You seem surprised. This has been happening all around the world for several decades now. The Cambridge Analytica leaks made it evident that there's an entire industry pulling the strings of democracy behind the scenes.

Given enough time, dedication and not much resources anyone can get a group of individuals and entire societies to think and do whatever they want. This is straight from the advertising playbook, delivered via the greatest propaganda machine ever invented: the internet, adtech and social media.

Cambridge analytica was laser focused on voters from a few American 'swinger' state, it used lot of data to show personalized posts that would play on one fear or wish to get them to vote republican.

This is tiktok influencers...

Yes, as a libertarian, I'm astonished. Everyone over 18 should be able to think for themselves and at least be mature enough that promoted and sponsored politicians from tiktok influencers don't have your best interest in mind.

I'm not above everyone else, people can fall for propaganda, especially when it's well made. I studied Nazi propaganda movie, they are extremely clever in the way they make you think what they want you to, and admittedly in the right condition I would fall for some of the less extreme idea, but here it's a new low, it's an insult to intellect.

If that's what people fall for, they are no more than apes with smartphones.

This is not much different from what CA did in many countries, not just the US. TikTok is the most popular platform today, so it makes sense that these tactics would migrate to it. Besides, CA was just one company of an entire industry doing these operations, which includes state-level actors. This industry is very much alive and prospering today.

> If that's what people fall for, they are no more than apes with smartphones.

You claim not to be above everyone else, but then say this. We're all susceptible to psychological manipulation, and we know that propaganda is very effective. Just because you haven't been manipulated in this specific way, doesn't mean you aren't in other ways, whether you realize it or not.

People voted, the question is how big of an impact do these bots have when it comes to promoting content on social media, because it seems like a lot. There's also a huge issue with TikTok being owned by China, which is not an ally nation to Romania, and with China's support of Russia in their ongoing war against one of our neighbors our intelligence agencies are suspecting foul play.

I don't think this is specific to just Romania, a lot of people are glued to their devices on a daily basis in search of something to satiate their dopamine hunger and they'll take whatever they get fed by the algorithm.

Critical thinking is not something our educational system does well, we're more focused on getting you to learn things like a robot and reproduce them for an exam. The lack of real educational reforms is something we'll keep seeing the effects of for decades to come.

But this just comes down to “we need to overrule the plebs when they think wrong!”

That’s antithetical to democracy.

Is not really breaking news that people can be influenced through media, is it ? I'm not surprised that the people in power had the brilliant idea to use this pretext to cancel the free vote and put back PSD on track to win (after they lost the race). But I'm amazed that so many educated people manage to rationalze it and are going along with it - while claiming to value democracy !

I wonder if there may be parallels to other countries. Perhaps that makes social networks worth billions?

> Does it mean that whoever control the most popular social media in Romania also controls the result of political election ? That's more terrifying to me than just a candidate funded by Putin and who lied, it's a whole generation of 'tiktok zombies' voting for whoever their influencer tell them to !

Now you get it.