Undermining democracy: The weaponization of social media in Romania’s 2024 elections

Social media analysis reveals a complex landscape of political discourse and public engagement across multiple platforms in Romania. The period between November 20 and December 10, 2024, saw significant online activity centered around electoral themes, with particular intensity following the Constitutional Court's decision to invalidate elections.

The campaign's social media presence achieved remarkable reach, particularly on TikTok, where the primary campaign hashtag garnered 100 million views at its peak in late November. This platform proved especially effective for political messaging, with related hashtags also showing substantial engagement – including 17 million views for political party content and notable spikes for youth-oriented political messaging reaching 7 million views.

However, beneath these surface-level metrics lies a more nuanced picture of the campaign's digital footprint. Analysis of over 9,000 Telegram posts from 35 campaign-affiliated groups, active until their closure in early December, revealed a consistent pattern of controversial narratives. These groups served as echo chambers for conspiracy theories, historical revisionism, and anti-Western sentiment, though their content maintained a pragmatic tone that resonated with their audience's shared values.

The campaign's messaging strategy wove together several interconnected narratives. At its core was a strong nationalist theme that idealized Romania's past, particularly emphasizing Dacian heritage as a symbol of resistance to foreign influence. This historical narrative provided a foundation for contemporary anti-globalist messaging and fed into broader conspiracy theories circulating at both local and national levels.

A particularly prominent thread in the online discourse portrayed Western influences as existential threats to Romanian identity. This narrative framed progressive values and international alliances, particularly NATO and EU membership, as mechanisms of cultural erosion and national subjugation. The messaging consistently positioned Romania as a victim of Western exploitation, with particular emphasis on how this allegedly affected traditional values and national sovereignty.

The analysis also identified a significant surge in content questioning electoral legitimacy, especially following the Constitutional Court's intervention. This narrative gained considerable traction across platforms, interweaving with existing conspiracy theories and anti-establishment sentiment.

It's important to note the limitations of this analysis. The opacity of TikTok's platform mechanics, the inability to recover deleted content, and the exclusion of audio-visual material from detailed analysis create significant blind spots in our understanding. Additionally, the rapid evolution of social media conversations means that some nuances may have been missed in the data collection process, which relied on tools monitoring Meta, TikTok, Twitter (X), news sites, and blog comments.

The findings suggest a sophisticated understanding of platform-specific dynamics and audience preferences, with content strategically tailored to resonate with different user segments across various social media channels. This multi-platform approach allowed for both broad reach and deep engagement with core supporters, though the true impact of these digital campaigns on voter behavior remains challenging to quantify. 

Last but not least, one of the main insights stemmed from the analysis of the discourses disseminated online is that most of the  narratives concentrated within the electoral period were not new. In fact, there was a steady stream of socially polarizing narratives being disseminated across social media platforms and online media sites alike. The daily frequency spikes observed in the electoral and pre-electoral periods, as well as the consistent reach of these narratives reflect a discursive and societal phenomenon which takes place on a daily basis across platforms. Obfuscated by the social media platforms’ lack of transparency, the complexities of data collection, processing and its sheer volume, these narrative complexes lurk within each personalized social media bubble, in wait for the next vulnerable moment to come.

In light of the developments related to the digital space during the elections in Romania, Signatories of the Code of Practice – including the four major online platforms signatories (Meta, TikTok, Google, and Microsoft) have agreed to activate the Rapid Response System under the Code. This time-bound framework of cooperation and communications allows civil society organizations and fact-checkers to report time-sensitive content that they deem to present threats to the integrity of the electoral process. Funky Citizens, as part of the Bulgarian-Romanian EDMO Hub (BROD) has been involved in this process, and flagged over 1000 pieces of content. A full report on the effectiveness of the mechanism will be published after the RRS will be closed.

The complete report is available here.