The Kremlin has used massive disinformation efforts, among others, to interfere in democratic processes across the West in the past few years. Consequently, the 2019 EP elections were always treated as potential targets for Russia, which was acknowledged by European institutions well in advance.
The last days of the Hungarian EP election campaign were characterized by an ever-intensifying anti-EU campaign on government-controlled and fringe disinformation portals. The Hungarian government seeks a strong mandate to represent its interest in the European Union
With videos, we can easily reach an audience of more than 10,000 people. More importantly, we are able to get in touch with young viewers from the 18-30 age group – which is the least politically active in public life.
A study by McKinsey & Company showed that 49% of the working hours in Hungary can be automated with the already existing technologies. This does not necessarily mean that these jobs will be lost forever, but they are going to be transformed.
The conflict of interest of individual parties in Hungary proved to be the opposition’s great weakness, the 2018 election results illustrate this perfectly: The national electoral system was shaped by the 2010 Fidesz government to favor large parties, including winner compensation and different types of gerrymandering.
713 articles shared on Facebook sites belonging to government-controlled media outlets and pro-Kremlin outlets indicate that the governing party’s EP campaign messages mainly attack the EU elite and the bloc’s institutional system through the dissemination of manipulative information concerning migration.
In the summer, the US government sent to Hungary a good friend of President Trump as the new ambassador, David B. Cornstein. His self-proclaimed priority was to save CEU. He failed. Unfortunately, in the eyes of liberty-loving Hungarians, this is a failure of the United States and of America’s leadership.
While the media focuse on the Kremlin’s “hybrid warfare” against the Western democracies or the Chinese social credit system controlling people’s everyday life through mass-surveillance, the illiberal state of Viktor Orbán is also doing its fair share to exercise information control via new digital powers.
Unsurprisingly, among the countries with the most substantial deteriorations in freedom in recent years are Turkey and Poland, both experiencing evident weakening of the rule of law, contracting religious freedom, and attacks on freedom of expression.
The aim of eradicating homelessness has inspired numerous solutions worldwide. Hungary came up with the simplest of these: a constitutional ban outright prohibits living on the streets. Yet, the targeting of thousands of homeless people living in Hungary is not a new phenomenon.
