Romanian presidential election: Georgescu used hidden political advertising on Facebook

Meta Corporation allowed a network of Facebook pages to publish more than 4,100 posts with political ads criticizing pro-European Romanian presidential candidate Elena Lasconi and praising far-right politicians, especially presidential candidate Calin Georgescu.

This is stated in a report by digital threat research groups Reset Tech and Check First, Bloomberg reports.

The political campaign was carried out on 25, at first glance, separate Facebook pages for organizations whose websites share hosting, advertising and email indicating an organized attempt to influence the Romanian presidential election.

It is not yet known who is behind the political campaign on Facebook and Instagram, but it is known that almost €265 thousand was spent on it.

Meta declined to comment on the report, but referred to comments from its president of global affairs, Nick Clegg: «We see no evidence of major incidents on our platforms in Romania».

The ad portrays Georgescu as a «patriotic president» who protects the people from the political establishment. While Lasconi was shown as «the devil» and a puppet of the West, and the current president, Klaus Iohannis, was called a «dictator».

The profiles of the registered advertisers had Facebook pages with administrators whose geolocation was in Romania, and presented themselves as news or entertainment sites. However, the sites did not have legal or editorial information, and many were noted to have shared IP addresses, identical design, shared email, etc. This indicates a centralized management structure.