• iii@mander.xyz
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    3
    ·
    24 days ago

    Nobody said that.

    I know. These are my own thoughts.

    It is not about not liking the outcome of an election.

    There have been many elections in EU, concurrent to the existance of that publisher, that did not require their presence in front of the EU parliament.

    What changed?

    • Kissaki@beehaw.org
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      5
      ·
      edit-2
      23 days ago
      • Awareness of influence - of private and foreign huge social media platforms onto public discourse, opinion development, and political landscape
      • Increasing foreign agent campaigns to influence and sabotage Europe governments and society
      • Increased awareness of such foreign influences
      • Unexpected/Unpredictable shifts in popularity [is how I read it]

      with many concerns focused on how a TikTok campaign managed to propel an unknown candidate from obscurity

      • iii@mander.xyz
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        1
        ·
        edit-2
        23 days ago

        The change in EU response is very rapid. Bulgaria had national elections just days before. With politicians also using the same publisher for promotion.

        with many concerns focused on how a TikTok campaign managed to propel an unknown candidate from obscurity

        Obviously not unknown to the voters. Might the problem be that the person was unknown to the members of the EU parliament?

        • petrescatraian@libranet.deOP
          link
          fedilink
          arrow-up
          3
          ·
          22 days ago

          @iii He really was unknown, and I can tell you that as a Romanian. He was actually more known by some parts of our political establishment (or should I say, our former political establishment now) than the public. Literally every single person I spoke with was like, “who is this guy? I don’t know him. I only read about him a few days ago”. So no, it’s not like he had any public notoriety at all. Many people said online that they voted for him especially because he was unknown and wanted to “waste”/“cancel” their vote. I personally barely heard about him, I remember I heard about him when he was proposed by AUR as a prime minister a few years ago and that was it, I completely forgot about him again.

          I only heard about him a few weeks prior to the election, but I always thought it was some weird ass candidate who thinks he’ll win the elections, but will barely gather 5% at best (we have these types across all the political spectrum). Then I also Googled a bit to find more info about him and found who he actually is. But I still thought he won’t reach the mainstream. Again, there are people that were more vocal during the campaigns, and they didn’t even reach 10%.

          For reference, Trump had appeared in various TV shows like Fox&Friends or The Celebrity Apprentice, he appeared in the Home Alone series, he even got the Trump Tower. And overall, he was a really notorious and successful businessman. Georgescu had none of these. So even if the people were justified to vote for him (hell, I’m not denying this, vote for whoever you want, we’re a democracy after all), given this fact and declarations like the chance of Romania is the Russian wisdom and others like that, this is something that should be investigated.

          @Kissaki