Hungary intends to regulate Facebook

As a consequence of last year’s Cambridge Analytica scandal, Mark Zuckerberg made a request to regulate Facebook on a national level. Apart from the US, several European countries, including Hungary, intend to comply with the request.

As Hungarian news portal hetek.hu describes: Currently, 5.4 million people use Facebook in Hungary, while Instagram has 1.9 million users. However, as far as regulations are concerned, a ’digital Wild West’ can be experienced: Facebook has no representation in Hungary. This is intended to be changed by the Hungarian government.

Last week, Minister of Justice Judit Varga announced that a work-group had been created that is responsible for tech-companies’ regulation control. The work-group analyses what the scope of freedom of expression and censorship is in the case of tech-companies, and what the situation is like in the field of taxation and privacy.

“We are talking about a fundamental legal challenge, as people must be able to see clearly who guards the guardians,” said Judit Varga. According to the Minister of Justice, the problem with ’tech-giants’ being in a monopole position is that they “increasingly present themselves as political and social actors in the world.”

The exact plans are not known yet. However, based on international examples, the government has several options.

Regulatory efforts

Regarding the regulatory aspects of social media, the most important issues are protecting personal data and reducing the influence resulting from the monopole position (e.g. Issues related to freedom of expression and squeezing out competitors).

While America (referring to domestic firms) wants to prevent the spread of tech companies by antitrust laws, Europe prioritises the protection of personal data.

Recently, US authorities have launched two investigations of major importance against the lords of Silicon Valley. In July, the Ministry of Justice (DOJ) announced that an antitrust investigation would be started. Later, it was revealed that the Federal Trade Authority (FTC) is pursuing similar actions against Facebook.