Martina Orlea, state advisor for combating disinformation at the Presidential Administration of Romania, claims that she was the victim of a disinformation campaign. It all started from a photograph taken last week, when Nicușor Dan received young magistrates at Cotroceni.
In one of the images, the Romanian president is seen with one of the young prosecutors, Ioana Sadovec, who works at the Prosecutor’s Office near the Giurgiu Court. The image has gone viral, and on social networks, it is said that alongside the head of state is Martina Orlea.
The comments were accompanied by misogynistic messages and fashion criticisms, related to the Hello Kitty accessory purse that the prosecutor had at the event at Cotroceni Palace, notes Antena3.
“Based on those pictures, a fake news story was intentionally created, which reached approximately one million people. It was deliberately propagated on social networks and I think it’s important to understand the mechanisms through which it became viral. Because the same mechanisms promote fake news about Hello Kitty today, about vaccines tomorrow, about elections the day after tomorrow,” declared Martina Orlea.
According to the official, the amplification of disinformation was allegedly coordinated by Facebook profiles created for disinformation, then taken over on other social networks, for example TikTok and LinkedIn. Although she claims to have approached META, Orlea states that the tech giant did not delete all the posts related to the subject and “allowed this coordination and promotion mechanism to exist”.