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By Luminița Diaconu Associate Professor, Academy of Economic Studies of Moldova 

On 28 September 2025, Moldovans went to the polls for parliamentary elections that international observers would later describe as taking place ‘against the backdrop of unprecedented hybrid attacks’. The verdict came from the OSCE’s own monitoring mission — not from the Moldovan Government or Western think-tanks, but a respected multilateral organisation that has observed elections across 57 countries. What unfolded in Moldova that autumn was not simply an election campaign. It was a stress test for digital democracy itself.

An Election Under Full-Spectrum Assault

Moldova has been a target of Russian hybrid interference since its pro-European political pivot accelerated after 2022. But the 2025 parliamentary elections marked a significant escalation. According to the German Marshall Fund of the United States, Kremlin-linked networks planned to inject as much as €100 million into the electoral environment through deepfakes, paid protests, cryptocurrency transactions, and Kremlin-affiliated clergy, with the explicit goal of altering the result. This was not improvised interference but a carefully planned, large-scale operation.

The operation had both visible and invisible layers. On the surface: concerts, banners, organised rallies, and an avalanche of social media content amplifying anti-EU and anti-government narratives. Below the surface: suitcases of cash moved across borders, app-based payments routed through sanctioned Russian banks, and cryptocurrency conversions designed to evade detection. The OSCE/ODIHR election observation mission confirmed the picture plainly: illicit financing funnelled through shadowy networks, relentless disinformation campaigns eroding public trust, and brazen cybersecurity incidents designed to sow chaos.

The Digital Toolkit of Interference

Three digital instruments deserve particular attention for what they reveal about the evolving architecture of hybrid election interference.

The TAITO app. Perhaps the most operationally novel tool deployed in 2025 was the TAITO mobile application, which was used by networks affiliated with exiled oligarch Ilan Șor to mobilise and pay activists. According to Watchdog Moldova and the Georgetown Journal of International Affairs, tens of thousands of users reportedly installed the app, which concealed both identities and financial transactions. Payment flows were elaborately layered: rubles sent through Promsvyazbank were converted into cryptocurrency, then foreign currency, then Moldovan lei — a money-laundering chain designed to obscure the Russian origin of funds. Protesters could earn up to $3,000 per month (four times Moldova’s average salary) simply for registering, signing a contract, and participating in anti-government events.

The STOP UE chatbot and AI-generated content. The European Policy Centre documented the deployment of the anti-EU chatbot “STOP UE,” which simulated grassroots messaging while systematically disseminating Kremlin-aligned disinformation. This was part of a broader AI-enabled architecture. Euronews reported that spoof websites impersonated legitimate Western media outlets while paying “engagement farms” in Africa to amplify content and AI bots were deployed to flood comment sections with anti-EU messaging. A particularly striking example documented by Cyfluence Research was a deepfake video depicting the Electoral Commission chair allegedly admitting to foreign interference — content that spread rapidly on Telegram before being amplified by Russian Foreign Ministry spokesperson Maria Zakharova, demonstrating the seamless integration between AI-generated disinformation and official state channels.

Cyberattacks on electoral infrastructure. On election day, the digital assault shifted from narrative manipulation to infrastructure disruption. As Watchdog Moldova reported, thousands of home internet routers across the country were compromised in the weeks beforehand and recruited into a botnet prepared for a large-scale distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attack. The targets were the Central Election Commission and the Information Technology and Cyber Security Service. The goal was not to alter vote tallies — Moldova uses paper ballots — but to disable the digital systems used for voter verification and the real-time reporting of results, generating the appearance of chaos and illegitimacy at the moment of maximum public attention. The Lowy Institute further reported that Russia’s outlet Pravda sent synchronised messaging across 129 affiliated websites in over 50 languages, illustrating the global reach of what was, at its core, an attack on a small country’s democratic process.

Moldova Fights Back: Digital Resilience in Practice

What is striking about the events in Moldova was not only the scale of the attack, but the sophistication of the response  and the EU’s direct role in building it. In June 2025, the European Commission and Moldovan authorities conducted a full-day digital hybrid threats simulation exercise in Chișinău — the first of its kind — bringing together EU officials, Moldovan institutions, civil society fact-checkers, cybersecurity teams, and representatives from Meta, Google, and TikTok. The exercise tested coordinated responses to disinformation, cyberattacks, platform manipulation, and AI-driven content spoofing. It was, in miniature, a practice drill for the digital attacks during the Moldova election that followed three months later.

On the domestic front, Moldova’s Centre for Strategic Communication and Countering Disinformation (StratCom), established in 2023, focused on both debunking and pre-bunking Russian narratives, equipping citizens with frameworks for recognising disinformation before encountering it. The Central Election Commission, supported by International IDEA, deployed digital monitoring tools to identify illicit advertising, fake accounts, and disinformation networks in real time. Enforcement bodies collaborated with financial intelligence units to trace and freeze illicit funds; the anti-corruption prosecutor’s office opened 13 criminal cases and made 122 detentions for electoral campaign violations.

The Georgetown Journal of International Affairs noted a significant development in public culture where citizens increasingly rejected cash-based vote-buying, signalling a maturation of civic consciousness that no algorithm can easily replicate. Russia’s strategy, having failed to buy the election outright, shifted toward narrative control  but found that ground harder to hold than they likely anticipated.

What can we learn from Moldova’s experience?  

The events surrounding the 2025 Moldovan Parliamentary election is not a story about a small, vulnerable country on Europe’s edge. Instead they are a preview of what electoral interference looks like when hybrid capabilities, such as AI-generated content, encrypted payment apps, router botnets, coordinated bot networks, and state-backed media infrastructure are deployed simultaneously against a single democratic process.

The Alan Turing Institute’s Centre for Emerging Technology and Security has warned that AI-enabled disinformation is creating a shadow economy in elections globally. Moldova experienced that shadow economy in its most developed form yet. The lesson for governance scholars, policymakers, and legal researchers is clear: digital democracy requires digital protection. Participatory rights, transparency obligations, and cybersecurity frameworks cannot remain in separate regulatory silos. The architecture of interference crosses all of them simultaneously, and the legal response must too.

As Moldova continues its EU accession journey — and as other candidate and partner states face similar pressures — the 2025 election stands as both a warning and, crucially, a model of democratic resilience. Democratic tenacity, the OSCE observed, prevailed. But tenacity alone is not a legal framework. Building the institutional and normative infrastructure to make that tenacity sustainable is the task that lies ahead.

Note: this gust blog is the result of a short-term scientific mission under COST Action 23114 RELINK.

Sources

• Alan Turing Institute (CETaS) — From Deepfake Scams to Poisoned Chatbots: AI and Election Security in 2025
• Cyfluence Research — Influence in Moldova: Coordinated Campaigns Ahead of Critical Elections
• Euronews — Moldova’s Election Shaped by Russia’s AI-Driven Disinformation Machine (September 2025)
• European Commission — Digital Hybrid Threats Stress Test, Chișinău, June 2025
• European Policy Centre — It is Moldova’s Moment and Europe Must Act (2025)
• Georgetown Journal of International Affairs — How the EU Rewrote its Cyber Diplomacy Playbook in Moldova’s 2025 Elections (February 2026)
• German Marshall Fund — Hybrid Threats to Democratic Processes: Moldova’s 2025 Elections (March 2026)
• International IDEA — How Moldova is Tackling Online Disinformation in Elections
• IWPR — Elections Under Siege: Moldova’s Battle for Truth (September 2025)
• Lowy Institute — How Russia Tried to Manipulate Moldova’s Election (November 2025)
• OSCE/ODIHR Election Observation Mission — Moldova Parliamentary Elections, 29 September 2025
• Watchdog Moldova — Cyber Operations and Hybrid Election Interference in Moldova’s 2025 Elections

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by Bhaswati Sarkar & Ankita Dutta

Centre for European Studies School of International Studies Jawaharlal Nehru University, 19 October 2025

Source: https://corporate.cyrilamarchandblogs.com/2019/05/social-media-code-conduct-election-commission-india/

Rapid strides in information technology have opened up new opportunities to consume and share news, views and ideas. The implication of information technology on the democratic political systems does not need to be established. The use of digital spaces and platforms such as X (formerly Twitter), Facebook, WhatsApp, have become a defining feature in the way elections are being conducted today. Political parties compete with each other to influence and dominate the online space both to create favourable narratives and discredit competitors. India is no exception. As the access to internet increases, the digital space has established itself as an arena of increased political communication and contest. This blog analyses the impact of digital media on Indian elections and looks at various regulations that New Delhi has adopted to manage the digital space.

India has emerged as thriving digital economy, and by almost every digital indicator – internet access, mobile access, data use and consumption, start-ups, unicorns, and trade-in services – India appears to be a digital power. The Indian government has been actively engaged in the country’s digitalisation. Its flagship programme, Digital India, which is structured around nine key pillars, is aimed at transforming India into a digitally empowered society and knowledge economy. It involves three main components: creating accessible digital infrastructures, providing services digitally, and promoting digital literacy among citizens. This initiative has been successful in expanding the internet access and improved public services through Digital Public Infrastructure (which is a combination of digital identity, digital payment infrastructure and data exchange solutions). Since the launch of the initiative, internet connections have increased from 251.5 million in March 2014 to 969.6 million in June 2024, registering a growth of 285.53%. Broadband connections rose from 61 million in March 2014 to 949.2 million in August, 2024 growing by 1452%. Moreover, India accounted for 49% of global real-time transaction in 2023, making it the leading country in digital payments.

During elections, the political outreach that the ‘digispace’ provides has been about narrative and image building of political leaders and their party. But this space is also open to misuse by misinformation, disinformation and propaganda. Therefore, effectively regulating this space is an imperative for meaningful conduct of politics in general and elections in particular.

India has strengthened its regulatory framework to manage online platforms overall. The rights and responsibilities of online platforms are regulated by Section 79 of the Information Technology Act of 2000, which places responsibility of due diligence on network service providers to remove or disable access to illegal or false information. The Information Technology (Intermediary Guidelines and Digital Media Ethics Code) Rules 2021 have sought to further regulate social media platforms. Amendments introduced in April 2023 conferred new powers for the government to exercise censorship and calls on social and media platforms to remove posts deemed fake or false. This is to ensure data privacy, net neutrality, and most importantly, accountability of social media platforms, including X (formerly Twitter), YouTube, and Meta. These frameworks along with the Indian Penal Code and framework of the twin acts, namely the Representation of People Act, 1950 and 1951 forms the core of legal instruments implemented by India in regulating its online space. While the amendments sought to regulate the online space, these provisions have been critcised for curtailing rights of the people, over-censorship, and concerns about creation of an appellate authority which might not be independent of the executive.

With respect to elections, the responsibility of ensuring free and fair polls. rests with the Election Commission of India (ECI). The ECI issues guidelines and advisories related to the use of social media by political parties and candidates. Since 2008, it has made attempts to regulate the digital space. In 2013, the ECI formulated guidelines for social media companies, candidates, political parties and third parties. For instance, disclosure of  social media accounts for candidates when filing their nominations was made mandatory. Political parties and candidates were also required to publish their expenditure incurred on social media. Further, at the state and district levels parties’ political advertisements shared across online platforms required prior certification by Media Certification and Monitoring Committees (MCMC).

The 2014 parliamentary elections that led BJP leader Modi to power marked a turning point in the use of digital space for party electioneering. PM Modi’s 2014 success has been attributed to his innovative social media outreach. The Financial Times went so far as to call him India’s “first social media prime minister”. A month within becoming the prime minister, PM Modi increased his online popularity on Facebook, becoming the world’s second most popular head of a state after US President Obama. In 2017 a report released by PR firm Burson-Marstellar showed Prime Minister Modi with 40 million Facebook followers on his personal page – the world’s most followed leader. In 2024, he became the most followed global leader on the social media platform X. With over 100 million followers, Prime Minister Modi outperforms Virat Kohli (64.1 million) and Taylor Swift (95.3 million).

While BJP retains its first mover advantage on social media presence, other parties have caught up. Consequently, the digital space needs to be better regulated due to platforms’ ability of polarisation by microtargeting and misinformation. In 2018, ECI set up the Sinha Committee to look into the feasibility of regulating social media advertising during election campaigns and ways to prevent its misuse (No. 491/RPA/2017/Communication). For the 2019 elections, a voluntary code of ethics  was signed by ECI and Internet and Mobile Association of India. The social media companies agreed to conduct education and awareness campaigns, and establish a fast-track grievance redress channel to take action on objectionable posts reported to the ECI. They also agreed to pre-certification requirements and to take action within three hours of reported violations of the mandatory 48-hour period of no-campaigning.

On the ground the “voluntary code of ethics” had at best limited impact. During the 2019 elections, millions of fake or misleading posts were uploaded particularly on Facebook, Twitter, Google and WhatsApp, only 909 posts were taken down by the social media platforms and of the 510 code violations just 75 were analysed by the ECI but no penalties were imposed. The 2014 Lok Sabha election was dubbed as “social media elections’” and 2019 was referred to as the “WhatsApp election”, the elections of 2024 can be referred to as dominated by the use of Artificial Intelligence (AI).

The elections of 2024 were conducted in seven phases spread over two months involving over 960 million voters. The Model Code of Conduct kicked in from 16th March 2024. This election stands out for the use of generative A Political parties and candidates used AI extensively to enhance their messaging to a diverse, multilingual electorate. AI was also frequently used for spreading misleading information through use of fake audio, propaganda images, and parodies. While AI was used to scale the messaging, it was used mostly without repercussions and lack of transparency. Of particular concern were the “deep fakes”, which distorted content and spread fake information/misinformation/disinformation. For example, an AI-generated deepfake video surfaced featuring late Member of Parliament H. Vasanthakumar endorsing his son’s Congress candidacy; or AI-generated videos of Prime Minister Modi and other leaders like Mamta Banerjee were also circulated during the campaign cycle.

The ECI issued a circular for the “responsible and ethical use of social media platforms and strict avoidance of any wrongful use by political parties and their representatives.” In its Press Note published on 14 May 2024, the ECI noted that it had received 425 major complaints of which 400 had been addressed. However, the ECI was accused by the opposition parties and civil society groups for failing to act against violation of MCC, related to communal content posted online by political actors for voter appeasement. ECI was also accused of failing to take note of speeches being made on caste, community, or religious lines at the right time, meant that the intended damage was done.

In the coming years, the use of social media in Indian elections is only likely to grow. India requires robust enforcement and monitoring capacity to track political advertising, labeling, disclosure, and limit on microtargeting. As platforms play a critical role in information dissemination and may not fully comply with over-regulation, the government needs to work with these platforms for content-moderation, automation and ad-review to reduce disinformation. While strong regulatory framework with robust and impartial implementation is critical, civil society organisations play an important role both in protecting freedom of expression from government overreach and sensitising people about misinformation. Equally, if not more important, is the commitment of political players themselves to use digital platforms responsibly.

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Code	Title	Details
P004	Norm Contestation in Global Tech regulation	View Panel Details
P138	Digital Parties and Digital Citizens	View Panel Details
P139	Digital Political Communication and its Effects	View Panel Details
P140	Digital Technologies and Elections	View Panel Details
P245	Integrity and Accountability in Digital Participatory Processes	View Panel Details
P250	International AI Governance	View Panel Details
P349	Party Digital Democratic Innovations	View Panel Details
P457	Tech Governance and Digital Policy	View Panel Details

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