An Expert Forum report analyzes the promotion of candidates in the Bucharest elections on TikTok, highlighting the use of inauthentic networks that favor the candidate Daniel Băluță.

Expert Forum published a report on promoting candidates in the Bucharest elections on TikTok, highlighting an emerging practice of using inauthentic networks. These combine real and anonymous accounts to promote candidates, being much more popular than official accounts.

The report identified 601 videos supporting Daniel Băluță, most of which came from accounts with inauthentic behavior. Although the electoral impact of these campaigns cannot be assessed, the analysis suggests that social platforms allow for the manipulation of political content.

Other candidates, such as Anca Alexandrescu, have been affected by these practices, and the accounts promoting the candidate have been associated with specific political movements. Expert Forum draws attention to the responsibility of platforms to prevent such manipulations and emphasizes that these undeclared campaigns complicate financial transparency in elections.