Facebook to inhibit Hungarian politicians from reaching users?

https://www.facebook.com/orbanviktor

Hungary’s government and many ruling party politicians have seen a significant decline in the reach of their Facebook pages since Thursday, a government official has said. Leading opposition politicians experienced the same, and for a short while, a “grand coalition” was formed against the suspected new policy of the American tech giant. Finally, the truth has been revealed.

“We’re baffled by what has happened,” Csaba Dömötör, a state secretary of the Prime Minister’s Office, said on Facebook, adding that Facebook had not said anything in advance about any changes. “We don’t know if a technical problem is to blame or if Facebook has begun to limit the reach of political content like it said it would,” Dömötör said.

The state secretary said the matter

highlighted how public figures were “at the mercy” of tech companies when it came to communication.

Dömötör said the limited reach of the government’s pages was “especially disadvantageous” now when it was so critical to keep Hungarians informed about the status of the pandemic and vaccines.

Opposition politicians felt the same and encouraged all their supporters to keep following them by instructing them carefully on how to do so. Facebook announced in February that they plan to scale down political content. Therefore, everybody thought that the new measure arrived in Hungary in the last few days.

However, according to hvg.hu, the significant decline in the reach of Hungarian politicians’ Facebook pages was not intentional on the part of the American tech giant. The social media platform said Friday night that the cause was a simple technical error. A spokesperson of Facebook said that the problem occurred in many European countries, but they already managed to fix it.

On Friday, leading Hungarian politicians like MEP Anna Donáth (Momentum Movement), Csaba Dömötör (Fidesz), András Fekete-Győr (Momentum), István Hollik (Crhistian Democrats), and Gergely Karácsony (Lord Mayor of Budapest) voiced their concerns regarding the issue.

Nevertheless, the events show how important Facebook is for political communication in Hungary.

Source: MTI, hvg.hu

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