A Bucharest protest by shepherds and farmers against the EU's live sheep and goat export ban turned violent on September 15, but a Funky Citizens (a Romanian civic NGO) analysis of 1,186 Facebook posts found dozens of pages had republished near-identical messages the previous evening claiming "almost 200,000 farmers" would attend, when press reports put turnout at about 3,000. The study, which cannot establish who organised the coordination or why, also found the real grievance was folded into narratives about illegitimate government and EU hostility, including by Telegram channels previously linked to pro-Kremlin propaganda networks. Researchers say separating the farmers' genuine demands from their online amplification matters for understanding how protests in Romania and the wider region can be shaped by manipulation.