Big change ahead: Hungarian government bans alcohol from shop windows
The Hungarian government is rolling out sweeping changes, from restricting minors’ access to online pornography to banning alcohol adverts visible from public spaces. While the move aims to safeguard children, the amendments leave room for interpretation, sparking questions about their broader implications.
Restricting pornographic content
As Economx writes, the Hungarian government has introduced an amendment to its laws, as published in the latest Hungarian Gazette (Magyar Közlöny), aimed at restricting minors’ access to pornographic content online. This includes changes to legislation governing electronic commerce, advertising, and information society services to enhance child protection. The amendments place new obligations on video-sharing platform providers, creating a stricter regulatory framework. While the focus on safeguarding children is undisputed, concerns have arisen over potentially hidden elements within the legislation.
Expanding regulations
The Hungarian government is expanding its regulations on advertising to enhance child protection. Existing prohibitions on adverts that could harm children’s physical, mental, emotional, or moral development, or those promoting identities differing from birth sex, gender reassignment, or homosexuality, are being supplemented with a new restriction. Advertisements targeting children or minors that depict goods or their use in a manner harmful or dangerous to life, health, or physical integrity will now also be banned. However, the Hungarian Gazette offers limited clarity on what constitutes harm to physical integrity, leaving room for interpretation.
Hungarian government bans advertising alcohol
According to the revisited law on advertising alcohol, it will be prohibited to advertise alcoholic beverages in the following places:
- on the outside of the front cover of the press product or, in the case of a website, on the opening page
- in a theatre or cinema before 8 pm
- immediately before, during and immediately after a programme intended for children or minors
- on products and their packaging clearly intended for playing
- in a public education or health establishment and within 200 metres of any entrance to such an establishment, on outdoor advertising material, in a shop window or otherwise visible from the public spaces
The Hungarian government has introduced stricter regulations on advertising alcoholic beverages. Previously, the ban was limited to public education and health establishments and outdoor advertising within 200 metres of their entrances. Under the new rules, advertising alcoholic beverages is also prohibited in shop windows or any locations visible from public spaces, though the exact interpretation of “visible from public spaces” remains ambiguous.
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Featured image: depositphotos.com
Deliberately creating ambiguous laws gives the authorities great possibilities to silence unwanted voices. With that kind of laws, they can always find a way to accuse a business or a person for breaking the law, just by conveniently interpreting ambiguous laws. Perfect way to create fear of authorities, just the way authoritarian rulers like it.
And very few will dare to publicly oppose these new ambiguous laws as the propaganda machine will quickly label any such person as a child hating person for daring to oppose these “child protection” laws. Yes, child protection is good, but not with ambiguous laws that can be interpreted freely by authorities.