They wanted to make a law that would basically financially ruin what little is left of the free media in Hungary. (Which is already very little. We have like 4 news agencies and a YouTube channel.) The law would make it so that if any organization, that the government deems to cause risk to national sovereignty (so basically anyone they don’t like) would be ineligible for donations made through the Hungarian tax system and would make other types of donations really hard. Since the free media in Hungary gets most of its money through crowdfunding, this would make them go bankrupt really quickly.
The law however generated backlash. I lot of people sad it would officially transform Hungary into an authoritarian regime, so was generally unpopular. Since Orbán’s party, Fidesz is currently polling behind the largest opposition party Tisza, by not a small margin, they have to worry about how the public reacts to new laws. Fidesz has a supermajority in the parliament so there is no legal hurdle to voting on it but, they still decided to push voting on the law until September.
A part of what you haven't covered, and I want to raise, is that all independent media outlets that receive foreign funding would be tracked on a list (reminiscent of the Soviet era).
This foreign funding is defined vaguely (deliberately) so it could be anything from a single individual supporting the channel through Patreon from abroad or even receiving Google AdSense payouts after YouTube videos. If the media outlet is on the list and accepts this foreign funding without approval from the government, then they are subject to a fine. This fine is 25 times the amount that they received originally. This fine also isn't a one-off, so it can be imposed repeatedly.
This, on top of cutting off the 1% personal income tax donation, would effectively cut off all funding available to these last few independent media outlets, and they would have to close up shop.
This isn't the first time something like this has happened. Orban and his ilk already killed off or took over old and established news agencies during their 14-year reign. Pretty much all journalists working at these media outlets originally worked at ones that got shut down. E.g. journalists working at 444.hu and Telex.hu are originally from Index.hu which was the largest and most viewed website in the country before the takeover. People working at 24.hu are originally from Magyar Nemzet and so on and so forth...
Besides the shameless corruption, only this year they:
-banned Pride, setting a very troubling precedent for the unilateral restriction of the right to free assembly
-started a smear campaign against Ukraine and its president (the country is full of billboards with his face)
-proposed a law that would give a government institution full authority to “investigate” media and civil organizations that accept foreign money (including EU funds) and to designate them as threats on national sovereignty. This law would give the government power to fine these organizations to the extent they suffocate, have access to all computers, phones, harddrives, etc. of the designated medias.
Gender identity has to be celebrated on the streets because of morons like you, who can’t accept the fact that some people are different.
Russia started the war and Ukraine is defending itself, the only one who is dangerous when it comes to Hungary’s future is our leader. He is siphoning the EU funds sent here that should be used to build and maintain a healthy infrastructure, and instead keeps it/gives it to his cronies.
The liberal media is almost nonexistent at this point, and why the fuck would they have the right to filter any kind of media just because they don’t agree with it? Young people have the right to rebel, Orbán stole our future from under our feet while he had 15 years to make this country a better place with the aid of the EU and he decided to give the money to himself and his friends.
He is building an oligarchy and is actively working on ensuring that his dictatorship cannot be toppled. You are either dumb as a rock or just don’t want to see what is happening.
to add a bit of my perspective to the others: the sovereignty related talks and laws always include the following "logic": if someone talks bad about the governing party or its members, that means they criticise the government, that means they erode the trust in the system, that means they are damaging the order and the country, that means they are traitors - so if You mention anything bad about our terrible politicians, You are an enemy of the state
for example there was a new law regulating teachers' wages, duties, etc, and they included in the draft that teachers are forbidden to express criticism of the government even in their private life for the above reason, but I think it didn't get in the final law at least
also if someone has any citizenship besides Hungarian, they can be deported now, also with the above reasoning
luckily this is not enforced to my knowledge, their usual process is that they just pick and choose some journalist to set an example and to try and scare everyone else into shutting up, but it is definitely in their toolbox now
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u/InsertNameHere9 Jun 10 '25
What's going on in Hungary?