknown far-right, pro-Russian candidate, to first place in the first round of Romania’s presidential election on November 24th. Georgescu will now face progressive liberal Elena Lasconi in the runoff election on Sunday.

In an interview with DW, Professor Bjola explains how manipulation methods in social media work in the context of elections and gives his perspective on the events leading up to the recent elections in Romania.

This interview has been condensed and edited for clarity.

DW: How was it possible that a largely unknown candidate conducted such a successful election campaign almost exclusively via social media and made it into the runoff election for the office of Romanian president?

Corneliu Bjola: This is unprecedented, not only in Romania, but in my opinion also in many other European and American elections. I think there are a few things we need to look at.

The first is the role of new digital platforms. Digital campaigns on Facebook, Twitter (X) or Instagram used to play a subordinate, supporting role compared to the actual campaign. By “real campaign” I mean the one where people go out and shake hands, take part in debates, and so on. What we see today is exactly the opposite: social media actually plays the main role.

Why is that? Because this candidate (Calin Georgescu) has no infrastructure whatsoever: no political party, no networks. We don’t know who the people around him are. We don’t know him personally, his biography. There are all sorts of unanswered questions.

While all the other candidates spent a lot of money on the traditional campaign, this person says he had no funds for the entire effort. Although some credible sources showed that it could have cost at least 2 million euros. We don’t yet know where this money came from.

Dozens of influencers admitted after the first round that they had been paid by a third-party platform to post hashtags designed to attract bots. How is that supposed to work?

First of all: How do you make an unknown candidate known to a wider audience, at least on TikTok? Some techniques were identified quite easily in the preliminary analysis.

In the first part of the campaign, the candidate engaged a network of influencers. They weren’t actually asked to promote him. They were asked to talk about the ideal political candidate. This is a primer. They used certain keywords: “integrity”, “independence”, “professional”, “should speak foreign languages”. This is what priming means: you don’t speak explicitly, but rather shape the audience’s perception of expectations regarding a certain topic.

And that’s when people started clicking because they were influencers, a large network of influencers who, by the way, were paid for this type of campaign. They didn’t know. Some of them regretted their role in this campaign because they did not know that they were actually supporting Georgescu.

The moment this preparation was completed and people started watching it (the campaign), another technique emerged. In the comments on these clips, you’ll see hashtags and likely trolls or bots commenting and attributing these highlighted features to a specific candidate. For example, the hashtag used in the comments was “vote Georgescu.” This indirectly established a connection to a specific, neutrally presented profile of a candidate.

This is where the second technique emerged: “Astroturfing”. This refers to a different type of technique, namely creating the impression of an organic dynamic in the sense that there are a large number of people who really like this candidate, even if the actual number is quite small. And this dynamic has the task of spreading the message – through word of mouth, of course – and also increasing credibility.

You can also use hashtags after the words to highlight specific topics such as independence or anti-European or anti-NATO messages. This is called “issue framing,” which is essentially wrapping up a specific message around a very short hashtag that is commonly used in other contexts.

What are bots and trolls?

Bots are automated accounts that respond to different messages. They were initially widely used on Twitter. Imagine sending a message about climate change, for example. The bot immediately sees the message “climate change” and is programmed – this is an algorithm – to automatically reinforce or reject the message every time it sees the words “climate change”.

Trolls, on the other hand, are people with real or fake profiles. The role of trolls is essentially to disrupt, primarily to disrupt the other candidates. So when someone says, “Look, I don’t think this is a real campaign, I think this is something artificially inflated by networks” and sows doubt, a troll immediately appears. They use very inflammatory language because their job is to intimidate and silence you.

Russia has denied any involvement, but there have been allegations and evidence of such interference in other parts of the world. Can the source of this technological manipulation be identified?

With TikTok under pressure from the European Parliament, we are now starting to receive anecdotal information. And this information seems to indicate that there was indeed external support.

It shouldn’t surprise us. Russia has been involved in all kinds of interference, not just hybrid, but we are now seeing threats of sabotage all over Europe related to the war in Ukraine, as they aim to undermine Western support for Ukraine.

So, in this geopolitical context, it should not surprise us that Russia is trying to fundamentally eliminate or neutralize one country or another. They tried to do this with Moldova.

Interestingly, Romania was spared, which probably gave the authorities a false sense of security. Maybe we can talk about ignorance or incompetence; Perhaps we can also talk about the complicity of the services in this campaign due to ideological affinities with the candidate.

It looks like even on TikTok there are networks that come from various Russian-linked companies. That’s my suspicion too. I think there was definitely a Russian hand in it.

What about the social aspect? Have Georgescu’s extremist messages found fertile ground in Romanian society?

In fact, a message that deviates greatly from societal expectations is unlikely to be accepted. Romania is currently probably in its best economic situation in 70 years. So there is something that doesn’t fit into the picture.

We have some evidence that over the last three years money has been pumped out through various channels to create the impression that there is everything wrong with EU membership.

Is this a Russian technique? Yes! For example, I saw that in the Baltic States, if you look at all the countries in Eastern Europe, you hear the same message: “As a member of the EU, you are worse off,” which is a complete contradiction to reality.

Are intelligence agencies – not only in Romania but worldwide – equipped to fight this ever-evolving technology war?

The patterns of Russian interference are well known and I am not surprised. It is always about promoting a candidate who agrees with the Kremlin’s agenda and undermining the position of those who oppose it or are more reserved.

Now you should be prepared, adaptable and flexible. You have to learn from mistakes. The Republic of Moldova, for example, a country that does not have the capabilities of Romania, was able to withstand a very toxic and aggressive attack a month ago and manage it quite successfully. Why? Because they expected it. Elections are taking place in the Baltic States and there are no problems. How come? Estonia, for example, has the highest rate of arrests of Russian agents in Europe.

You have to protect yourself and expect these things to happen. To understand and develop resilience against hybrid attacks.

Edited by: Aingeal Flanagan