Politicians and new parties in Romania are trying to attract young voters with the help of social networks, TikTok being one of the platforms increasingly used by Romanians who are under 35 years old.
PHOTO Collage
An IRES survey, commissioned by the “Youth Vote” and “Politica la Minut” civic initiatives, shows that 42% of young people get their information from social networks, one of them being TikTok, according to “Adevărul” information. In the conditions where the platform has seen a rapid evolution in recent years in Romania, reaching 7.4 million users, according to data from 2023, politicians are trying to attract votes from here as well.
Simion, Şoşoacă and USR
From the opposition, the head of AUR, George Simion, is one of the most popular political leaders on TikTok, where he has over 413,000 followers and 6.2 million likes. In terms of popularity on the social network, he is followed by senator Diana Șoșoacă, who has over 276,000 followers and a million likes.
USR has over 61,000 followers and 1.6 million likes. Here, the Save Romania Union distributes messages recorded by party members in which they address the voters directly. The head of the party, Cătălin Drula, has so far 3,138 followers and 35,000 likes. However, one of the most popular politicians on TikTok is MEP Vlad Gheorghe, who announced that he will run as an independent for a new mandate, following a scandal with the USR leadership. He has 442,000 followers and 10.8 million likes.
The messages sent by the members of the Opposition from among the AUR and USR are mostly characterized by criticism of the governors.
PSD and PNL, weak presence on TikTok
If we look at the old parties, now in power, the PNL is almost non-existent on this platform, neither the formation nor its president having accounts. At PSD, things are better: 15,770 followers and over 345,000 likes can be found on the party's account, where montages of interviews with representatives of the formation are distributed, posts that have only a few reactions. Marcel Ciolacu has a page with 1,650 followers and 2,692 likes.
Facebook, preferred by the old parties
Established parties are more active on Facebook, having official communication channels here, where both messages and press conferences are sent. PNL has 476,000 followers, and Nicolae Ciucă, 63,000. PSD has 195,000 followers, and Prime Minister Marcel Ciolacu is followed by 216,000 accounts, being one of the most popular political leaders on Facebook.
From the Opposition, USR's official page has 289,000 followers, while the party leader, Cătălin Drula, has 96,000 followers. George Simion is the most followed party leader with 1.3 million followers and the AUR page has 178,000 followers.
Why aren't big parties visible on TikTok?
Political analyst Adrian Zăbău explained to “Adevărul” that the TikTok platform is not part of the usual list of channels used so far for political communication, one of the reasons being the inability of politicians to communicate naturally.
“TikTok is a very real platform, meaning it puts very real content in front of the user. The politician most of the time is an artificial construct made by the advisers, by the team around him. Most of the time, everything a politician says or does is thought out, made, etc. If this recipe does not include some very good communication skills of the politician, most of the time there is a problem with the credibility of the message. Today, at the head of the state, at the head of the political parties, we have politicians without much communication skills. Consequently, it is very difficult to adapt their communication for such a real, lively platform like TikTok”said Zǎbavǎ.
At the same time, the political analyst pointed out that in recent years the Internet has mattered more and more with each election campaign, showing that the appearance of the TikTok platform is the main change compared to previous years. “I believe that through its influence, TikTok will make the role of the Internet in campaigns even more important“, concluded the analyst, emphasizing that the platform does not allow paid promotion.
For his part, sociologist Alfred Bulai explained that AUR managed to enter politics online, emphasizing that “it is a party that works differently. They don't have networks (no – county organizations), now they might have some networks too“. The sociologist mentions that the online environment is unstable and does not address all age groups.
Analyst Radu Delicote drew attention to the need for better regulation of online content.
“Today, if you want to communicate something constructive on social media, you have no way. Because of such algorithmic construction”Delicote explained.
The specialist showed that the online environment is acidic: “The more you manage to be angrier, more acidic, not necessarily critical, with a higher auditory volume, or the more you manage to post emotionally powerful images, the more viral you end up being.”
