In the past few years, there have been significant changes over the Hungarian media market, more and more media outlets are owned by government-friendly companies, often spreading misinformation to serve political agendas. Viktor Orbán’s regime in Hungary led to the centralization of several public sectors in order to secure its power over the past decade.

Currently a hotly debated topic that has sparked a new wave of anti-vax conspiracy narratives is the vaccination of minors. A recent survey found that only 46% of Slovaks support vaccinating children under the age of 16 years.In his recent post, Slovak opposition politician Ľuboš Blaha who often spreads problematic content, accused the governing coalition of allowing Slovak children to become “test subjects”.

Free press and freedom of speech are among democracy’s essential prerequisites; however, they should not be taken for granted. Published by the Republikon Institute, with the support of the Friedrich Naumann Foundation for Freedom, The State of the Media in the Visegrád Countries provides a detailed insight into the media status in Central Europe.

The RSF report comes at a crunch time to note what other international organizations have expressed earlier: concerns about the treatment of journalists by the Greek Police, restrictions on coverage of the immigration issue, and direct or indirect effort of the Greek government to control the flow of information for political gain.

By Friedrich Naumann Foundation for Freedom and STRATPOL – Strategic Policy Institute Project Infosecurity.sk organized by STRATPOL – Strategic Policy Institute and Slovak Security Policy Institute, supported by the Prague office of Friedrich Naumann Foundation for Freedom, continuously monitors the activities of both Slovak and foreign disinformation actors, but focuses mainly on the former. The project activities are built upon daily monitoring of emerging disinformation, hoaxes and conspiracy theories in the online information space. That…