\n Elena Lasconi, the presidential candidate and head of the pro-reform Save Romania Union (USR) opposition party, stated that it would be highly beneficial for the government to close down TikTok prior to the upcoming presidential elections in May.\n<\/p>\n
\n During her visit to Slatina, which is located in southern Romania, Lasconi expressed these views. She also mentioned that the widely used Chinese social network would be temporarily shut down to avoid external interference.\n<\/p>\n
\n \u201cIf we cannot get such assurances from them, I think it would be wise to close it for at least one or two weeks prior to the presidential elections and then restart operations,\u201d Lasconi stated to reporters.\n<\/p>\n
\n The contender who secured the second position in the
\n canceled presidential elections scheduled for 2024
\n , barely edging out Social Democratic Prime Minister Marcel Ciolacu, stated that “incompetence” has led Romania to a critical juncture where shutting down TikTok would be necessary.\n<\/p>\n
\n “I am an advocate for free speech and democratic principles, however, considering the potential risks posed by both governmental and non-governmental interference, which has been brought to our attention, I think we can proceed with making this decision,” stated Elena Lasconi during a press briefing, according to reports.
\n Agerpres
\n .\n<\/p>\n
\n Lasconi additionally mentioned that false information spreads unchecked on TikTok, and he pointed out that the nine government bodies responsible for safeguarding the digital space are not fulfilling their duties effectively.\n<\/p>\n
\n “We have specific proposals, such as a legislative initiative presented to Parliament, which mandates that false information must be removed within a maximum of 15 minutes, and content with potential manipulation should not reach more than 150 individuals. Although there is a proposed bill, I notice that it remains untouched in a drawer,” she said.\n<\/p>\n
\n Other political leaders in Romania have repeatedly rejected banning the popular social media platform, which has amassed around 9 million users in Romania, roughly 47% of the population. Experts say Romania is especially vulnerable to fake news, as it has the lowest digital literacy skills in the EU, at around 1 in 2, compared to the Union average of 71%.\n<\/p>\n
\n radu@romania-insider.com\n<\/p>\n
\n (Photo source: Inquam Photos | Adriana Neagoe)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Elena Lasconi, the presidential candidate and head of the pro-reform Save Romania Union (USR) opposition party, stated that it would be highly beneficial for the government to close down TikTok prior to the upcoming presidential elections in May. During her visit to Slatina, which is located in southern Romania, Lasconi expressed these views. She also […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":2404,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[391,428,265,316,389],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1683","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-government","category-government-regulations","category-news","category-politics","category-politics-and-government"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/sanggraloka.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/03\/AA1vfcVW-1.jpg","jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sanggraloka.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1683","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sanggraloka.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sanggraloka.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sanggraloka.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sanggraloka.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1683"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/sanggraloka.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1683\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sanggraloka.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2404"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sanggraloka.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1683"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sanggraloka.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1683"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sanggraloka.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1683"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}