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michaelflutist's avatar

Has this been covered here yet? https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cn4x2epppego Romanian court annuls result of presidential election first round:

[...]Outgoing Romanian Prime Minister Marcel Ciolacu said the court's decision to annul was "the only correct solution after the declassification of the documents... which show that the result of the Romanians' vote was blatantly distorted as a result of Russia's intervention".

In an address on Friday evening, current President Klaus Iohannis confirmed he would remain in the role until a new president was elected.[...]

The law stipulates that, in the event of the annulment of the elections, they should resume on the second Sunday after the date of the annulment - which would have meant on 22 December.

However, the court has decided to ask the government to rerun the entire electoral process, and therefore the electoral campaign.[...]

This is what should have happened in 2016. The candidate who came in 2nd and was hoping to win the runoff disagrees, though. Maybe some of you do, too.

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Ethan (KingofSpades)'s avatar

Freakin' tiktok is mucking up things again. Luckily a court here upheld the law requiring it to sell off or be banned.

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Toiler On the Sea's avatar

Problem goes WAY beyond TikTok.

In any case I'm not a fan of the decision because if the law actually says foreign propaganda is just cause to annull an election (which seems questionable . .but I'm no expert on Romanian law), they'll never be another election, because there's literally no way to prevent that.

There need to be steps taken at the educational level regarding courses teaching how future voters can discern information online and verify/cross-check claims. But of course any attempt to do that here would be decried itself as "propaganda" because fact-checking has a "liberal bias."

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NewDem07's avatar

There was a bit of discussion on this earlier today, but the weekend thread is more suitable for a more in-depth exploration.

While on principle I would be opposed to election nullification (as a small-d democrat), the extraordinary and unprecedented nature of the situation means that whatever the intelligence services found regarding Russian involvement must be incredibly serious and damaging. (I know, we are all sick and tired of this "crisis era")

I do wonder if the incoming parliament will be able to take office at all. That election was held only a week after and subject to the same social media influence, as evident by far-right parties gaining seats. Though we all know in politics, logical consistency goes out the window for convenience (see the Republicans in 2020 who claimed the presidential race was stolen, but their races were just fine).

I am surprised by the court acting so quickly. At the very least, it is better optics to annul the election before any votes are cast, as opposed to declaring it void after the fact (which is what happened in Austria in 2016).

As for what Lasconi (the 2nd place finisher) said, I would not be so confident in winning. The few polls released show her stuck in the 40s (sound familiar?)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Opinion_polling_for_the_2024_Romanian_presidential_election#Georgescu_vs_Lasconi

Finally, I will note that the center-left/pro-EU candidate did better in the revote than the initial round in Austria, an outcome we can only hope repeats itself again here.

Meanwhile, to tie this all together, a US appeals court upholds the forced sale/threat of ban of Tiktok: https://www.cnn.com/2024/12/06/tech/tiktok-ban-law-court-decision/index.html

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Mike in MD's avatar

I'm not really on board with banning TikTok; for purposes of entertainment, promoting businesses, and such, it's often been much more constructive than its critics are willing to admit. (I do not use it myself even for entertainment consumption).

But politically, it's increasingly concerning to me that it's become a destructive source of misinformation. Even if we dismiss the idea of a Russian, Chinese, or whatever conspiracy to warp US elections and public opinion, there's been way too much crap on it giving people (especially but not exclusively young voters) false ideas on all range of issues, ranging from the economy to social issues to certain international conflicts that aren't for discussion here.

Regarding Romania, nullifying an election result or imposing a do-over is an extreme measure that understandably people can be wary about. But it's good to see someone taking decisive action against Russian meddling.

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Henrik's avatar

Problem is broader than TikTok though, and even foreign disinfo (even if that’s more concentrated), but rather social media more broadly. There’s so much bullshit swirling around and so much incentive to perpetuate it that one platform or one foreign actor doesn’t begin to cover the problem. And it’s global

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Wolfpack Dem's avatar

Yep. Not an America problem, but rather a humanity problem.

I think we are past the tipping point, and pretty much screwed.

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Henrik's avatar

Agreed, sadly. That and the climate combine for a bad one-two punch

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Zero Cool's avatar

I would propose that there should be a complete redesign of social media that’s based on legislation which limits the ability for users to get corrupted the way they have been under Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, etc.

AOL was the far superior social media platform because it gave users more autonomy and control over their own domain with less problems. Social media should not allow people to show their own name unless there’s a process by which to verify it legally or if they have to pay.

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