Regardless of the outcome, the Hungarian far-right opposition party Our Homeland Movement (Mi Hazánk Mozgalom) will challenge the result of the 2026 Hungarian parliamentary election, Party Chairman László Toroczkai announced in his speech on the floor of the National Assembly of Hungary on Monday, 6 October.
The reason: Facebook deleted his official Facebook page back in 2019, ahead of that year’s European Parliamentary elections. While the page was restored in late 2024, it only lasted eight days before being deleted again. Our Homeland has taken the case to court in Hungary, where the Online Platform Arbitration Council has sided with him and has instructed Facebook’s parent company, Meta, to reinstate his page on a permanent basis.
However, the Menlo Park, California-based American tech giant is yet to comply with the order. That is why Chairman Toroczkai feels that he has been deprived of a fair competition in the 2026 election, against other parties whose leaders have access to the most popular social media platform in Hungary.
Facebook has over 5 million active users in the country, and its user base is older on average than that of other social media platforms—a crucial factor, since older citizens are more likely to vote. Instagram, with a younger user base, has around 2.7 million Hungarian users and is owned by the same parent company, Meta.
In parliament, Toroczkai asked what steps the Hungarian government plans to take to enforce the court’s ruling against the American company. State Secretary for the Ministry of Justice Róbert Répássy responded on behalf of the governing Fidesz party. He stated that while the government is committed to ensuring fair competition in the election, it believes that Our Homeland can still effectively communicate its message to voters without a Facebook page for Chairman Toroczkai. Secretary Répássy also wished him ‘lots of success’ in producing content that complies with Meta’s community guidelines.
Toroczkai has stated that his party is willing to take his challenge of the 2026 Hungarian election results to international courts, and that he does not believe that it is right that ‘a Hungarian election is decided by a multi-billionaire in Silicon Valley’.
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