Rigged? Or just convinced enough idiots with propaganda?
The person that thinks they're above propaganda is the one most swayed by it.
Parent post wasn't saying they were above it, they were saying they were aware of it. Big difference.
Russia and China rigged Romanian Elections using 10M fake TikTok accounts
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Re: Russia and China rigged Romanian Elections using 10M fake TikTok accounts
#82Another article https://www.rferl.org/a/romania-russia-election-interference...
Wow, this disclaimer on the side of the page was a bit surprising: "If you are in Russia or the Russia-controlled parts of Ukraine and hold a Russian passport or are a stateless person residing permanently in Russia or the Russia-controlled parts of Ukraine, please note that you could face fines or imprisonment for sharing, liking, commenting on, or saving our content, or for contacting us."
It's state sponsored media from a geopolitical adversary.
> Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty (RFE/RL) is an American government-funded media organization broadcasting news and analyses in 27 languages to 23 countries...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radio_Free_Europe/Radio_Libert...
Re: Russia and China rigged Romanian Elections using 10M fake TikTok accounts
#83>How is it possible that a low level professor with pro-Russian leanings that no one’s ever heard of suddenly place 2nd in nationwide presidential elections? Why don't they even try to hide their disdain for plebs? Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez was also an unknown pleb who quickly became an elected official. We don't question that, and in fact, we celebrate it. It's a great American underdog story. We love it. It's the sp…
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Re: Russia and China rigged Romanian Elections using 10M fake TikTok accounts
#84They didn’t rig an election — at least not based on the description in the article. They campaigned for a candidate using underhanded tactics.
Election rigging isn't the right term. It should be election interference.
They only call it interference if it supports the wrong people. Russia taking out ads on Facebook: election interference. Various state sponsored media outlets and foreign politicians and officials disparaging Trump: free speech.
Re: Russia and China rigged Romanian Elections using 10M fake TikTok accounts
#85As much as I want to trust "Kyiv Insider" for being nonpartisan, I unfortunately wasn't born yesterday. How does this low quality propaganda not get flagged as such? Why is this even on HN rather than an in-depth article proving the points against TikTok? This is literally out of the playbook from US Presidental election in 2016 when the Democrats claimed it was Russian interference that caused Trump to win due to Russian bots, and unless there's a thorough explanation (not from a corrupt, biased government), you would have to be a fool to believe the claims of 1M+ TikTok accounts fooling Romanians to vote one way or another. It's an insult against everyone's intelligence, and most especially against the voters themselves.
Re: Russia and China rigged Romanian Elections using 10M fake TikTok accounts
#86From what I've come to understand: - Romania's voting system is in 2 rounds, and he won the first. The second is in ~2 days. - Most people never heard of him up until 2 weeks before the first round, when an aggressive Tiktok campaign started. Polymarket.com didn't include him in their system. Many were taken by surprise. - Many videos promoting him on Tiktok weren't marked as being propaganda, and thus allowed to go…
That's an excellent summary. I'd add:
- Someone so unexpectedly winning the first round creates its own myth, and people tend to join such candidates "to be on the winner's side", so he seemed to have a solid chance at winning the second round too.
Re: Russia and China rigged Romanian Elections using 10M fake TikTok accounts
#87Earlier quoted context omitted.
Election rigging isn't the right term. It should be election interference.
They only call it interference if it supports the wrong people. Russia taking out ads on Facebook: election interference. Various state sponsored media outlets and foreign politicians and officials disparaging Trump: free speech.
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Re: Russia and China rigged Romanian Elections using 10M fake TikTok accounts
#88Re: Russia and China rigged Romanian Elections using 10M fake TikTok accounts
#89Another article https://www.rferl.org/a/romania-russia-election-interference...
Why are all the links being posted here from disreputable sources? Kyiv Insider, Radio Free Europe / Radio Liberty (which is explicitly a propaganda organization run by the US government)...
Re: Russia and China rigged Romanian Elections using 10M fake TikTok accounts
#90According to Wikipedia, kyivinsider.com was founded with a grant from European Endowment for Democracy which like its American cousin, National Endowment for Democracy, is an NGO explicitly set up by Western intelligence agencies to push pro NATO narratives.
Looking through the grants list for NED: https://www.ned.org/explore-all-grants/ Not seeing anything related to NATO and a lot of noble humanitarian efforts.
There's a famous quote from the founder of NED [0]:
> "A lot of what we do today was done covertly 25 years ago by the CIA"
In the 1960s-70s, the US government found that covert foreign influence operations run by the CIA could seriously backfire when they were exposed. That's the reason why NED was founded. The idea was that a lot of this foreign influence can be done out in the open, removing the risk of scandal from exposure. It's an interesting approach that seems to have worked for the US.
0. https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/opinions/1991/09/22/i...