The European Union doesn’t look too good in the latest Eurobarometer survey on social media, but Romania fares worse than the rest, or at least worse than the European average. Europeans, especially young people, increasingly get their information from social media, where journalistic verification and contextualization are usually missing. The trend is even more pronounced in our country, with consumption dominated by TikTok, a platform less constrained by Western laws and ethical standards.
Television remains the main source for obtaining information both in Romania and in the EU, for 72% and 71% of respondents, respectively. However, Romanians have a significantly greater share of social media usage, 48% compared to the European average of 40%. Television remains important for Europeans over 25, but among those aged 15–24, it is surpassed by social media.
Why social media are so popular and their negative political effects
To better understand this phenomenon, a few explanations are required, probably only to part of our readers (those who already know this can skip to the next section): as a rule, traditional media (whether print or online) revolves around journalistic methods, which aim for verifying sources and presenting well-rounded facts, involving contextualization and impartiality. Social media have become dominant through a mix of entertainment, personal updates and news content presented according to algorithms that prioritize engagement (activity, intensive use of the platform) rather than a balanced and relevant summary. What users see on Facebook or TikTok depends to some extent on themselves (the feed reflects their friends and the accounts/pages they follow) but cannot be entirely controlled, due to the inherently viral nature of social media and the algorithms themselves, as we’ll discuss further below.
Of course, there are plenty of ill-intentioned traditional media, peddling fake news or manipulation, and there will be no shortage of them in the future as well. Yet, despite the more or less sincere attempts by social media companies to eliminate racist content or to flag fake news, traditional journalism still observes a “method of ascertaining the truth”, whereas social networks do not. A typical newsroom is generally made up of several dozen journalists trained in impartiality and verification and has standardized, functional publication mechanisms. Any traditional article is edited or checked at least once before publication, and the practice of fact-checking originated in traditional media.
Let’s do a mental exercise: imagine a huge social network working as a newsroom. You will immediately realize that billions of “citizen-journalists” (as users were once called) cannot be managed with the same accuracy as a team of professional journalists, even assuming they have comparable professional skills. They can end up spreading misinformation even with the best intentions.
Romanians’ higher appetite for social media is understandable, given that serious, reputable Romanian journalism has been gravely affected since the 2007–2009 economic crisis. Once-prestigious outlets have become crude propaganda machines with dubious funding sources, while the advertising market (the traditional media’s main source of revenue) has shrunk more than tenfold. The public is not wrong to perceive the qualitative decline of the media and is rightfully turning away from it, especially in markets like Romania, but that doesn’t solve their truth problem on social media.
Romanians’ go-to networks: Facebook, TikTok and YouTube
Among the most popular social media platforms, the only one Romanians use less than the European average (40% versus 46%) is Instagram. However, young people under 24 cite it as a preferred source of information, both in Romania and across Europe. Facebook remains the dominant network (76% of Romanians versus 58% at EU level), but the troubling surprises appear in categories like TikTok and WhatsApp. 46% of Romanians get their information from TikTok, compared to a European average of 31%, placing Romania first in Europe. Needless to say, TikTok is a social network originating in China, which claims to comply with EU regulations, but data security remains more problematic, as personal data is stored on servers located elsewhere in the world. From an ordinary user’s point of view, this doesn’t necessarily mean extreme personal risks, just as Facebook or Instagram aren’t inherently “good” networks. However, in the hands of a geopolitical rival such as China, the aggregate personal data of millions (at national level) or billions (worldwide) of users provides a basis for potential disinformation actions and the extraction of highly relevant sociopolitical insights. It’s no coincidence that the sudden rise of Călin Georgescu to the top of the first round of the presidential election in Romania (subsequently annulled) was repeatedly linked to TikTok activity.
Moreover, in a semi-free economy like China’s, it’s easy to imagine political interference by the state actor in a private company like ByteDance, TikTok’s parent company, in which the Chinese state is directly involved, even though various investment funds have now become part of its ownership structure.
As for WhatsApp, although it’s owned by the same Silicon Valley company, Meta, as Facebook, the concerns relate more to the opaque, non-public nature of communication on the app. Although WhatsApp has launched various public channels in recent years, groups and communities do not (and should not) have the same transparency to outsiders. Yet 36% of Romanians (compared to 27% of Europeans) say they get social and political information through this app. We can assume the mechanism differs from the original one-on-one personal communication that was the app’s earlier trait. The high percentage of “political” users in Romania aligns with sketchy reports of groups of supporters of Călin Georgescu during the presidential election. Romania is just 1% behind the “leader” Italy, where 37% of social media users rely on WhatsApp in the same way.
Another popular network in Romania is YouTube (66% compared to the 57% EU average). 48% of Romanians “prefer” short videos under one minute for information, though such a length is far too short for meaningful informative content. The preference for video over written word may also be connected to Romania’s poor reading comprehension results in PISA tests.
How and what Romanians consume on social media
The idea that we all create our own “personal newspaper” on one network or another (by selecting friends and pages we like) proves somewhat illusory given the “passive consumption” of content mentioned in the Eurobarometer survey. 76% of Europeans agree or tend to agree that they sometimes come across social or political information on social media without actively seeking it – merely by chance. This content was “served” to them by an algorithm. In Romania, the percentage is 85%. Admittedly, users actively search for information (66% across Europe, 76% in Romania), trying to counterbalance passive consumption, but searching doesn’t cancel initial exposure to such topics.
On political topics, Europeans (like Romanians) show awareness of the world they live in, as besides traditional themes like health and the economy, they’re increasingly interested in democracy and the rule of law, migration, climate change and Europe’s defense and security policy. When it comes to migration, Romanians are the least interested in the EU (18%), which is completely understandable, given the relatively small number of newcomers to the country and the relatively successful integration of those who have arrived (couriers, taxi drivers, textile workers, etc.). One might hope that attempts to create xenophobic or extremist currents will therefore be less successful here.
A significant difference between Romanians and the European average is also transparent in the area of influencers or “content creators”: 47% of Romanian social media users follow them, compared to 37% across Europe. Once again, this may be tied to a shortage or weaker presence of traditional “opinion leaders” in the public sphere.
Examining the country rankings in the survey, Romanians’ behavior generally resembles (save a few exceptions) that of users from southern and eastern, less affluent countries, in contrast to northern and western nations.
The effects of social media: though more skeptical than other Europeans, Romanians are more likely victims of TikTok disinformation
Of course, the Călin Georgescu case and the disinformation actions of Russia or China are not the first examples of manipulation through social media. The issue of social media disinformation exploded in 2018 with the Cambridge Analytica scandal. This was a so-called research company with more connections to billionaire Robert Mercer and Steve Bannon, Trump’s then-famous strategist, than to the University of Cambridge. The company exploited a Facebook vulnerability to micro-target a huge number of users potentially sensitive to specific messages. The result was Trump’s first presidential term in the USA and Brexit in the UK. It wasn’t a security breach or hacking incident, but ultimately the fact that no one had imagined a social network could be used in such a way – to reach specific, algorithmically profiled users who were likely to cast a certain kind of vote.
Like all Europeans, Romanians are well aware they’re targets of disinformation campaigns. 55% believe they have been exposed or highly exposed to such content in the past week, the second-highest percentage in the EU, after Hungary. Romanians tend to verify information from other sources more often than the average (57% versus 49%), checking the post’s author, its comments and so on.
All this points to a commendable critical spirit, but also reveals also a state of uncertainty. Uncertainty is in any case a defining feature of the contemporary world, given the geopolitical shifts of recent years. And it breeds anxiety, which can easily slide into conspiratorial thinking. In other words, people become highly sensitive to messages from all extremes, increasingly circulating worldwide. To avoid this vicious circle, the only solution is probably a stricter, more limited “informational diet”, focused on the truly important things communicated by genuinely trustworthy sources, whether on social or traditional media. Data shows that a Romanian is 1.5 times more likely to become a victim of a disinformation campaign on TikTok. It’s worth reflecting on what political benefits such a network offers, beyond the entertainment everyone seeks.
