The impact of social networks on democracy: The President of Romania, Nicușor Dan, draws attention to the risks posed by artificial voices in the online space

President Nicușor Dan warned on Tuesday in Bucharest, during the Rule of Law Forum 2026, that social media can distort public debate by mobilizing financed artificial voices to drown out legitimate opinions. The head of state explained that the scale of the phenomenon, rather than necessarily the content of the messages, represents one of the main pressures on contemporary democracy.

“It has become extremely cheap to pay 1,000 voices to drown out one legitimate voice,” Nicușor Dan said. He noted that this mechanism can make it more difficult for genuine points of view to be expressed and heard online.

The president also spoke about the difficulty of explaining the concept of the “rule of law” to the public, describing it as abstract in Romanian. According to him, the notion has concrete effects on people’s lives through the functioning of institutions, trust in them, and mutual oversight intended to prevent abuses.

Nicușor Dan stressed that protesting and expressing grievances are legitimate, but must be complemented by dialogue, compromise, and the pursuit of consensus. The forum brings together officials from the Venice Commission and representatives of Romanian institutions.