Electoral Disinformation Ecosystems in Romania and its Diaspora: Cross-Platform Dynamics and Strategic Narratives during the 2024–2025 Electoral Cycle

This report investigates the disinformation landscape across X, TikTok, and Facebook during Romania's super 2024–2025 electoral cycle, with particular attention to the role played by Romanian diaspora communities, and a particular focus on those based in Italy. Drawing on network analysis, thematic clustering, and engagement metrics, we document how platform-native narratives such as those surrounding national sovereignty, electoral fraud, and anti-institutional sentiment, achieve virality and cross-platform propagation both within Romania and across diaspora networks. The findings illustrate the differentiated role of each platform in shaping public discourse and reveal the presence of both organic and coordinated information campaigns, posing critical challenges to electoral integrity.

We thank our partners at LUISS University, Domenico Cangemi and Federica Urzo, our colleagues from EDMO, especially Paula Gori who facilitated this partnership, and Rys Farthing and Lishu Gang from Reset Tech, who supported us in this endeavor.