Victor Ponta's accounts, thousands of appreciations in hundreds of views. The presidential candidate accuses of being targeted by an attack with boots “similar to the one indicated by Nicușor Dan”
Victor Ponta. Photo: Inquam Photos / George Călin
People from Victor Ponta's campaign team said for Hotnews that “the attack started on the morning of Easter at 5 o'clock.” Then followers from Brazil, India, Russia and Uzbekistan began to appear.
For about a week, videos on social media accounts – more precisely, Instagram and Tiktok – of Victor Ponta have a much larger number of appreciation than views.
It is an observed thing yesterday, in a text that appeared on the Info Sud East website, doubled by a statistic of Expert Forum, who mentioned that he noticed a growth of 100,000 followers in 5 days. According to the quoted source, Victor Ponta has posts on Tiktok with only a few thousand views, but with almost 90,000 likes.
Contacted by Hotnews, members of Victor Ponta's campaign team mentioned that this is an attack with boots similar to the one notified by Nicușor Dan on his accounts.
On April 16, Nicușor Dan said that the posts on his accounts were invaded by false accounts. “It's a similar situation,” Ponta's campaign people say. “It all started on April 20, Easter, at 5 in the morning,” they say.
“Since then, Instagram and Tiktok accounts have been invaded by false accounts, especially from Asia,” they explain.
Accounts from Brazil, India and Russia
Asked HotNews, if certain steps followed to remedy the situation, they say they have addressed Meta (the company that manages Instagram) and Tiktok.
In a response from Tiktok, consulted by Hotnews, it is shown that, in the first days after receiving the referral from the campaign team, the social network wiped “over 16,000 fake accounts” that followed Ponta's account and, more, 157 other accounts that gave the same identical comment on his videos.
According to other reports consulted by Hotnews, most Fake accounts had location in Sao Paulo (Brazil), Moscow (Russia), Rio de Janeiro (Brazil), Delhi (India), Tashkent (Uzbekistan), Mumbai (India), Belo Horizonte (Brazil).
“Just as Nicușor Dan noticed, this is extremely harmful to the campaign, because the Reach is decreasing, and our message reaches fewer potential voters. Moreover, if Instagram or Tiktok notices that you have false followers, as well, the reach is decreases,” say the people in Victor Ponta's campaign team.
