Author: Tereza Engelová, HlidaciPes.org, Czech republic
They call themselves professional Facebook warriors. They post comments or short videos on social media promoting the policies of the Hungarian government and defaming opposition. They earn great money by doing so and all is being paid by one company – Megafon Központ, or Megafon Centre. Formally, it has no links to either the government or Fidesz party, yet it is the largest advertiser on social media in Hungary, paying millions of forints for advertising.
When you come to the Hungarian capital in recent years, you can’t help but notice billboards and posters all over Budapest aimed at defaming certain groups of people. It was George Soros and refugees few years ago; „hit“ of this season is the opposition and its „connection to US dollars“.
It’s a campaign
Photographs of the four main opposition leaders, with ties in the shape of dollars and the addendum „they bought them by the kilo“, hang all over Hungarian cities and are meant to evoke that „the opposition sold themselves in order to serve foreign interests, especially American and liberal ones“ among potential voters.
A separate chapter are videos on social media and YouTube channel that have been focusing mainly on Viktor Orbán’s new challenger, „comet of the opposition“ Péter Magyar. Since past free months he has been portrayed as a domestic violence perpetrator and an immoral person.
To sum it up, it is virtually impossible to avoid ‘shrewd political advertising’ while visiting Hungary. The author of this article has experienced it herself while reporting on the large demonstration organized by Péter Magyar in Budapest in April. After arriving to Hungary, YouTube and social networks „supplied“ her mobile with advertisements for interesting historical sites as well as local restaurants. After she kept moving around the places where the demonstration took place, the same social networks started to spout one inflammatory video after another, all targeting Péter Magyar.
It is therefore impossible not to notice how much money the Hungarian Government is spending on promoting its themes and campaigning negatively against its critics. There is no hiding away from it in Hungary.
„The prime minister’s office spent approximately 3 billion GBP ( approx.9 billion crowns) on communication contracts to disseminate state messages between 2015 and 2023,” describes columnist Asya Metodieva in March eidtion of Journalift.org, a website for independent journalists from Central Europe and the Balkans.
According to her calculations, this amount represents roughly half of all communication spending in Hungary. „This illustrates that the state finances 50% of the country’s advertising and communication spending,“ Metodieva described.
Earlier, journalists from the independent Hungarian daily Telex tried to map the expenditure going into state-sponsored advertising. Two years ago they concluded that the Hungarian government is the second largest advertiser in the media.
Their calculations showed that in the period from April 2019 till the end of March 2022 (just before 2022 parliamentary elections), the government spent 518 million Hungarian forints (around 33 million crowns) on political advertising in the media. Fidesz came third with 412 million HUF. But interesting was the first placement which belonged to a company called Megafon Központ or Megafon Centre. Eventhough this organization had been established in early 2020 so it had even shorter timespan, it managed to spent 1 003 010 555 forints (64 million crowns), so almost double amount than the government for media advertising.
Sándor Esik well-known Hungarian lawyer and blogger commented on this phenomenon on his social media profile saying: „Does this mean that only Dániel Deák, Philip Rákay and Dániel Bohár (Magafon influencers, ed.) spent more money on Facebook advertising in two years than the Hungarian government spent in three years?“
Who is behind the Megafon Centre and who finances it? Simple questions that independent Hungarian media are struggling to answer.
Megafon as a weapon
The founder and manager of Megafon is István Kovács, who is also the strategic director of pro-government think-tank Centre for Fundamental Rights which operates with public funds.
„The original aim of Megafon was to „train professional Facebook warriors“. The company offred to provide free media training to people with right-wing conservative values and taught them how to communicate more effectively on social media,“ describes Hanula Zsolt, journalist with the Hungarian opposition daily Telex, reasons why non-profit Megafon was founded.
István Kovács its manager argued at the time that there was a need to „strengthen conservative values on social networks and in the internet space,“ as the large technology companies operating these platforms, he said, were „deliberately suppressing right-wing voices“.
Although he had no proof of this theory, he clearly attracted donors, as just two months after the NGO was founded, Megafon had 56 million HUF on its account. As Hanula Zsolt reported in Telex article, there was quite a demand for Megafon’s training in the beginning, with over 2,000 people signing up for the media course.
„But the organization quite quickly switched from „original plan“ to contribution of 10 to 12 ‘opinion leaders,’ spending lot of money. These are usually pro-government media faces who post a lot on Facebook,” Telex wrote.
Its reporters have been trying to trace the origin of money Megafon spends on pro-government campaigns since 2022. The company reports zero earnings but at the same time denies that it would connected to state money.
Meanwhile, Megafon’s ads are not placed selectively, but rather, in a „carpet-bombing manner, trying to get the message into feeds of as many people as possible, indiscriminately,“ independent Republikon Institute states about Megafon’s stratégy.
In less than two years since its inception, Megafon has become by far the largest Facebook advertiser in Hungary. It crossed one billion treshold on 24 March 2022, according to Telex. Its editors calculated at the time that Megafon was spending an average of six million forints a day before the last parliamentary elections. They included only the cost of ads, not the cost of filming videos and the background of the employees who manage the site. According to Telex, each of Megafon’s Facebook pages is managed by 10 to 18 administrators.
Hungarians paying for hates
Although István Kovács and Megafon have been defending themselves for years that they are not anyhow connected to the government or taxpayers’ money, according to independent journalists and analysts, this is not true. Lawyer and blogger István Esik wrote last year.
„By September 2023, ‘donations’ to Megafon influencers reached eight billion forints, or roughly $20 million. This is more than „campaign spending“ of all opposition parties combined. And don’t forget: that’s just for social media.”
According to Esik, this is a model that is unsustainable for the opposition, because it can’t raise money for something like this even if it wanted to.
Telex reporters came forward as early as 2022 with information that Megafon received 251,187,348 million forints in operating grants from unnamed “individuals” and possibly other organisations shortly after its establishment.
Telex therefore worked with a thesis that Megafon operates with public money. After the article was published, Megafon took legal action against Telex. Telex won the case. However, practically nothing has changed since then.
Megafon’s latest campaign
Two examples from this year show the influence Megafon has on the political and social situation in Hungary. Journalift.org described how Megafon tried to cover up problems government was having after the scandal involving the Hungarian president Katalin Novak and Minister of justice Judit Varga.
They both had to resign in February after media had disclosed that Novak granted amnesty to a man who was helping to cover up a paedophile case in a Hungarian orphanage/ children‘s home. After the scandal broke out, Megafon has spent around 100 000 GBP just on Facebook advertising in a single week, describes analyst Asya Metodieva for Journalift.org.
The goal of this coordinated effort, according to Metodieva, was to protect the government from criticism. „It is generally believed that Megafon is publicly funded. Such spending is indicative of the resources that the ruling party and the state are willing to invest in pro-government propaganda.“
Most recently, Megafon‘s influencers contributed to the withdrawal of one of the candidates of the opposition party Tizsa (Péter Magyar’s party) from the European Parliament elections. Béla Lájos, MEP candidate and chairman of the Colourful Erzsébetváros Association (NGO supporting LGBT rights), withdrew from Magyar party’s ticket after Megafon launched a virulent social media campaign against him. He then ran as an ordinary citizen. According to independent journalists, the reason behind Lajose’s departure from Tizsa’s ticket might be connected with attacks Lajos was facing from the far-right Hungarian media outlet called Current in early May. Current compiled a profile of Lajos as someone who is „friends with Jews and LGBTQ activists,“ Megafon then also weighed in on the story with its members writing about Lajos as of a „passionate Libyan issues, migrant and LGBTQ advocate“. Megafon influencers illustrated those titles with photo of Lajos with US Ambassador David Pressman. That resulted in Lajos‘s and Magyar‘s eventual agreement that Lajos left Tisza’s candidate ticket, Telex wrote about the case.
