Index – Homeland – That’s why Facebook deleted Viktor Orbán’s speech – then put it back

As reported by Index, Meta (Facebook) deleted it the recording of Prime Minister Viktor Orbán’s speech at the Peace March from the M1 Híradó social page. According to the public media website, hirado.hu, Meta stated in its justification that in the recording

symbols related to persons and organizations classified as dangerous were shared, and dangerous persons and organizations were glorified and supported.

The community page of the public television requested a review of the decision. After the assessment, Facebook lifted the ban and made Viktor Orbán’s speech on Margaret Island available again.

EU regulation on digital services

Nothing new under the sun. Half a year ago, a debate broke out in the Hungarian public about whether Facebook has the right to delete user accounts from its own interface. At that time, the question became topical because the largest social media platform suspended the account of a press product, namely pestisracok.hu, due to a violation of community rules. And now the fact that Facebook deleted the recording of the prime minister’s speech from the public television’s social media page raises legal doubts.

In the meantime, the legal environment has also changed, since in order to create a safer and more open digital space

Disproportionate restriction of freedom of speech

Associate professor Bernát Török, head of the Information Society Research Institute of the National Public Service University, told our newspaper: the most important substantive issue decided by the EU regulation is that platform service providers must pay attention to their users’ freedom of speech when enforcing their community rules, and cannot take measures that would disproportionately restrict it.

According to the constitutional lawyer, the dynamics of consideration between the interests of social media platforms and the aspects of freedom of speech are determined by the essential content of freedom of speech. “The more a given expression of opinion is to be interpreted as participation in a legitimate social debate, the less legitimate platform operator interests can be raised against it,” explained the director of the research institute. He emphasized:

self-serving insults and insults can be moderated by Facebook, but it can no longer protect its users from encountering a point of view they do not like on its interface.

“It is not enough to intervene even in the most violent cultural war topics that the supporters of one point of view consider the competing opinions to be insulting and exclusionary in themselves,” explained the head of the research institute, who also believes that it is not objectionable if the competing opinions are represented vehemently, with emotional heat, or even with exaggerations in the public. In discussing social issues, the platform’s stated interest in maintaining the “safe space” it intends to provide to its users and advertisers cannot prevail until a given expression of opinion passes into the realm of objectionable insults aimed at individuals and communities.

Bernát Török commented on the temporary content deletion of the social media page of the public television: there would be something to clarify and clarify who meant what by “violation of regulations on dangerous persons and organizations and publication of unsolicited content”.

(Cover photo: Viktor Orbán on June 1, 2024. Photo: Bence Tövissi / Index)