Romania: Decision on audio-visual content regulatory code including content moderation regulation enters into force

On 7 August 2025, the Decision No. 573, establishing an audio-visual content regulatory code, including content moderation regulation, entered into force. The regulation applies to all television and radio broadcasters, video-on-demand platforms, and video-sharing services under Romanian jurisdiction. The code establishes content restrictions and removal obligations across multiple categories. The code prohibits broadcasting any form of incitement to national, racial or religious hatred, discrimination, genocide, war crimes, racist, anti-Semitic or xenophobic manifestations. Statements that are intimidating, hostile, degrading, defamatory, humiliating or offensive to groups defined by sex, gender, race, ethnicity, religion, disability, age, sexual orientation or disease are banned. The regulation prohibits apologetic presentation, denial or ridicule of totalitarian, Nazi and communist regimes and their crimes. Violence restrictions include banning programs containing gratuitous violence, repeated physical, psychological or verbal violence, and cruelty to animals outside of fiction and documentaries. Drug-related content promoting drug use is prohibited, with detailed drug use presentations banned in news and reports. The code requires providers of video-sharing platforms to take appropriate measures to protect minors from harmful content, including pornography and gratuitous violence.