Minister of Digitalization (PSD) Bohdan Ivan rejects the idea of ​​closing TikTok, launched by his party colleague Lucian Romashkanu. “Let’s not go to extremes, close a certain site. We must have clear rules for all platforms, for the content that is uploaded to the platforms, regardless of the party or political leader who promotes such content,” Ivan said.

Regulation of large online platforms in Romania: 7 institutions will share their responsibilities

The regulation of large online platforms and search engines is handled by the European Commission, which recently published several recommendations for this election year.

The Minister of Digitalization said on Wednesday that there are two main rules at the EU level that must be implemented in each member state:

• 1. The Law on Digital Services, which has been in effect in the EU and Romania since February 17 of this year. This is an approach to protecting the rights of every citizen in the online environment
• 2. Law on Artificial Intelligence (AI) – adopted by the European Parliament, published in the Official Journal of the EU and entered into force.

Minister Ivan says that for the implementation of the two EU regulations in Romania, a working group consisting of 7 entities has been created to clarify the attributes and create practical tools with which content generated by generative artificial intelligence (AI) (e.g. deepfake ), can only be downloaded by clearly signaling that it does not reflect reality.

7 institutions: Ministry of Digitization, ANCOM, ANPC, CC, ANSPDCP, CNA and DNSC.

• “For this reason, we have already created 7 entities, we have a Memorandum sent to all institutions, and it should be adopted by the Government next week or at most in two weeks, precisely so that we have levers and filters for everything. that is, content that does not reflect reality.
• At the same time, at the moment The Ministry of Digital has strongly recommended all state authorities not to install the TikTok application on official devices. The discussion about political and electoral marketing, about whether there are more parties or not, is a purely political discussion that concerns the political marketing of each party,” said Minister Ivan.

The state wants to report defamatory content directly to Meta, Google and TikTok to have it removed

Separately from these two EU regulations, the digitization minister said he is in talks with major online platforms about a technical mechanism that would allow faster removal of content that violates community rules. the mechanism to act before the elections.

• “What we are doing in Romania, after the personal discussions we had with the representatives of the big online platforms, and here I mean TikTok, Meta (Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp) and Google, was to create a channel of direct communication for the election period, so that humiliating content that does not meet community standards can be deleted in tens of minutes,” Minister Bohdan Ivan said on Wednesday.

How will the mechanism for removing offensive content work?

• “We are currently working on a technical agreement to negotiate with major platforms. We want to create a direct communication channel with major platforms through institutions in Romania, I can call it a voting center, this year, when there is content that does not meet community standards at all and may have passed technical filters, problems can be reported instantly and automatically remove them from the platforms,” ​​he said.

Who will notify when content is removed?

• “At the moment, we are establishing between the main institutions – the Ministry of Digitization, DNSC, CNA, ANCOM – each institution in its segment will have its own attributions.
• Obviously, the Permanent Electoral Authority (AEP) will also be involved in this effort to ensure that we do not have situations where people are misinformed, where we run campaigns where people are encouraged not to turn up for elections, etc. far,” the Minister of Digitalization also stated on Wednesday.

Key messages from the Coalition on TikTok regulation

PSD spokesman Lucian Romašcanu and PNL First Vice President Rares Bohdan told HotNews.ro on Saturday that they will reach for the regulation of TikTok or the closure of the platform.

The theme is also present in key messages sent by PNL strategists to party communicators. Liberals are taught to say that the party “stands for freedom of speech and information.”

“At the same time, we cannot ignore the concerns of the US and EU states regarding the use of this social network for the purpose of collecting user data,” PNL consultants said in a statement.

They claim that “this is a platform that encourages horrific behavior among young people.”

HotNews.ro published IRES poll data on Saturday showing that young people between the ages of 18 and 35 vote overwhelmingly for AUR. According to the aforementioned poll, George Simion’s party ranks first in the desire to vote for women parliamentarians among young people with 15%.

“This is an uncontrolled space where a lot of harmful content is hosted: videos that encourage bullying, that distort information, that spread various addictions. Therefore, it is only natural that the use of TikTok should be better regulated to limit the mentioned dangers. We do not want to ban access to the communication tool, but we want to create a framework that will allow its safe use,” is the key message developed by PNL strategists for the party’s communicators.

George Simion makes fun of Nikolaj Chuke on TikTok

George Simeon’s TikTok account has 413,476 followers and 6.2 million likes.

Pinned posts, which are saved in a place where they can be seen quickly, received 1.4 million views, 1.1 million views, or 871,051 views.

George Simion’s latest video about the HotNews.ro article about the Israeli PNL consultants and the recommendation of Nikolae Chuke.

“The advisers and strategists of Nicolae Chuke have found a solution, they are going to make him film himself on the phone, as they film Simeon. The only thing left is to teach him to speak coherently in Romanian,” is a video posted by the AUR president around 12:00 on March 26, 2024.

In an hour, the video collected 467 reactions and 57 comments, plus 17 shares. Over 5,000 people watched George Simeon’s TikTok video in an hour.

In a statement to HotNews.ro, the AUR leader criticized PSD and PNL’s intention to regulate TikTok.

Marcel Cholaku has an account since December, many speeches from government meetings

Prime Minister Marcel Cholaku activated his TikTok account in December 2023. PSD leader has 1650 followers and 2695 likes. Most of the videos are speeches at the beginning of the government meeting.

The last post was published four days ago and received 77 reactions and 15 times.

In the videos published on behalf of Marcel Čolaku on the TikTok account, statements to the press appear, as well as a meeting with the Pope.

Photo source: Mykhailo Primakov / Dreamstime.com