Since the official start on April 4 of the campaign for the Romanian presidential election scheduled for May 4 and 18, social media in this Eastern European country has been inundated with coded messages that are difficult for the public to understand. Any message that could be considered "political advertising material" must be followed by two codes, one designating the candidate it supports and the other indicating whether it is sponsored advertising.
For example, in his tweet posted on Tuesday, April 15, denouncing the "globalist elites [who] have completely lost touch with reality," George Simion, the nationalist candidate who is leading in the polls, had to add "material publicitar politic /CMF 31250007/CPP A0B0C1D1E1." The CMF code refers to his campaign, while the CPP code indicates that his party paid to promote the message but did not specifically target certain internet users.
Political messages that do not comply with these rules risk being deleted "in less than five hours," according to the exceptional electoral legislation adopted by Romanian authorities in January to prevent a repeat of the disaster of the previous presidential election in November 2024. That vote was annulled between the two rounds by the Constitutional Court following the revelation of a large-scale TikTok manipulation operation benefiting the pro-Russian candidate Calin Georgescu. He led the first round without ever campaigning in the real world.
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