The Hungarian government is following Poland in moving against Big Tech, vowing action against the "shadowbanning" of "Christian, conservative, [and] right-wing opinions". "'Shadowban' means the act of social media providers secretly, for.
19 Jan 2021
The Hungarian government is following Poland in moving against Big Tech, vowing action against the “shadowbanning” of “Christian, conservative, [and] right-wing opinions”.
“‘Shadowban’ means the act of social media providers secretly, for political purposes, restricting the visibility and access of our user profile without our knowledge about it,” explained Judit Varga, the Minister of Justice in Viktor Orbán’s national conservative government, in a statement shared on social media, claiming that she has herself had “personal experience” of such treatment at the hands of “Big Tech”.
“Tech companies thus violate all those fundamental democratic legal norms that form the basis of Western-type culture,” she accused, adding that “we could… only learn about the system-wide practice of shadow banning from a now-leaked voice recording of the Twitter CEO [Jack Dorsey].”
The practice of so-called ‘shadow banning’ is stifling freedom of expression online and may have to be addressed through regulatory measures, Hungary’s Minister of Justice Judit Varga has said, accusing Facebook of inhibiting “Christian, conservative, right-wing opinions”.
‘Shadow banning’ refers to the act of blocking users of social media platforms from posting content, without having informed them that such restrictions have been put in place. Major platforms strongly deny that such activities take place.
On Tuesday (19 January), Varga sat down with Csaba Rigó, president of the Hungarian Competition Authority, to discuss ways to reign in the ‘problematic commercial practices’ of platforms giants.
Hungarian Justice Minister Judit Varga said Monday that Hungary is considering sanctions against big tech firms over alleged "systemic abuses" of free speech.