The so-called “Transparency Law”, currently pending approval, significantly undermines freedom of expression in Hungary — and its impacts are unlikely stop at the country’s borders.
This should be a non issue. News sources should be fully financed by their audience in every country to avoid any conflict of interest. Advertising, foreign investment, donations, even being a regular business, it all comes with a conflict of interest.
The problem is that poor people cannot afford their own news sources but they need it to know which party improves their lives. For a fair democracy, there needs to be a way to finance news sources independent of the income of their audience.
The simple solution does not work. Having subsidies that depend on number of views will only lead to a race to the bottom of clickbait content.
Ironically, Hungarian independent press is indeed financed by their readers, they are very much ahead of the curve on this one. Shit conditions bred innovation and all that.
Orbán is trying to crack down on exactly this, he does not want any press independent of big money.
And actually, Hungary has had a way that was strangely untouched by Orbán to finance such organizations, that I think the rest of the world should copy; every year you can donate 1% of your already paid income taxes to an NGO of your choice (no choice means the money goes to the govt with the rest). This is basically a subsidy that bullshit politics couldn’t take away until now.
The Russians took care of the same situation on one occasion by having an agitator send a newspaper like 10 EUR from Spain. Before you ask, the law explicitly does not require even enforcement, foreign aid just puts you under investigation by the Sovereignty Office, and they can say whatever.
It’s blatantly obvious they target whoever they want.
Abusing such a law is of course bad. What I am missing in the article is an awareness that such a law is not without reason. The USAID situation has made it explicitly clear that there is constant hybrid warfare about information supremacy all over the world by many players. Instead of outright rejecting the office, the newspapers should come up with a suggestion for a structure that protects the population without giving the government the power of censorship.
At the same time, we are not officially at war with Russia, but the EU has forbidden access to RT. Even if we win against Russia, we have already lost. The government should not be in the position to determine which information is accessable. Hungary is a reminder that we all need something that guarantees integrity of information without a conflict of interest.
Instead of outright rejecting the office, the newspapers should come up with a suggestion for a structure that protects the population without giving the government the power of censorship.
That’s not their job, it’s the government’s job, which they are not doing. It’s not like 444 could do anything about what happens in Parliament, especially since it’s basically defunct to the point MPs are useless as well.
What these newspapers can do, and are good at doing, is to call out astroturfing and hybrid warfare attempts by shining the light on them and not letting them go unchallenged. In Hungary, the non-astroturfed media have much higher viewership counts, because they make a better product. If anything, Hungary shows that if big corporations wouldn’t stifle shit with infinite ad money, we would have a much more robust media landscape that Russia would have a harder time exploiting. And the infinite ad money is true in Hungary as well, the only thing that is needed to fix things is that at least one side of the political spectrum calls out the bullshit.
The government should not be in the position to determine which information is accessable.
I think shit like this should maybe be possible, but it should be an explicit wartime measure. That said, I’d rather have a daily show debunking and making fun of these propaganda attempts, because it would be more in line with our supposed values, so maybe I also agree with you on that point.
But also, we should admit that we are at war with Russia. There should be a specific status for a war that is not a shooting war, but an information war, and it should be treated the same. Make it mandatory to review every year, and make it so that it is politically costly to invoke, but we are at war and if we don’t fight back, we might as well start learning Russian.
This should be a non issue. News sources should be fully financed by their audience in every country to avoid any conflict of interest. Advertising, foreign investment, donations, even being a regular business, it all comes with a conflict of interest.
The problem is that poor people cannot afford their own news sources but they need it to know which party improves their lives. For a fair democracy, there needs to be a way to finance news sources independent of the income of their audience.
The simple solution does not work. Having subsidies that depend on number of views will only lead to a race to the bottom of clickbait content.
Ironically, Hungarian independent press is indeed financed by their readers, they are very much ahead of the curve on this one. Shit conditions bred innovation and all that.
Orbán is trying to crack down on exactly this, he does not want any press independent of big money.
And actually, Hungary has had a way that was strangely untouched by Orbán to finance such organizations, that I think the rest of the world should copy; every year you can donate 1% of your already paid income taxes to an NGO of your choice (no choice means the money goes to the govt with the rest). This is basically a subsidy that bullshit politics couldn’t take away until now.
Can they take it away now if a newspaper does not accept foreign donations?
On paper no, but actually yes.
The Russians took care of the same situation on one occasion by having an agitator send a newspaper like 10 EUR from Spain. Before you ask, the law explicitly does not require even enforcement, foreign aid just puts you under investigation by the Sovereignty Office, and they can say whatever.
It’s blatantly obvious they target whoever they want.
Thank you for your explanation.
Abusing such a law is of course bad. What I am missing in the article is an awareness that such a law is not without reason. The USAID situation has made it explicitly clear that there is constant hybrid warfare about information supremacy all over the world by many players. Instead of outright rejecting the office, the newspapers should come up with a suggestion for a structure that protects the population without giving the government the power of censorship.
At the same time, we are not officially at war with Russia, but the EU has forbidden access to RT. Even if we win against Russia, we have already lost. The government should not be in the position to determine which information is accessable. Hungary is a reminder that we all need something that guarantees integrity of information without a conflict of interest.
That’s not their job, it’s the government’s job, which they are not doing. It’s not like 444 could do anything about what happens in Parliament, especially since it’s basically defunct to the point MPs are useless as well.
What these newspapers can do, and are good at doing, is to call out astroturfing and hybrid warfare attempts by shining the light on them and not letting them go unchallenged. In Hungary, the non-astroturfed media have much higher viewership counts, because they make a better product. If anything, Hungary shows that if big corporations wouldn’t stifle shit with infinite ad money, we would have a much more robust media landscape that Russia would have a harder time exploiting. And the infinite ad money is true in Hungary as well, the only thing that is needed to fix things is that at least one side of the political spectrum calls out the bullshit.
I think shit like this should maybe be possible, but it should be an explicit wartime measure. That said, I’d rather have a daily show debunking and making fun of these propaganda attempts, because it would be more in line with our supposed values, so maybe I also agree with you on that point.
But also, we should admit that we are at war with Russia. There should be a specific status for a war that is not a shooting war, but an information war, and it should be treated the same. Make it mandatory to review every year, and make it so that it is politically costly to invoke, but we are at war and if we don’t fight back, we might as well start learning Russian.