Vice president of Romanian telecom and media regulator ANCOM hits back at Elon Musk
Pavel Popescu, the vice president of media regulator ANCOM, said in an interview with Politico published March 24 that Romania is fighting an information war with Russia to stop election meddling, and not censoring speech, as many US officials and figures like Elon Musk have said.
The Politico article names Romania “ground zero in a global struggle over how speech is regulated online” after its Constitutional Court scrapped the 2024 presidential elections following the win of pro-Russian ultranationalist Călin Georgescu in the first round. The same politician has been barred from running in the do-over election scheduled for May.
The Court motivated its rulings on a report from the Romanian Intelligence Service which said that social media algorithms have been manipulated to benefit Georgescu. Several journalistic and state investigations followed, showing large amounts of money was poured into Georgescu’s online campaign.
To prevent further manipulations, Romanian institutions, like the National Authority for Management and Regulation in Communications of Romania, or ANCOM, have taken a tougher stance on social media platforms.
ANCOM oversees the Digital Services Act in Romania, the European Union's social media rulebook that governs how platforms like TikTok and X moderate online speech. Its vice-president, Pavel Popescu, says that a "hybrid war" was underway and that "we are fighting it. We are fighting it at the highest level with all the institutions."
Battling what they said was influence from outside Romania, authorities were surprised to see a series of criticisms launched by US officials regarding free speech. Popescu personally drew the scorn of X owner Elon Musk, who on March 10 posted that "you can tell who the bad guys are by who is demanding censorship," with a link to a post picturing Popescu. United States Vice President JD Vance also singled out Romania in a February speech in Munich in which he called EU regulators "commissars" for enforcing content moderation policies.
If Musk is going to treat ANCOM “as a threat,” the tech entrepreneur should talk directly with Romanian authorities in the same way he conversed with Germany's far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) party, Popescu said, referencing an interview Musk did with the AfD’s leader on X.
Meanwhile, Musk's satellite company Starlink is testing controversial new applications in Romania with ANCOM's approval. The tests regard the globally agreed limits on power flux density, 25-year-old standards that ensure space objects don't interfere with each other. This limit restricts the speed and coverage area that satellite internet services like Starlink can offer.
Musk "owes us more than a debate for what we did for him as a country, for his companies," Popescu said.
Starlink services have been authorized and available in Romania since March 2022.
(Photo source: Frédéric Legrand | Dreamstime.com and Pavel Popescu on Facebook)
