The editorial staff believes this is an expression of political bias, and was motivated by the upcoming European Parliamentary elections next year. The last piece of their content flagged by Facebook was of a topic covered by all major news outlets in Hungary.
‘Most importantly, Facebook is a Western company, and we are a Western-style democracy. Facebook’s ideology is basically liberal democracy, as is ours—although the Hungarian Government takes issue with this and represents a version of it based on Christian, conservative values. The number one platform for this world and this set of values for the public is the Facebook universe: we are therefore allies; not good friends, but allies.’
Lajos Ódor, who was appointed Prime Minister by the President of Slovakia in May in the midst of a political crisis, made some statements in a public discussion at a festival which suggested that Viktor Orbán is isolated on the world stage in his views. Fidesz MP Tamás Menczer reacted in a poignant Facebook post.
A large portion of the 15–39-year-olds polled by MCC’s Youth Research Institute shares their political opinions on the internet, and many of them had the experience of being banned for it on social media sites. Also, the majority of young people believe that the social media companies’ algorithms are politically biased.
Two major pieces of news broke in the last couple of days involving Former US President Donald Trump. On Friday, he posted to his Facebook and YouTube accounts for the first time after an over two-year-long ban. The next day, however, he took to his own social media site claiming that he would be arrested on Tuesday.
Facebook’s parent company was found to be in the wrong for not giving its users the option of signing up without agreeing to personalised ads.
As a result of this omnipotent power, Facebook can influence votes, stock exchange rates, and the way of thinking of entire generations.
Hungarian Conservative is a quarterly magazine on contemporary political, philosophical and cultural issues from a conservative perspective.