TikTok risks fine worth 6% of global turnover after 2024 Romania election interference, European Commission says

The European Commission has opened an investigation into Chinese social media platform TikTok under the Digital Services Act (DSA) after the 2024 Romanian elections. The investigation could result in fines of up to 6% of TikTok's global turnover, according to Thomas Regnier, spokesperson for the European Commission’s Directorate-General for Communication.

According to the European official, after the first round of the 2024 Romanian presidential elections, when far-right surprise candidate Calin Georgescu came in first place, Romanian authorities sent the Commission classified documents.

The documents showed that massive disinformation campaigns had taken place on TikTok, amplified by bots.

“This is where we suddenly enter the territory of the DSA, because it holds online platforms accountable for the role they could play in elections. (...) In the meantime, we have opened an investigation against TikTok under the DSA; it risks fines of up to 6% of its global turnover, representing a considerable amount,” the spokesperson explained, cited by Agerpres.

After receiving the documents from Romania, the European Commission asked TikTok for information. Regnier stressed that the Commission was not directly interested in who won the elections.

“The only thing we want is to ensure that, regardless of who wins the elections, the result reflects the choice of the citizens, and only the citizens, and that no technology executive has intervened in the electoral process because of their own preferences,” Thomas Regnier said.

Romania’s Constitutional Court annulled the results of the first round of the presidential election in December 2024, which had been won by independent candidate Călin Georgescu. Since then, the far-right politician has been arrested for fraud.

The same month, the European Union opened formal proceedings against the social media platform TikTok over its alleged failure to limit election interference during Romania’s presidential election.