Once again, U.S. checks and balances deliver information that was deliberately kept from the public.
On a personal note, it’s funny that I first focused on the Romanian censorship machine because of an open letter co-signed by Funky Citizens on February 12, 2025. They were demanding radical transparency on data access under the DSA ahead of the elections, yet the mere concept of transparency for the user wasn’t mentioned once. Should we trust the experts as they navigate us into darkness? I reported on it then:
So: kudos to the House Judiciary Committee for exposing the “misinformation pseudoscientists”.
Since that February 12 letter, I’ve reported on Funky Citizens multiple times. Their effort to feign NGO best practices was interesting. I thought I’d find genuinely biased people trying to do their job. I thought they were better than others who participate in the censorship architecture but keep everything secret (like Expert Forum). And because a dialogue was established, I naively assumed they’d avoid lying.
It’s since become perfectly clear.
They lie. They target narratives. They de-amplify high-profile accounts and, by doing so, collapse entire information bubbles. It’s a propaganda and censorship machine.
I repeatedly asked if they were involved in the takedown of major journalists and independent media outlets in Romania. I received denials: “we don’t target journalists.” But something felt increasingly off.
One of the most devastating example was a lie they spread about the opposition party:
Because I really wanted—and still want—to know who took down journalists’ accounts in Romania, I ended up filing a formal complaint with ANCOM, Romania’s Digital Services Coordinator. That complaint was forwarded to the Irish DSC in October. I’m still waiting for an explanation.
But today we know even more clearly that Funky Citizens was, and is, a problem.
On December 3, 2024, a post was flagged to TikTok under the Rapid Response System, a European mechanism granting priority flagging powers to designated actors meddling in national elections.
The explicit justification: “Political Propaganda for Călin Georgescu.”1
December 3 is right in the middle of the presidential campaign, before the declassification of National Defence Council information, before the annulment of the election.
It is an incredibly abusive flag. Take a look at Funky Citizens, and you’ll understand the systemic risk created by the European Digital Media Observatory (EDMO), the European Fact-Checking Standards Network (EFCSN), and the International Fact-Checking Network (IFCN) across Europe: zero oversight, total impunity. We had to wait for the American system of checks and balances to obtain this information.
As a reaction to the publication of the report, Funky Citizens managed to pull off an hilarious statement:
“[…] Funky Citizens does not have and has never had a role in content removal or platform moderation. All of our activity has been monitoring, and our reports have been and remain public—we have published them consistently, in real time, precisely in order to prevent speculation.
Monitoring by civil society is just as legitimate and necessary as debates about freedom of expression. Equally necessary is transparency on the part of institutions when making decisions that, day by day, weaken citizens’ trust in democratic institutions. […]”
Oust Funky
Funky Citizens should be removed from the fact-checking architecture and cut off from public funding.
Also, Mr. Zuckerberg should confirm he has finally stopped funding them and should offer full disclosure on what happened with Meta’s main fact-checker in Romania during this long 2025 year spent paying for their manipulative fact-checks. A full audit with journalist review—a “Meta Files: Romania”—would be welcome. But if not, more subpoenas will probably do.
At the same time, there’s something good about Funky’s continuation within EDMO, EFCSN, and IFCN: the longer they remain in place, the clearer it becomes—for everyone—that these structures, and the so-called Code of Practice on Disinformation, are being used to cover up abuse, not prevent it.
The longer Funky stays in the game, the higher the chance the entire network of snitches and censors gets exposed.
What a funky outcome that would be. 🍿
Line 141, EXHIBIT 282 of “The Foreign Censorship Threat, Part II.