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Hungary Mulls Sanctions Against Social Media Giants (reuters.com) 43

Hungarian Justice Minister Judit Varga on Monday raised the prospect of sanctioning social media firms over what she called "systematic abuses" of free speech. From a report: The minister said she would meet the Hungarian competition watchdog this week to discuss possible penalties for what she described as unfair commercial practices as well as convening a meeting of the country's digital freedom committee. In a growing wave of criticism, some government officials are complaining about what they have described as efforts by social media companies, including Facebook, to limit conservative views on their platforms. Prime Minister Viktor Orban has turned Hungary's public media into an obedient mouthpiece and allies control large parts of the private media, allowing his agenda to be aired prominently. But the right-wing premier faces the toughest challenge to his decade-long rule at a parliamentary election next year, as he tackles a protracted recovery from the COVID-19 pandemic and a united opposition, with polls showing a neck-and-neck race.
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Hungary Mulls Sanctions Against Social Media Giants

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  • Oh, the Irony! (Score:3, Insightful)

    by franzrogar ( 3986783 ) on Monday January 18, 2021 @01:36PM (#60960736)

    In March 2020, the Hungarian President got powers to rule by decree to the extent outlawing the "spreading of misinformation" of COVID.

    And now, he wants to protect the #1 missinformant and spreader of lies Trump from being banned?

    • Re:Oh, the Irony! (Score:5, Insightful)

      by SkonkersBeDonkers ( 6780818 ) on Monday January 18, 2021 @01:53PM (#60960800)

      Well yeah he doesn't want anyone besides himself deciding what information his populace should or should not see.

      This whole thing is being just played to the hilt by the right-wing. No one is stopping conservative and right-wing discourse. They're stopping speech that either directly invokes prejudice and/or violence OR which is an egregious lie intended to accomplish the same net effect. So unless the right-wingers are asserting that those two things are essential to their message, there should be no problem at all.

      • Re:Oh, the Irony! (Score:5, Insightful)

        by LubosD ( 909058 ) on Monday January 18, 2021 @04:03PM (#60961262)

        Sorry, but that's just not true. I've been repeatedly blocked on Facebook for:

        * Using a very common figure of speech in my native language, which FB considered an incitement of violence. Ridiculous. Now I self-censor to avoid this pitfall.
        * Describing how I was once assaulted in a racially charged way (despite being a white majority) as a child. I only thruthfully described events as they happened and nothing else. FB blocked me for "hate speech".

        A friend of mine was blocked for posting a photo of her daughter with a caption "I'm really proud of my blue-eyed blond girl". According to Facebook, this constitutes hate speech. I couldn't believe it until I saw Facebook's decision with my own eyes. You can't make this stuff up.

      • by DeVilla ( 4563 )
        It might be ok if that's what were happening. Some of us are asserting that rules to block violence and racism are being use to stifle speech that is neither racist nor violent. I can think of a discussion I had where someone was trying to "shame" me for reading the "racist" comic strip "The Boondocks".
    • Re: (Score:1, Informative)

      by Anonymous Coward

      Hungary (and Poland as we saw who were on a similar post recently) has an extreme right wing nutjobs in power, pretty much like Trump (without the crazy hair and much more calculated), and he wants to do exactly that, spread all the misinformation have full control of the media.

      • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

        by Entrope ( 68843 )

        These right-wing leaders are on the same page as Angela Merkel and Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador. Maybe this isn't as factional an issue as you imply it is.

      • Good luck with that! Meanwhile in other news Google has just sacked the prez of USA. In the new normal politicians in Ruritanian minority areas defer to tech bllionaires, not the other way around. Putin please note, Zuckerberg out votes you these days, nooks or not.
    • by fazig ( 2909523 )
      Depends on how you define "misinformation".
      More often than not it appears to be defined as "stuff I don't agree with".
  • Hahahaha... Hungarians verbatim copying what the Russian law voted in December. They are not alone - 3 USA states did it too. The most recent anti-protests laws in Tennessee are a verbatim copy of the relevant laws voted by the Duma in the last week of 2020.

    What's next? Cats sleeping with dogs? Actually, that one is already happening

    On a more serious note, it is high time our press sat down and went through the 5 or so laws dealing with Internet and protests voted in the last 3 weeks of December and pub

  • Just fuck off if you think that also includes allowing your authoritarian fascism.

  • Not "alt-right"? "Far right"? Get your act together, freedom fighters!
  • That said, the last EU relief fund was subordinated to "respect of the rule of law" which excluded Hungary and Poland. On account of the authoritarian nature of the power there. So they cannot always take the money of the EU without the rules of the EU. We are taking not very rich countries for which EU subsidies are important.

    I don't know if the EU can do anything about that law directly but they notice and will probably not sit idle.

    • IIRC the EU backed off this budget condition due to threats of boycott from both Hungary and Poland. I don't speak either Polish or Hungarian and I can't trust one-sided news, no matter what side it is from. And no one should. And I *really* don't think any right wing news / points of view make it out of those countries. So I don't know how dire the situation really is over there. You know what happens if you keep dismissing complaints that other people consider valid or even things to live by? Your very o
  • Context (Score:3, Informative)

    by dshk ( 838175 ) on Monday January 18, 2021 @02:44PM (#60960986)

    The Hungarian prime minister's puppets brought up 90% of the media using stolen taxpayer money, including all regional newspapers and the two largest internet news site and all television channels except one neutral. They converted the state media into propaganda centers, they fund it with a hella amount of taxpayer money. This state media doesn't allow any opposition politician to enter their buildings. The state propaganda lose each and every lawsuit about their lies, but it does not make any difference, they pay the fine from taxpayer money.

    Because they do not have the money to outright buy Facebook and Twitter, they would like to use law and advertisement money to convert it to a propaganda channel as well.

    I do not like Facebook moderation's policy, although I do not know how could they be better, but I am sure that whatever the Hungarian government proposes is seriously dangerous to democracy and freedom of speech.

    • More context: Hungary is really only a city state - Budupest. There are not many people there - in total less than 10 million. So they have about one of everything.
      • Name of capitol is Budapest - please spell it correctly at least (btw its a really nice city).
        Only 20% of the population lives at Budapest, so the country cannot be called as a city-state.

        Otherwise about the prime minister, Mr. Orban's puppets: unfortunately it is all true.

        He and his ruling party
        - captured the state with mafia methods,
        - syphons out taxpayer's money to well-behaving friendly firms and to family members,
        - oppresses any counter-opinions,
        - constantly rewrites the election rules to
        • "Capital" with an "a", please spell it correctly ;-) Otherwise all correct. In Australia we have a Trump lite with a Murdoch media monopoly telling people to drink bleach. Not much different, actually. Murdering pensioners to subsidise MPs salary increases and telling fools they have a "right" to spread Corona by refusing to wear masks. Maybe it will reduce the psycho demographic if they all do it. It just seems normal these days. Who needs Zuckerberg for the empire to strike back?
    • Comment removed based on user account deletion

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