US not the only country with TikTok concerns. Why Scotland should beware for 2026 Holyrood elections

Banned by Joe Biden just before he left office, the platform was earlier this week given a reprieve by incoming president Donald Trump – but with the caveat of a 50-50 partnership between what he described as "the United States" and its Chinese owner ByteDance.

It is evident that even Mr Trump – who has flip-flopped on his previous attempts at banning the app in 2020, saying he has now “got to use it” – obviously still has some fears over its influence. Or perhaps it is more to do with his ally Elon Musk’s fear of any social media competition for his X platform. Either way, the app’s future in the US remains uncertain.

Election result annulled

Closer to home, TikTok has recently become the focus of a row in Romania, where the presidential election was annulled at the end of last year in arguably the biggest political debacle to hit the nation since the fall of communism 36 years ago. The decision to annul the election came amid allegations that Russia had interfered with voting – largely through TikTok.

The allegations centred on the campaign of Calin Georgescu, a previously little-known far-right campaigner who once described Russian president Vladimir Putin as a "patriot and a leader". Mr Georgescu’s rise was meteoric.

In early November, a poll from Inscop showed he was tipped to win just over 5.4 per cent of the vote. Yet just a couple of weeks later, he led the first election round with 23 per cent, a few points ahead of prime minister Marcel Ciolacu, of the Social Democrat Party.

Many were suspicious – including Romania’s intelligence agencies, which has claimed Russia views its country as a state enemy and see its government as a key target. Unlike in many former communist nations, there is generally very little support for Mr Putin in Romania, which had its own brand of communism under dictator Nicolae Ceausescu and was never aligned with the Soviet Union.

TikTok sensation

The focus turned to TikTok, where Mr Georgescu had focused his campaign, despite, at 62, not possibly considered a typical user demographic.

Declassified intelligence documents revealed that 25,000 new TikTok accounts were suddenly opened in the weeks ahead of the election. Mr Georgescu’s TikTok videos, which showed him playing judo, attending church and extrapolating on social issues such as inflation, which is at one of the highest levels in the European Union, garnered more than 3.6 million likes – in a country of just 19 million people.

Meanwhile, TikTok videos promoting Mr Georgescu were not marked as election content, which is against Romanian law and accounts were found to have paid hundreds of thousands of pounds for posts for Mr Georgescu, which is a breach of political advertising rules.

As a result, TikTok is under investigation by the European Commission, while a fresh election is now due to take place in May. Mr Georgescu is currently trying to overturn the annulment, to little effect, while TikTok has claimed it took swift action over any videos flagged to it by the Romanian authorities.

Georgescu set to win again

European Commission president Ursula von der Leyen said the block was “thoroughly investigating” the social media site.

“Following serious indications that foreign actors interfered in the Romanian presidential elections by using TikTok, we are now thoroughly investigating whether TikTok has violated the Digital Services Act by failing to tackle such risks. It should be crystal clear that in the EU, all online platforms, including TikTok, must be held accountable,” she said in December.

Yet, even when the new elections are held, the damage will have been done. Indeed, polls have this week shown that Mr Georgescu is likely to lead the field again – and why shouldn’t he? Those who voted for him in the first election, for whatever reasons had influenced them then, may well do so again in the new vote.

Ask for forgiveness, not permission, goes the old adage and Russia and TikTok have done just that, sowing the seeds for a general approval for Mr Georgescu who is a former member of the far-right opposition alliance AUR.

Russian interference in Scottish democracy

The Scottish and UK governments both apparently have little appetite for a TikTok ban on this side of the Atlantic, although both do not allow the app on government mobile phones and other devices, amid security fears. One rule for them, another for us.

Yet, with the Holyrood elections coming up next year, we need to not be complacent. After all, it’s not like Russia doesn’t have previous form in Scotland.

Back in 2020, a report published by Westminster’s intelligence and security committee found Russia had meddled in the 2014 Scottish referendum with “influence campaigns”, while the same report revealed the UK Government failed to ask for a deep assessment of possible Kremlin-directed interference in the Brexit vote.

Four years earlier, Russian media company Sputnik started broadcasting live radio programmes from its base in Scotland, with the goal of "telling the untold" to Scottish and UK audiences, while in 2022, former First Minister Alex Salmond reluctantly gave up the show he hosted on Russia Today following the invasion of Ukraine.

Now, TV and radio is old news. X is no longer hot property, especially under the leadership of Elon Musk, whose choice of direction for the platform has seen users leave in droves. TikTok is and there are definitely those who will exploit it, while its Chinese owners turn a blind eye.