Shortly before the election, a movement using the label "stability and integrity" flooded Romania's Tiktok. Influential people upload videos describing their search for in a future president: "stability", "progress", "patriot".

They do not name specific candidates.

They have been paid to upload videos through a marketing platform called Fameup, which allows brands to hire influencers on a large scale to promote their products. But influential people say they don't know who paid for it.

Fame declined to comment to the BBC.

Cristina, an influencer from Iasi City, said she felt “no darkness” when she was working. "In the back of[her]thought," she said, "who thought one of the 14 candidates might have paid for it, and she "just thinks it's a wise approach. It's not doing any political propaganda. It's just encouraging people to go out and vote."

Some influencers did not mark these positions as paid content. This violates the Tiktok rule, where paid political ads are prohibited.

Although the ad does not mention Georgescu's name, the influencers we spoke with describe "a wave of comments" supporting him who appeared under the video. Romeo Rusu, a micro-entrepreneur in the city of Constanta, has 25,000 followers, said: "After I posted the video, within a few seconds, I started to receive dozens of comments. Finally, I received about 300 comments, all of which supported independent candidate Calin Georgescu...I was very surprised." I was very surprised. ”

Tiktok said in a report that the comments have become the focus, which has removed a network of more than 27,000 unreal accounts that “used fictitious characters to post comments related to the Romanian elections.”

It's still unclear who created these bot accounts.

Experts say that putting unrelated videos with Pro-Georgescu's comments is a strategy for Game Tiktok's algorithm and getting his name trends, which in turn pushes his content toward more user feeds.

A Tiktok spokesman told the BBC that during the presidential campaign, the company "blocked millions of fake engagement attempts, deleted hundreds of thousands of spam accounts, blocked the imitation of political candidates and undermined three secret influences with limited coverage".

“We continue to work closely with local and EU authorities and with local organizations to enhance reliable election information,” they said.

The uncertainty of the campaign continued into the New Year until the surprising twist of January.

The Romanian Taxation Agency revealed that the #ScompanityAntintegrity movement was paid by the Center Right National Liberal Party (PNL), which supports its own candidate in the election.

In response, PNL told Romanian journalists in news media News Snoop that their campaign was hijacked in support of Georgescu.