Ireland’s new social media regulator Coimisiún na Meán is preparing to be dragged into a growing controversy over the Romanian presidential election in what could be a test case for how the agency regulates online content across the EU going forward.
The potential role of Tiktok videos in influencing voters in that election may lead to the Coimisiún’s involvement due to their part in enforcing the Digital Services Act for the EU.
The replacement to the Broadcasting Authority of Ireland, Coimisiún na Meán is expected to play a leading role in the rollout of new pro-censorship mechanisms from Brussels such as the Digital Services Act (DSA) due to multinationals such as TikTok or Meta having their headquarters in Dublin.
The DSA which enables national governments to remove online content on all major online platforms is expected to be used regarding Romania shortly following the annulment of the country’s first round of presidential elections last week.
Romanian politics has been on edge following the ruling by the nation’s constitutional court which invalidated election results citing intelligence reports warning that Russian influence operations over TikTok tipped the vote in favour of right-wing populist and NATO critic Călin Georgescu.
A relative outsider who catapulted himself from the political fringes to garnering nearly 23% of the popular vote in the first round of voting, Georgescu has unnerved Bucharest’s political establishment for his overt support of Russian leader Vladimir Putin and objections to U.S. missile bases on Romanian soil.
Georgescu was the beneficiary of a strong TikTok presence in the lead-up to the November vote, attracting just under 52 million views in the final four days of the campaign with the Romanian courts alleging that the Chinese-owned platform gave the right-wing candidate preferential treatment.
Whatever the outcome in the presidential rerun, the goings on in Romanian politics is expected to inevitably land on Coimisiún na Meán’s desk in Dublin due to their role in DSA enforcement with the Irish agency able to levy fines of up to 6% of TikTok’s annual revenue of $23.6 billion should they refuse to remove content.
In response to a Gript inquiry, a spokeswoman for Coimisiún na Meán said that they were monitoring events in Romania closely, in particular a request from the European Commission to Romanian regulators to evaluate any potential influence by the Russian intelligence services on TikTok during the presidential campaign.
Due to TikTok’s Irish HQ, Coimisiún na Meán has de facto jurisdiction over the platform in the EU and would be in charge of issuing and enforcing removal orders for content by Georgescu if instructed to by Romanian authorities.
All political signs point to Coimisiún na Meán being embroiled in the political dispute in Romania as MEPs demanded the DSA be utilised to remove content deemed politically subversive at hearings last week by the European Parliament.
Regardless of the outcome of the Romanian elections questions have already been raised about the ability of Coimisiún na Meán to take on the caseload of regulating effectively all social media content in the EU with the regulator’s direct Jeremy Godfrey admitting to the press that the organisation was still finding its feet.
Fears that Irish hate speech laws – which were eventually ditched for the most part before the election, though there is a commitment to revisit – could become the EU standard were raised at the European Parliament by free speech activist Michael Shellenberger last week with suggestions that Irish legislators had the DSA and content control in mind when they were deciding on the exact legal definition of hate.
Similarly, Coimisiún na Meán coupd be tipped by the European Commission to bring down a potential ban on Elon Musk’s X as the company launched a High Court challenge to the agency’s definition of inciting hatred.
Separate from the canceled presidential vote, Romania held its parliamentary election earlier this month which saw the pro-NATO Social Democrats maintain their position of dominance in the post-Soviet country.
December 22nd is being theorised as the date for a fresh round of voting in Romania following the annulment of the presidential results with Georgescu comparing proceedings to the Soviet occupation following the nullification of the original vote.