Polish influencers were encouraged to post about the campaign. In the background, money for reach

• Polish influencers were encouraged to get involved in the presidential campaign for money.
• The clues lead to organizations registered abroad.
• The case is accompanied by unclear messages from NASK.

- It reminded us of the situation in Romania - says Piotr Stanisławski, an influencer who co-runs the CrazyNauka channel. On May 9, the channel team received a suspicious email in their company mailbox. It contained a proposal for cooperation.

Political content for money. Even 1.6 thousand PLN per week

"I'm writing to you because we really appreciate the way you communicate - honestly, authentically and with sensitivity. This is exactly the kind of voice we're looking for in the Zagłos! campaign, which encourages participation in civic life ahead of the upcoming elections, without party affiliations," the message began.

Its authors argued that they were "creating a community of creators who hold values ​​such as justice, equality and solidarity close to their hearts". They also explained the rules of cooperation. In short: influencers were to receive a short summary once a day with "reliable sources, content ideas and topic suggestions", from which they could choose what suited them. The authors of the message argued that in return, the influencer would receive "a fair rate for weekly activity + large bonuses for results" .

What does this mean? More information is available on the zabierzglos.eu website. According to the price list posted there, people with a reach of between 5,000 and 25,000 followers could count on PLN 320 per week, those gathering an audience of up to 100,000 followers – PLN 800, and creators reaching over 100,000 – PLN 1.6 thousand. There were also bonuses for results (e.g. 50,000 views on YouTube is PLN 1.2 thousand), as well as for regular publications. The remuneration was to be paid after June 1, 2025. The campaign itself was to last in April and May.

Stanislavski tells WNP that the content of the message aroused the team’s suspicions – it looked generic, it was not signed with a name and surname, it contained spelling errors. What’s more, it repeated itself on May 12. That’s why the influencers forwarded it to NASK .

Influencer on the undecided: they can completely change the election result

An Instagram profile is associated with the campaign. It has only 6 posts and 30 followers. However, the first reels (short films – ed.) have already appeared, in which the creators tag him in the materials they have recorded about the elections.

“Voters aged 18 to 29 are the most undecided group,” says Kaludia Sójka, later convincing that she herself will vote because her vote matters. A similar video was also published on TikTok. The influencer usually shows travel stories in her work.

"The undecided group has the greatest power," says Aleksander Paweł Bach-Gapiński. "They are able to completely change the election result," he adds and encourages voting. His account is a lifestyle account on a daily basis.

None of the materials we have seen discredit the candidates or favor any specific person. We have sent questions to the people who posted the materials about their participation in the campaign. None have responded.

Domain registered by a company of Hungarian former politicians

The campaign also has a website – zabierzglos.eu. There you will find information about the principles of cooperation. And also about the organizer – the Impuls dla Młodych Foundation registered in 2021 in Osiniec (Gniezno). The foundation runs, among other things, training projects for young people. Its president from the beginning has been 26-year-old Kacper Parol. In 2019, he ran unsuccessfully for parliament from the Left lists. The foundation is financed, among others, from individual contributions, as well as grants from, among others, the European Cultural Foundation, the British Embassy and the National Institute of Freedom. According to the financial report for 2023, it had PLN 157 thousand in revenue and almost the same amount of expenses.

The domain for the shares was registered by someone else – the DatAdat company. It is headed by two Hungarians – Ádám Ficsor, who served as Minister of Special Services in Budapest between April and September 2009, and a former politician of the anti-Orban opposition – Viktor Szigetvári.

DatAdat and its affiliated company Estratos provide IT services to political organizations and NGOs related to data collection and analysis . It is still unclear what role it played during the 2022 Hungarian election campaign.

30 people in the influencer database. Only a few post

When we ask Kacper Parol about this, he admits that they use the services of the company Estratos. The foundation buys websites from them, for example, because – as the president says – only volunteers work at Impuls on a daily basis. However, he denies that an external entity inspired the campaign. The action was supposed to be the foundation's own idea.

Parol adds that although the mailing was sent out relatively widely, about 30 people responded to the proposal, and are now in the database. Only a small fraction of them post videos. However, all of them receive regular mailings from the foundation with ideas for topics to describe in materials on social media.

It is worth mentioning that the Estratos company thread appears in the Wirtualna Polska text published on Thursday. WP journalists determined that the company's services were used by Akcja Demokracja - the organization behind the campaign that attacked Sławomir Mentzen and Karol Nawrocki , while supporting Rafał Trzaskowski.

The President of the Foundation confirms that NASK requested explanations regarding the campaign. As he assures, he provided them.

As we were able to confirm, the agency took up the matter. However, this information was not included in the statement regarding potential foreign interference in the elections, which NASK published on Wednesday, nor in any subsequent communication. Also after WP's text, NASK did not respond to our questions on this matter.

Update: after this article was published on X Ministerstwo Cyfryzacji, a statement appeared. It is not known whether it refers to our material, but the date of submission is correct: May 9. That was when the authors of Crazy Nauka reported the problem.

Romanian elections supported by paid influencers

Why did Stanislavski from Crazy Nauka associate emails about the influencer campaign with the Romanian case? In December, during the presidential elections, exactly such a campaign took place. With the help of influencer agencies and a Telegram channel, creators were recruited to create political content using specific keywords. Both big names and people with relatively small reach were recruited to the campaign.

The actions of internet creators were coordinated and synchronized. Thanks to this, they reached a wider audience. The actions of influencers ultimately supported the campaign of Calin Georgescu, which led to an electoral crisis - the first round of the presidential elections was invalidated by the constitutional court due to suspicions of external interference.

- Even if it wasn't that kind of situation, we preferred to be cautious - Stanislavski sums up.

According to General Jarosław Stróżyk, there are cases of influencers being recruited in Poland by actors linked to Russia. Such suggestions were also made at a meeting during which a report prepared by his commission for combating Russian influence in Poland was presented to journalists. They were confirmed many times by Deputy Prime Minister Krzysztof Gawkowski. - Russian intelligence wants to use Poles, among other things, to spread disinformation on the Polish internet - he said in January on Radio RMF FM. He recalled that even unwitting participation in such actions can result in a prison sentence.

**

In 2024, the author conducted free training for youth participants of Change:Academy – an event organized by the Impuls dla Młodych Foundation. The scope concerned the Act on Access to Public Information.