In the run-up to the Romanian presidential election, which has been rescheduled, influencers who used TikTok to help campaign for far-right candidate Calin Georgescu have begun to say they were “paid” for their actions. The existence of the manual and the frequent use of fake accounts confirm the manipulation of information on social media. Regarding the presidential election, the Constitutional Court ruled on the 6th that the fairness of the first round of voting on November 24th had been compromised, so the election should be rerun. In documents released by intelligence agencies and others, Georgescu declared that he had spent zero on his election campaign, but more than 100 influencers were involved in the promotion and were paid a total of about $380,000 (about 57 million yen) in compensation. They said there were around 25,000 accounts linked to Georgescu. Georgescu denies the allegations. Alex Stremiceanu (27), who has about 50,000 followers, confessed in a TikTok post that he had “undertaken the post as part of a campaign to increase voter turnout.” He accepted the offer through an intermediary app for influencers, and following the manual, he captioned a video of himself in which he talked about the qualities he would like in a president with the hashtag “Presidential Election 2024.” Although it was explained that the purpose was not to support a specific candidate, the video received a large number of comments such as “I’ll vote for Georgescu.” In an interview with the newspaper, Stremiceanu explained that many of the comments on his videos were “from fake accounts.” “I had no idea that Georgescu would use me. “I do not share his values and regret having been involved.” Related threads Romanian Constitutional Court invalidates first round of presidential election, revealing Russian influence on winning candidate [Goma Kanpachi★] Romanian prosecutors search for people connected to presidential election, pro-Russian far-right candidate’s camp? [Goma Kanpachi★] “Algorithm x” can change your political opinion in a few days – Stanford University tests with over 1,000 people [Shoko-san★].
Even Hyogo in Japan is in chaos… Japan doesn’t have a presidential system so this wouldn’t happen, but I guess there’s still information manipulation by certain political parties.
It seems the Hyogo Prefectural Governor election is also invalid. But Saito will probably lose his job anyway for violating the Public Offices Election Act.
People who say they won’t be fooled by old media are likely to be easily fooled by YouTubers and influencers. Looking at the number of views of YouTube videos with fake text, it seems these people will believe anything as long as it’s on the internet.
Well, if the reports are true, it seems strange that a candidate whose background prior to running is completely unknown and undisclosed would win the top spot.
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