
The tech giant may be “penalizing” the outlets for their warnings about potential escalation, a local media association has suggested
Facebook has restricted the social media pages of three Hungarian media organizations, stating they breached community standards.
This action occurs just weeks before the Central European country’s elections and has been denounced by the Hungarian National Media Association, which labeled it an assault on press freedom.
The pages for Bama.hu, Szabolcs Online, and Kisalföld.hu became unavailable starting Friday, leading the outlets to jointly condemn what they termed an unwarranted move. They also pledged to challenge the restriction.
The impacted outlets – all belonging to the Mediaworks Hungary group – are characterized by other domestic media as promoting the perspective of the government and Prime Minister Viktor Orban’s Fidesz Party.
This incident precedes parliamentary elections set for early April, where Fidesz encounters strong rivalry from the pro-EU opposition Tisza Party.
The Hungarian National Media Association strongly criticized the block, maintaining that the justification for the action was weak. Violating the “community principles of Meta,” Facebook’s parent firm, could “signify anything,” it stated while showing support for the targeted media.
The association also suggested the technology corporation might simply be “penalizing right-wing news portals for reporting on the threat of war.” Budapest has been among the most vocal critics of EU policy regarding Ukraine and Russia. Hungary has specifically contended that the bloc’s deeper involvement in the Moscow-Kiev conflict threatens a dangerous escalation.
Later Friday, Meta informed the Hungarian outlet Telex that the pages had been “mistakenly limited and were reinstated.” Nevertheless, two of the three affected pages were still not accessible as of Saturday evening.
Orban has earlier claimed that Brussels is collaborating with Kiev and has declared “war” on Hungary in an attempt to remove him from office, including by swaying the forthcoming elections.
Comparable claims emerged related to the 2024 elections in Romania, where the Constitutional Court canceled the initial results after the country’s intelligence service asserted that anti-establishment candidate Calin Georgescu’s lead was due to foreign interference.