Just days before the second round of Romania’s presidential election, a new investigation by the international NGO Global Witness reveals that TikTok’s algorithm pushes users in Romania toward far-right political content at three times the rate of other political viewpoints. The study was conducted on May 7–8, 2025, in Bucharest, using three newly created TikTok accounts designed to be politically neutral, each following the official accounts of both presidential candidates: George Simion (far-right) and Nicusor Dan (center). Over a combined 30 minutes spent on the “For You” page, TikTok displayed 65 political posts. The findings showed: 74% promoted or favorably featured far-right figures or views. Only 26% reflected other political perspectives “The results were strikingly unbalanced. Regardless of how we set up the accounts, TikTok persistently and overwhelmingly recommended far-right content,” Global Witness said in a press release. The experiment was repeated three times, and the 3-to-1 ratio in favor of far-right content remained consistent in each run. This investigation was released shortly before the rescheduled second round of presidential elections, following the annulment of the original November 2024 vote. TikTok responded by rejecting the report’s conclusions, labeling the study “unscientific and misleading,” and arguing that the test users’ interactions do not reflect typical user behavior. However, the company emphasized its ongoing commitment to election integrity and its collaboration with EU authorities. Global Witness clarified that it does not claim TikTok’s algorithm was intentionally designed to promote the far right. Instead, it warns that provocative, viral content—often extremist in nature—is favored by engagement-optimized algorithms, which can unintentionally skew political discourse. “This algorithmic bias distorts the political landscape and risks undermining democratic election processes,” the NGO warned. A similar investigation in December 2024, following ultranationalist C?lin Georgescu’s surprise win in the first round of the canceled election, found that 73% of participants reported seeing Georgescu frequently in the two weeks leading up to the vote. “Using a politically neutral account, we found the TikTok ‘For You’ page showed over five times more pro-Georgescu content than that of his opponent,” Global Witness stated at the time. The NGO concluded that TikTok’s current measures fail to provide balanced exposure to politically neutral users and warned that other elections may also be at risk if stronger action is not taken. “Our findings suggest TikTok has not done enough to prevent its algorithm from disproportionately amplifying far-right content, potentially threatening the fairness of future elections,” the organization added. In December 2024, the European Commission launched a formal investigation into TikTok for potential electoral manipulation in Romania under the Digital Services Act (DSA), the EU law requiring platforms to assess and mitigate risks to electoral processes. Global Witness now urges the Commission to continue and deepen its inquiry, stressing that social platforms must be held accountable for the political consequences of their algorithmic design. Founded in 1993 in London, Global Witness is an international NGO specializing in investigations and campaigns related to environmental abuses and human rights.
Around 32% of Romanians plan to spend their upcoming holidays abroad, with Greece, Italy, and Spain topping the list of preferred destinations, according to the Visa CEE Travel and Payment Intentions Study 2025. Of those going abroad for the summer, nearly 40% say they are “experience seekers,” prioritizing discoveries and stepping out of their comfort […]
Călin Georgescu, the far-right, Russia-friendly politician who surprisingly emerged as the first-round winner of last year’s presidential elections, will remain under judicial supervision after the District 1 Court in Bucharest rejected his appeal against the prosecutors’ decision to extend the preventive measure,
The mayor of Timișoara, Dominic Fritz, will be the new leader of the Save Romania Union party, or USR, after he received 67.2% of the votes in an internal race. The vote for the new party president was conducted online and started Wednesday at 10 AM and ended Friday at noon. A total of 10,914 […]
The Sports Barometer in Romania, a study conducted by IRES and presented on Thursday, June 12, during the Sports Festival, reveals that 32% of Romanians do not engage in any type of physical activity, and that as age increases motivation drastically decreases. According to the study, 28% of Romanians are super-active and do a form […]
The Romanian-American University has officially launched the country’s first Department of Latin American Studies (DSLA), marking a significant step in its internationalization efforts. The inauguration brought together official representatives from eight Latin American countries - Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Cuba, Mexico, Peru, and Uruguay - underlining the strong diplomatic support for deepening educational and cultural […]
Romanian president Nicușor Dan laid wreaths on Friday, June 13, at the Monument dedicated to the memory of the victims of the June 13–15, 1990 Mineriad and at the “Kilometer Zero of Democracy” Monument. The violent events of June 1990 remain in post-communist memory as the “June 13–15, 1990 Mineriad” and refer to the repression, […]
