Monitoring Report: April–May 2026

Authors: Mădălina Voinea (Digital Programs Coordinator, Expert Forum), Vlad Adamescu (Co-Chair, Center for Democracy and Good Governance), Monirul Hassan (Independent Researcher, Computer Science)

In a period of political crisis, Romanian TikTok feeds have become an information battlefield. The researchers analysed 23,599 viral political videos from the beginning of the year. Of these, in the period 1 April – 11 May 2026 alone, the monitored videos generated 101.9 million views, 829,000 shares, and 68,400 comments. 52% of comments were identical messages. Of the 267,799 followers of the accounts that produced this content, 53.1% were empty accounts with no videos posted. Are we talking about real people, concerned citizens, patriots? Our data suggests the continuous presence of amplification networks that artificially keep the conversation at peak levels precisely at the moments when the public is most vulnerable. We ask ourselves in this context how we can determine who came first — the inauthentic accounts or the genuine supporters? More importantly, who is accountable in a democracy for the manipulation of information reaching citizens?

Beyond platform obligations, responding to information pollution requires action at the societal level. In this report, the authors propose three complementary directions:

1. the regulation of online political advertising, within which we should explicitly include a ban on the use of inauthentic content campaigns by marketing companies contracted by Romanian political parties. Such a regulation may be accompanied by a Code of Conduct for parties in the online environment.
2. Strengthening civil strategic communication capacity through the establishment of a Romanian STRATCOM. This does not entail replicating models from France, Sweden, Norway or Moldova, but rather the creation, first and foremost, of studies on the Romanian information space, consumption habits, and vulnerabilities, together with experts from universities and civil society in the Romanian information space.
3. A clear distinction between legitimate forms of user coordination in the online environment, for example, coordinated citizen campaigns supporting a politician, information campaigns, organic political expression campaigns, and coordinated inauthentic campaigns.