TikTok CEO summoned to EU Parliament over role in shock Romania election

BRUSSELS — A top EU lawmaker is demanding that TikTok’s chief executive appear before the European Parliament to answer questions about the platform’s role in Sunday’s Romanian presidential election, as researchers warn of covert activity on thousands of fake accounts leading up to the vote.

The first-round victory of the ultranationalist and pro-Russian Călin Georgescu has triggered shockwaves about the political trajectory of the EU and NATO country, with many concerns focused on how a TikTok campaign managed to propel an unknown candidate from obscurity. A second-round will be held on Dec. 8.

“We call on the CEO of TikTok to come to speak in this house and to ensure his platform conducted to no infringement under the DSA,” said Valérie Hayer, head of the liberal Renew Europe group, told a press conference on Thursday, referring to the Digital Services Act, Europe’s rulebook for online content.

“Romania is a warning bell: Radicalisation and disinformation can happen all over Europe with harmful consequences,” added Hayer, an ally of French President Emmanuel Macron.

Hayer’s appeal comes only two days after Georgescu’s shock victory. He had no party backing and polls had failed to pick up on his popularity — though researchers are now zeroing on a major TikTok campaign he led in the days leading up to the election.

“We believed that Tiktok was misused and was led to be misused by him and an army of fake accounts that were used for his purpose,” said Bogdan Manolea, executive director of the Romanian campaign group, Association for Technology and Internet.

Romanian Prime Minister Marcel Ciolacu on Tuesday said funding for Georgescu’s campaign on TikTok needed to be reviewed. “It’s a system, I don’t know how legal it is, I understood how the system was used. The source of financing, in my opinion, is to be followed, ‘follow the money.'”

There is, however, no proof at this stage of involvement by Russia or other state actors.

Manolea added TikTok should have seen the “wave of thousands of fake accounts” and that the company should be responsible for that under the DSA.

While paid political advertising isn’t allowed under TikTok’s terms and conditions, this time that rule was “largely ineffective,” said Keith Kiely, coordinator for the Bulgarian Romanian Observatory on Digital Media.

The platform had a “significant influence” in the elections, he added.

It’s not the first time that TikTok, which is owners by China’s Bytedance, has come in for criticism in the EU. In 2023, Macron called TikTok “deceptively innocent” and a cause of “real addiction” among users, though the EU has yet to levy any major fines or penalties against the platform.

TikTok declined to comment on its role in the Romanian elections. The company had set up an election center inside the app to provide reliable election information and partnered with a local NGO to boost digital literacy and counter disinformation.