Facebook reportedly restricts Orbán posts, Fidesz politicians and government-close media says

“Open political interference”, ahead of the election, Facebook restricts Viktor Orbán’s posts, news website Mandiner reported on Wednesday.

Facebook helps Péter Magyar?

The site said that Facebook’s interference raised serious questions about the transparency of the management of political content on social media.

Mandiner cited an X post by Lebanese-Australian political commentator Mario Nawfall who said the move had followed a call by an opposition Tisza Party member, a former Meta employee, urging supporters to mass-report his content.

Nawfall added that Tisza leader Péter Magyar had disproportionately high engagement figures, “outperforming global figures, despite operating in a much smaller, language-limited country“.

Meanwhile, Magyar also used a personal “professional mode” profile rather than a political page, he said, adding that “contrary to Meta’s long-standing guidelines, potentially bypassing limits on political content“.

Urgent investigation needed

“Questions are also emerging around how Meta moderates political content in Hungary. A regional Meta official has publicly shared positions aligned with mainstream European narratives, including pro-Ukraine messaging and content seen as anti-government in Hungary,” Newfall said.

“If Hungary’s largest social platform keeps restricting Orbán’s content while opposition accounts seem inflated before the election, serious questions arise about free speech and democratic integrity. This requires an urgent investigation,” he added.

“I’ve seen political interference by social media companies in other countries, and I really hope this is not happening in Hungary,” Newfall said in his X post cited by Mandiner.

EU activates system to curb social media content ahead of Hungarian election, Fidesz MEP says

The European Commission has activated a regulatory tool capable of restricting the content of social media ahead of the Hungarian election, Fidesz MEP Csaba Dömötör said in Budapest on Wednesday. “After the oil blockade, here’s the Facebook blockade.”

Dömötör told Hungarian journalists that the Rapid Response System of the Code of Practice on Disinformation of the EU was “a clear interference into Hungarian elections … on behalf of [Tisza leader] Peter Magyar.“

The EC activated a system “supposedly protecting against hate speech and external interference“; at the same time, a report by the US Congress found that “in reality, the EC was calling on large social media companies including Facebook and YouTube to exercise politically motivated censorship,” he said.

The EU law on digital services allowed the EC’s rapid response unit to swiftly restrict the publication of content they deemed harmful. Participation in the system was made mandatory for large social media companies in 2015, he said. Fines can be as high as 6 percent of the company’s revenue, he added.

Meanwhile, Dömötör said the EC “has outsourced the task of restricting content to so-called civil players.” The organisations involved in the work include the European Digital Media Observatory (EDMO) with Hungarian collaborators such as Magyar Jeti, Political Capital and Amnesty, among others — “Institutes and media from Tisza’s circle tied clearly and exclusively to the liberal side.”

“This means that leftist groups that may restrict social media content in the coming weeks are the ones that see it as a problem that migrants move on from Hungary, who take in Peter Magyar’s lies without a single question … and who tell Hungarians, in the shadow of two wars, that talking about the war is fear-mongering,” Dömötör said.

Dömötör said the developments had also shown “why the disinformation campaign about Russian spies and interference was launched“. “They cite Russian interference, yet at the same time they are carrying out interference in Brussels using European Commission funds. The Hungarian consortium implementing content restrictions has received more than one billion forints [EUR 2.5m] worth of euros from Brussels in recent years,” he said.

“This system has been dismantled in the US, but the European Commission is expanding it. It is now using it to impose a ‘Facebook blockade’ in Hungary in Peter Magyar’s interest,” he said. “They are deploying every tool to help bring a more pliable government to power in Hungary, one that does not stand in the way of their war plans,” he noted.

“But we have some bad news for them: the Hungarian people will decide on this on April 12. The silent, peace-loving majority will deliver the answer then,” Dömötör said.

If you missed our previous articles:

• Reuters: US Vice President JD Vance may visit Hungary to support PM Orbán ahead of April elections
• Orbán outlines why Hungary may need to quit the EU: Huxit possible if he wins again?

Featured image: Facebook/Orbán Viktor