The EU Commission opened an investigation into Chinese-owned social media giant TikTok Tuesday, following indications that foreign actors interfered in the Romanian presidential elections.
Such interference would breach the EU’s Digital Services Act (DSA), in relation to TikTok’s obligation to properly assess and mitigate systemic risks linked to election integrity.
“We must protect our democracies from any kind of foreign interference,” said the Commission president Ursula von der Leyen: “Whenever we suspect such interference, especially during elections, we have to act swiftly and firmly.”
The proceedings will focus on management of risks to elections or civic discourse, linked to TikTok’s ‘recommender’ systems – links linked to the coordinated inauthentic manipulation or automated exploitation of the service – and TikTok’s policies on political advertisements and paid-for political content.
The Commission says it will investigate whether TikTok has ‘diligently mitigated the risks posed by specific regional and linguistic aspects of national elections’.
Should the Commission’s suspicions be proven correct, this would constitute infringements of Articles 34(1), 34(2) and 35(1) of the DSA. The Commission says it is now goling to carry out an in-depth investigation as a matter of priority. The opening of formal proceedings does not prejudge its outcome.
This decision to open an investigation takes into account information received from declassified intelligence reports by the Romanian authorities, as well as third-party reports. The investigation also follows the analysis of the risk assessment reports submitted by TikTok in 2023 and 2024, the replies to the Commission’s requests for information, and internal documents provided by TikTok.
