cross-posted from: https://scribe.disroot.org/post/2772572

Viginum, the French government body responsible for monitoring foreign digital interference, published a detailed report uncovering a large-scale Russian influence operation that used TikTok to sway Romania’s presidential race in December last year.

The campaign, backed by Russian-linked networks, boosted fringe candidate Calin Georgescu and ultimately led Romanian authorities to annul the vote.

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Viginum is now calling on France and other EU countries to increase oversight of digital advertising and influencer activity ahead of upcoming elections.

“The absence of transparency about the origin of funding and advertisements allowed the foreign network to move while remaining virtually invisible, directly reaching a gigantic electoral pool,” the report said.

Romania’s elections this month [on May 18] will be followed by votes in Albania and Poland, raising concerns that similar campaigns could target those countries next.

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[Sergiu Miscoiu of Babes-Bolyai University] said Russian disinformation efforts across Eastern Europe are rarely designed to promote Russia directly. Instead, they aim to erode confidence in democratic institutions.

“They will try just to seed doubts about the European Union, about liberal democracy, to create alternative narratives, and through fake news and disinformation, to weaken the trust in the authorities,” he said.

One recent example is a false campaign claiming that young Europeans would be forcibly sent to fight in Ukraine. The rumour spread widely among Romanian and Bulgarian communities, stoking fear and distrust.

Other operations target everyday frustrations.

“There would be a report on ‘Eastern countries getting the rotten apples, the expired bananas, the second-hand services, and so they remain second-hand Europeans, while all the good products are reserved for the Western Europeans’,” said Miscoiu.

Viginum had already issued warnings last year about Russian attempts to meddle in European elections. Its latest findings suggest that while the Romanian vote was re-run, the tactics used to disrupt it are still in play.