The candidate who came from the feed

1. 1

   22.94% → annulment. Declaring 0 lei in spending, Georgescu came first; 12 days later, the Constitutional Court annulled the entire electoral process.

2. 2

   Over 100 unlabelled paid influencers, Telegram and account networks removed by TikTok. A state actor: alleged by intelligence services, unconfirmed by any court as of October 2026.

3. 3

   Real supporters, native formats and months of preparation can be learned; disguised ads, hidden funding and fake accounts, never. To respond: monitor early, document, report with evidence.

Copy summary

If you're new to this, start with the fundamentals, from the vote goal to what the research says. Read the fundamentals

No one inside the operation has published an account of the strategy; whoever ran the Telegram channels has not been publicly identified. The insider voices are public statements by people involved, as reported by the press. The rest was documented by courts, intelligence services, the platform, researchers and journalists. This page does not link to the candidate's accounts or to extremist channels.

• Călin Georgescu

  Independent candidate; first place on 24 Nov 2024; defendant in criminal cases since 2025

  Declared zero campaign income and spending and denied paying for TikTok promotion; he is presumed innocent in the ongoing cases.

  Sources

• Bogdan Peșchir

  Businessman and programmer named by the SRI as a funder (account "bogpr")

  According to the declassified documents, paid about $381,000 to accounts promoting Georgescu; he denies funding the campaign and says he supported him voluntarily.

  Sources

• Kensington Communication and the PNL

  Agency hired by the National Liberal Party

  Admitted creating, for the PNL, the influencer campaign that ended up associated with Georgescu, and says the hashtag was changed without its involvement.

  Sources

• Constitutional Court of Romania (CCR)

  Court that annulled the election (Hotărârea nr. 32, 6 Dec 2024)

  Unanimously annulled the entire electoral process, citing illegal aggressive promotion, non-transparent use of digital technology, unlabelled campaign material and undeclared funding.

  Sources

• DFRLab (Victoria Olari)

  Digital Forensic Research Lab, Atlantic Council

  Reconstructed the "Propagator" Telegram channel, the 41 county groups and the TikTok engagement curve, and noted that it found no ties to Russia-affiliated groups.

  Sources

• Expert Forum (EFOR)

  Romanian think tank, WatchDog Digital programme

  Published its analysis of the wave of accounts and scripted influencers the day before the vote, and asked the electoral authority to check the declared spending of zero.

  Sources

• Context.ro and Investigace.cz

  Iulia Stănoiu and Josef Šlerka, investigative journalism

  Cross-checked the declassified documents against their own investigation and found 18 news-portal-style websites promoting Georgescu with paid Facebook ads.

  Sources

• TikTok

  Platform; subject of formal European Commission proceedings under the DSA

  Published reports on removing networks and fake accounts in Romania and says the same rules apply to all candidates.

  Sources

Paraphrases of statements by people involved, as reported by the press, and findings by researchers, institutions and the platform. Short quotes in quotation marks, translated. The candidate's slogans are not reproduced.

• Said repeatedly that he spent "zero" on campaigning, the same figure he declared to the Permanent Electoral Authority.

  Călin Georgescu, candidate, RFE/RL, coverage of the annulment, 6 Dec 2024

• Denied funding Georgescu; said he supported him on his own initiative with posts and comments, and that some of his donations went to charity, apolitical accounts and supporters of other candidates.

  Bogdan Peșchir, named as a funder, RFE/RL, 6 Dec 2024

• Said the hashtag it chose was a different one and that the FameUp platform changed it without its involvement; it never made, nor was asked to make, a campaign for Georgescu.

  Kensington Communication, the PNL's agency, Snoop.ro, via Spotmedia, 20 Dec 2024

• Said the party's TikTok campaign was "trolled": someone brought in tens of thousands of accounts, which would not happen under normal conditions, though that does not prove anyone's intent.

  Rareș Bogdan, PNL leader, Antena 3, Dec 2024

For months, almost no one outside TikTok noticed what was happening. By the time pollsters and the press caught on, Georgescu was already in first place, and the debate shifted from who would win to whether the election had been clean.

783.7M

views across 51,700 videos tagged #calingeorgescu; the top 12 hashtags totalled about 1.4 billion (DFRLab, Dec 2024)

25,000

TikTok accounts that became highly active two weeks before the vote, according to the SRI (an intelligence figure, with no public evidence)

$381,000

paid by the "bogpr" account to accounts promoting Georgescu between 24 Oct and 24 Nov 2024, according to the SRI citing TikTok

53.6%

for Nicușor Dan in the rerun runoff on 18 May 2025, against 46.4% for George Simion, on 64.72% turnout

Two years

1. 15 Jun–Oct 2024The "Propagator" Telegram channel appears; on 20 July it lists 41 county groups. Between August and October a support account posts 95 videos, the first about Georgescu a month before he announced his candidacy.
2. Nov 2024More than a hundred influencers post videos about an "ideal president" without naming him, using #echilibrusiverticalitate. On 20 November the Central Electoral Bureau orders the removal of unlabelled Georgescu material; on the 23rd, Expert Forum warns about the wave of accounts.
3. 24 Nov 2024First round: Georgescu 22.94%, Elena Lasconi 19.18%, Marcel Ciolacu 19.15%, turnout 52.56%. Georgescu declares spending of 0 lei; on 26 November EFOR asks the AEP to check it.
4. 2–6 Dec 2024After a recount, the CCR validates the result (2 Dec). On 4 December President Iohannis declassifies five CSAT reports. On 6 December the CCR annuls the whole process; about 48,000 runoff votes already cast abroad become void.
5. 17–20 Dec 2024The European Commission opens formal proceedings against TikTok under the DSA. Snoop.ro reveals that the #echilibrusiverticalitate campaign had been paid for by the PNL through Kensington; the agency speaks of a cloned or hijacked campaign.
6. Jan 2025TikTok bans another 22,764 accounts from a comment network promoting AUR and, to a lesser extent, Georgescu, paid through a fake-engagement vendor. The Venice Commission publishes an urgent opinion on annulling elections.
7. 26 Feb–11 Mar 2025Georgescu is detained for questioning, charged with six offences and placed under judicial control. On 9 March the Central Electoral Bureau rejects his candidacy; on the 11th, the CCR upholds it.
8. 4–18 May 2025Rerun: George Simion (AUR), backed by Georgescu, wins 40.96% in the first round; in the runoff, Nicușor Dan wins with 53.6% on 64.72% turnout. Simion files a challenge, which the CCR rejects.
9. 16 Sep 2025–Jun 2026Georgescu is sent to trial with 21 other defendants over an alleged attempt against the constitutional order, alongside Horațiu Potra, extradited from Dubai in November 2025. In April 2026 the Bucharest Court of Appeal clears the trial to proceed; the appeal is pending at the High Court.
10. Sep–Oct 2026On 29 September, at DIICOT's request, the Bucharest Court of Appeal orders his pretrial detention in a separate case in which he is accused of forming an organised criminal group and of fraud worth over €1.1 million, part of which allegedly funded the campaign. He is presumed innocent; in October the dispute over pretrial detention or house arrest continues in the courts. The DSA proceedings were still open on 15 September.

Three layers

The reach came from three mutually reinforcing layers, and their link to the candidate is, for the most part, still unproven in court.

• Organised supportersThe "Propagator" channel and the county groups distributed ready-made photos and videos, editing tutorials and a target of about 30 minutes a day of reposting. Many participants were real people; DFRLab saw strong signs of direct coordination with the campaign, but there is no judicial proof.
• Unlabelled paid influencersMore than a hundred creators, with about 8 million followers combined, posted scripts describing the candidate without naming him, mostly without labelling it as paid political content; some did mark a “paid partnership” and admitted receiving scripts, according to SNSPA. At least one of these campaigns was paid for by the PNL, a rival party, according to its own agency.
• Inauthentic accounts and engagementAccount and comment networks removed by TikTok (78 pro-Georgescu accounts; 27,217 pro-AUR and Georgescu comment accounts), accounts impersonating institutions and, according to the SRI, 25,000 accounts activated in the final stretch, 797 of them created in 2016.

Romania had about 8.9 million TikTok users, according to Expert Forum, in a population of 19 million; worn-out mainstream parties; and a short campaign, with the presidential first round and the parliamentary election a week apart.

Platforms

TikTok (For You feed)

Recommends videos to people who don't follow the account. Georgescu's account had little activity until 1 November; that month its followers rose 2,541% while uploads fell, according to DFRLab. TikTok bans political ads, which pushed promotion towards influencers and "fan" accounts.

Telegram

The "Propagator" channel appeared on 15 June 2024, peaked at almost 8,000 subscribers and shared more than 1,800 photos and videos with editing tutorials; in July it listed 41 groups, one per county. Lightly moderated and beyond the reach of electoral rules.

Influencer platform (FameUp)

Brokered per-video payments to creators, through virtual wallets with no transparency about the source of funds, according to SNSPA research. Rates cited: from 390 lei to €1,000 per post. According to CSAT documents cited by SNSPA, the funders included Bogdan Peșchir and FA Agency, of South African origin. This is an investigative allegation, not proven in court.

Facebook

Between 26 November and 2 December, 18 news-portal-style websites, linked by Context.ro to the AUR party, spent €46,000 on ads promoting Georgescu.

Search and comments

Repeated pro-Georgescu comments appeared on unrelated posts and on those of rivals such as Elena Lasconi, and his name showed up as a suggested search, according to DFRLab.

Local conditions

• Discontent with the governing parties (PSD and PNL) and a protest vote tied to economic grievances, according to analysts quoted in the press.
• A candidate preaching "sovereignty" and "neutrality" on the war in Ukraine, against aid to Kyiv, next door to Moldova, where similar campaigns were reported in 2024.
• An electoral law requiring labels on all campaign material and full declaration of income and spending, but slow enforcement: the AEP published funding data after the vote.
• EU platform rules (the Digital Services Act) already in force, with TikTok designated a very large online platform.
• Polls that underestimated Georgescu and Lasconi; the surge was almost invisible to anyone not watching TikTok.
• More than 85,000 cyberattacks on electoral systems, according to the reports cited; the Special Telecommunications Service (STS) blocked those aimed at it and found no compromised voting data.

Nobody published a manual. What follows is the mechanism reconstructed from DFRLab, Expert Forum, SNSPA, TikTok and the declassified reports. It is described here to be understood, not copied.

Three fronts

Prepare under the radar

The Telegram channel and support accounts started months before the official campaign, while polls still had Georgescu as a fringe figure. By the time the press noticed, the network was in place.

Talk without saying the name

Lifestyle influencers described values and an "ideal president" in the candidate's own words, without naming him; later the name appeared openly. This is the part the CCR treated as unlabelled campaign material.

Flood the feed

Mass reposting by supporters, re-edited clips, repeated comments on other people's posts and inauthentic account networks made the algorithm read the topic as a trend.

The cycle of a video

From the Telegram channel to the feed, according to the analyses cited.

1. Pack The central channel posts photos, videos and clips of the candidate, with instructions on hashtags and timing.
2. Edit Supporters re-edit the material (length, soundtrack, captions) using CapCut and Filmora tutorials, so it looks like original content.
3. Distribute Reposting on TikTok, Facebook and Instagram by the county groups, with a target of about 30 minutes a day.
4. Paid bridge Influencers with non-political audiences post unlabelled scripts, taking the topic to people who would never look for politics.
5. Inflate Repeated comments and inauthentic accounts, some from a paid fake-engagement vendor, simulate popularity.
6. Trend The For You feed pushes the content; according to the Interior Ministry, the topic reached ninth place in worldwide trends.
7. Removal and victimhood Removals, BEC orders and the annulment become proof of "persecution" for supporters, and the content reappears on other accounts.

And again.

Part of what happened is supporter organising and platform fluency, which any democratic campaign can use transparently. Another part is exactly what led to the annulment and the prosecutions.

What applied in this case: Romanian electoral law, rulings by the Constitutional Court and the electoral body, EU rules, the platform's policies and criminal procedure.

Labelled campaign material (Law 370/2004)

All electoral material must be identified as such. On 20 November 2024 the BEC ordered the removal of unlabelled Georgescu material (decision 175D/2024), and the CCR cited the lack of labels among the grounds for the annulment.

Transparent funding (Law 334/2006)

Income and spending must be declared in full, and the law bars producing campaign material in-house without declaring it. The CCR found the declared spending of 0 lei incompatible with the scale of the campaign.

Annulment by the CCR (Hotărârea nr. 32/2024)

On 6 December 2024 the CCR unanimously annulled the entire electoral process: a tainted vote, non-transparent use of digital technology and AI, preferential treatment on social media and unequal opportunities. The decision names neither TikTok nor any foreign state, and it is final.

Candidacy rejected

On 9 March 2025 the BEC rejected Georgescu's candidacy for the rerun; on 11 March the CCR upheld it. His applications to the European Court of Human Rights were rejected in 2025.

Digital Services Act (EU)

On 17 December 2024 the Commission opened formal proceedings against TikTok over recommender systems, coordinated manipulation, ads and paid political content. As of 15 September 2026 there was still no conclusion and no fine.

TikTok's rules

Political ads, paid promotion of political content, inauthentic behaviour and impersonation of people and institutions are banned. Sanctions in this case: networks and accounts removed and election content taken down.

Criminal proceedings and presumption of innocence

Georgescu faces charges of alleged complicity in an attempt against the constitutional order and of false information, alongside 21 other defendants, and is under investigation in a fraud case; none of these cases had reached a verdict as of October 2026.

Real, identified people only

For democratic campaigns: no fake profiles, bought accounts, paid comments or undisclosed paid influencers. Coordinating real people to say what they think is allowed; what platforms punish is organizing likes, follows or hashtags to game the algorithm. X, for example, bans trading engagement and using a trending hashtag to manipulate the conversation.

TikTok doesn't explain everything

Analysts pointed to a protest vote and economic grievances. In the rerun, without Georgescu, Simion won 40.96% in the first round: demand for this message did not depend on one network alone.

The network's real size is unknown

TikTok's removal figures are far smaller than the SRI's 25,000, and no one has publicly explained the gap. Without data access, researchers can't separate organic support from inflation.

Foreign interference has not been proven in court

The services spoke of a state actor; the CCR named none, DFRLab found no ties to Russia and a 2026 US congressional report disputes the claim. As of October 2026, no verdict confirms it.

Even a rival paid for part of the surge

The #echilibrusiverticalitate campaign was paid for by the PNL, according to its agency. It shows how easily these tools can be hijacked, and how incomplete the early "it was all Russia" narrative was.

The democratic cost of annulment

The Venice Commission, APADOR-CH and researcher Olejnik criticise the reliance on intelligence reports and the lack of a hearing. According to the CCR, the annulment protected the election, but it fed the stolen-vote narrative at home and abroad.

The platform still has no ruling

Almost two years on, the DSA proceedings against TikTok had not concluded. Platform accountability moves far too slowly for an election calendar.

Five questions on the mechanism, the red lines and the responses. Each answer comes with an explanation.

Case study built from the Constitutional Court ruling, declassified official documents, platform reports, research and reporting published between November 2024 and October 2026. All pages were opened and read on 26 October 2026. No source links directly to extremist content.

Updated 26 October 2026