[switch007]

That's certainly easier than sitting down and questioning your own decisions over the last couple of decades and wondering why people are voting in ways you don't like

(For the record I'm not a Tiktok user and I think it's a net negative to society)

[cbg0]

In this specific case of the first round of Romanian presidential election the traditional candidates from the bigger parties (PNL/PSD which have a government coalition at the moment) have both admitted to understanding why they lost and that the people's vote was against their policies. Both of these leaders have quit their leadership positions in their respective parties.

There is still a very serious discussion going on about potential foreign powers (China) getting involved in our electoral process with platforms like TikTok, see my other comment in this thread about this.

[NVHacker]

Since the resignations, the PSD candidate was resurrected and is back on course to become president, after the result of the democratic vote was .. cancelled. How is that "understanding" looking now ?

[cubancigar11]

I find it so incredibly funny that even questioning western media immediately puts a leader into fascist category but someone loses an election in romania and questioning tiktok is just the wisest more logical and righteous thing to do. "Fascism" exists now in the same space as "communism" did during cold war - easy othering.

EDIT: And may be that is why there is huge distrust against media. It is quite disturbing that tea-party has became the new hippie movement.

[knbknb]

Read the article - This is not the EU commission or some bigwig requesting a hearing or an investigation.

Rather there was one delegate from one of the many political groups in the EU Parliament (which has very little authority and power) who made a statement .

In analogy to the US political system: This is not Mark Zuckerberg summoned to a Senate hearing. Rather this is someone of the House of Representatives making some weird proposal or claim.

Maybe I am oversimplifying here, but you get the idea.

[rdm_blackhole]

Does it matter in the end?

The way I see it, it's a parliamentary member from France from the Renew group in the EU parliament who is not happy with the results and thinks that the democracy needs to be saved because the results do not align with their expectations.

The decent thing to do would be to take this vote into account and accept that not everyone wants the same thing.

[latexr]

> Does it matter in the end?

Yes, it does. It matters very much. The difference between a governmental body ordering you to do something and a single employee making one comment is tremendous. Maybe the latter can lead to the former, maybe, but they’re very far from being the same thing.

[rdm_blackhole]

ok, let's follow your logic there to the very end.

Your argument is that we should not pay attention because whoever the MP who made this comments is, she is not part of the EU commission and she is not a big wig as you put it. So we could assume that whatever she says does not carry much weight.

But the website reporting this news does not agree with you here, otherwise, why report it in the first place? To them, it matters and it is important because she is part of the Renew group. The Renew group is staunchly opposed to the far-right and pro NATO and pro Ukraine, that is to say the complete opposite to this Romanian candidate.

Furthermore, the MP in question is a close ally of the French president which means she could have the means to convince other MPs to join her and maybe get some support from Macron to jump start some kind of investigation into this matter.

Macron is/was the de facto leading figure in Europe (before becoming a lame duck in the last election) and his words still carry a lot of weight at the EU level.

If she was a random MP in a small fringe party on the sidelines of the EU parliament, I would have agreed with you but not in this case.

Maybe you are right and nothing will come out of it but to me this is not nothing and it should not be dismissed as easily as you think.

[latexr]

> Your argument is that we should not pay attention because whoever the MP who made this comments is, she is not part of the EU commission and she is not a big wig as you put it.

No, that was not my argument at all. I didn’t call anyone a bigwig. You’re not replying to the same person and are starting from an entirely false and incorrect premise, thus reaching a wrong conclusion.

I don’t think this should be dismissed, nor have I claimed it. My sole point is that the difference as it exists is meaningful. One is a certainty, the other is a possibility. Possibilities may be avoided, with different degrees of probability.

[orwin]

No, Macron lost his credibility and influence in the last elections, and by refusing to let his opponents try to form a coalition first (wether or not it would have succeeded is irrelevant here.), he is sometimes viewed as an anti-parliementarist by some of his allies. Being part of renew and batting for 'democracy' is quite ironic,and my guess is that she'll be ignored.

[kreetx]

It matters in the sense that the title makes this sound much bigger than it actually is. Every parliament has a spectrum of members, some of them being relatively edgy/extreme in what they say. And most of the time what they say doesn't have any later consequences - apart from, I guess, affirming their voter base - which is why they are there in the first place.

[rdm_blackhole]

Agreed, would they have called the CEO of TikTok if one of the mainstream parties had won?

To me it looks like the EU wants to become an auditor of the elections of the EU members and is taking sides.

And here I thought that the EU wanted to promote democracy and the will of the people.

[tzs]

Read the article. What is concerning is not that some politician with extreme views did well in an election. The concern is that a politician did well because of a large number of votes from people who admit to not even knowing much about him.

[consumer451]

You seem to be denying the fact that humans are easily programmed meat machines, even the best of us.

https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC8116821/

[naiv]

You make the assumption that social media is the main source of truth for voters.

But people are waking up and vote because of what they see with their own eyes.

[sofixa]

> But people are waking up and vote because of what they see with their own eyes.

Which part of this guy's platform do you think people voted for? In a staunchly pro-EU and pro-NATO country that has centuries of bad blood with Russia, with a walking and talking unstable living proof of it (Moldova), a pro-Russian Eurosceptic sounds like a weird choice

[ivan_gammel]

Sometimes people vote not for something, but against something, when they don’t really have a good choice. It’s a „format HDD“ button for the political system. Wipe out the mainstream and hope that something new and better comes to the rescue.

[latexr]

> You make the assumption that social media is the main source of truth for voters.

That’s no longer an assumption, we’ve seen that happening for years now. For crying out loud, the CEO of a major platform regularly repeats every bullshit he reads on his own network, as long as it conforms to his world view.

https://www.techdirt.com/2024/10/25/lies-damned-lies-and-elo...

https://www.nytimes.com/2024/09/27/technology/elon-musk-x-po...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3u8_fp1TtJE

[consumer451]

OK, please stealman the argument for Georgescu's platform.

[snapplebobapple]

what was this guy's platform anyway? The internet doesn't have much detail in english as far as I can tell from a few quick searches. wikipedia has "Among his campaign stances were strengthening Romania's defence capabilities, diversifying Romania's diplomatic relations, increased support for farmers, promoting energy and food production, and reducing dependency on imports" which is kind of vague and could be great ideas or a mixed bag depending on the actual details. (i.e. strengthening defence capabilities and diversifying diplomatic relations seem pretty spot on if they are middle of the road in that direction policies, but could be very bad if they are not. "supporting farmers" could mean anything from good ideas (decreasing over-regulation [that in itself needs a book to explain it accurately so just assume it means something you think is good for getting rid of a regulation]) to very terrible ideas (explicit subsidy,etc).)

[DemocracyFTW2]

which is precisely why 65% of votes went to Trump and JD Vance in Springfield, Ohio /s

[ahoka]

Quite the opposite, they just proved it.

[consumer451]

How so? A candidate who nobody knew about built his following on a platform known for CCP control, short attention span, and repetition.

What is the substance?

[logicchains]

The substance is many people there didn't want Romania to get into a catastrophic war with Russia like Ukraine did and see hundreds of thousands of their countrymen die (likely ultimately for nothing, as Trump seems to be planning to let Russia keep the land it took).

[trabant00]

This comment has me puzzled for so many reasons. Which candidate or party wanted Romania to get into a war with Russia? I don't think this issue was mentioned at all during the entire campaign because nobody is even thinking about that possibility. And what do you mean Ukraine "got into a war"? They where attacked.

[NicoJuicy]

NATO seems more safe to be honest

[consumer451]

Are you trying to tell me that Putin is invading Romania, and Romania has already given up?

I know some Romanians, and they ain't no papa laptes.

[pmezard]

Like giving them a tons of money then be told to get lost?

[openrisk]

For from me to defend any politician but denying the role of social media in shifting public opinion is like sticking your head deep in the sand.

The real culpability of politicians and governments the world over is that they have endorsed this freak development for decades.

They are all present on social media, they are advertising both directly and indirectly, by placing links and "follow us on xyz" on every damn government website.

They have made a faustian pact with the devil and now the devil is extracting his pound of flesh.

[naiv]

100% this.

This would never have happened if it would have been a left wing politician obeying to the EU elites.

[cbg0]

We don't have true left wing candidates in Romania, or not any that have made it far in the election cycle, so this is not relevant.

[ahoka]

The EP never had a left wing majority, especially not in the last decade. What are you talking about?

[libertine]

So you think amplified disinformation and misinformation, with high frequency per user, play no role in people's perception of reality and their decision-making process?

[probably_wrong]

I agree that politicians in a good chunk of Europe have let their constituents down one one too many times, that the breach has gotten too wide and that protest voting makes perfect sense for a lot of people. But two things can be right at the same time: I also believe it's true that dictators are sabotaging democracies everywhere and that social networks (not just TikTok) are both addictive and a major source of misinformation.

I'm constantly reminded of this bit from [1] (which is a great read):

> Later, when I ask Chase whether he’s ever heard about the QAnon conspiracy, he says no, but explains that the video must be legit because “it’s gotten deleted multiple times off the internet, which is insane.” Epistemologically, this is where we are as a country: when content gets expurgated because of blatant misinformation, it is taken as a sure sign of that source’s truthfulness.

I certainly want more politicians to be afraid of the people they claim to represent, but I also want social networks to stop throwing their hands in the air and pretend they're not responsible for spreading misinformation at an unprecedent scale.

[1] https://harpers.org/archive/2021/06/tiktok-house-collab-hous...