Is Fidesz going to war with Facebook?
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In most countries, Facebook will introduce ‘whitelists’, which will contain unregulated safe media products. However, it will not be introduced in Hungary.
As reported by index.hu, prior to the European Parliamentary elections on the 26th of May, Facebook has decided to regulate the advertising on its feeds in order to restrain and filter the spread of biased and fake news. Sites on whitelists will be exempt from this regulation.
In Hungary no one was exempted from this censure because according to Facebook’s chiefs none of the country’s media outlets are sufficiently reliable. The explanation for this was revealed in a face-to-face conversation with a Facebook employee, whose simple reason was ‘KESMA’, which is Fidesz’s overarching organisation for its media outlets.
According to hvg.hu, this move is linked to Századvég – an organisation associated with the government – who proposed the regulation of the Californian social media giant. Their ideas include declaring Facebook as a mass media medium site so that it is under the jurisdiction of Hungarian law, subjecting Facebook’s censors to punishment and transferring ownership of Facebook to minority shareholders, as reported by origo.hu.