Hungarian political media Part One: Megafon
Imagine you have unlimited resources to develop the ultimate propaganda media. You can run small startup projects. You can buy parts of the market. You can buy the two most popular media portals and experiment with them. You can buy the leading broadsheet newspaper just to close it down. You can pay the license fee for any internationally developed show regardless of the returns. Nothing matters, your budget is unlimited.All kinds of supervisory boards and media authorities are yours. You can say, play or broadcast anything you want, you play in god mode.
Sounds like fun? This is exactly what Orbán’s media looks like. Others can bore you to death with the specifics. I'll try to show some things that help you to understand it.
Part 1: Megafon
In the campaign leading up to the 2018 general elections in Hungary, Orbán’s Fidesz party realized that there is a problem. Not a major problem, but clearly a problem. Of course they won. Gerrymandering, rigged campaign financing and quarreling opposition parties were more than enough for an easy victory. However, they realized that their online presence was weak and in a more fair election system it could have caused problems.
In the 2019 municipal elections the problem grew and led to significant losses. Including losing Budapest against the still fractured opposition. Municipal elections are harder to control and larger settlements have larger social media penetration.
Orbán’s rule mostly builds on older, rural and lower educated people. they can’t always win elections with only their votes. And even they started to use Facebook. Newer things like Instagram, Snapchat or TikTok are less threatening (for now) and very few Hungarians use Twitter.
Small country, small money
Back in 2016 $300 was enough to buy thousands, maybe tens of thousands of post impressions. I ran an independent civilian Facebook campaign against the “anti-migration” referendum Orbán used back then to shake up his voter base and to split the opposition. We spent $300 during the entire campaign.
The small size of Hungary came in as an advantage. No major advertisers were targeting anyone here so reach was cheap. Even this opportunity couldn’t save the Hungarian opposition from their own incompetence. But still, the threat for Orbán was there.
Orbán’s goes to Facebook
Senior Fidesz politicians (including Orbán) were not on Facebook. István Tarlós, the losing candidate for Mayor of Budapest publicly said he dislikes Facebook. Orbán denied to have a smartphone. But Orbán’s chief strengtht is to change direction in a blink of an eye.
Orbán’s Fidesz party is very good at building campaign strategy. They analyzed the problem and then they mustered their resources. They were endless.
The task was this:
generate white noise on Facebook just like they do it in the conventional media (more on that in other Parts of this series)
target it on groups that are possible targets for the opposition
buy a lot of paid reach on Facebook to drive the price up
develop online presence for their politicians and candidates
The birth of Megafon
The solution for tasks 1-3 is Megafon Központ (Megafon centre). This is a small limited liability company with zero formal ties to Orbán’s party. Its founder is a leader of an Orbánist think tank. Their financial reports show that they (and some other similar companies) started to get generous donations from undisclosed sources.
In 2020 they started to cast people to be “Facebook warriors” (they literally said that). Lo and behold, my Facebook feed started to get flooded by short videos with pro-Orbán messages. I am anything but a possible target for them. By now everyone knows the “Megafon influencers”. Most people instantly block them but it takes a couple of blocks to actually disappear from the feed.
Regular Fidesz voters get a different treatment. They are flooded with static content, rants about how this modern, LGBT-ridden world kills Old Values and how real Hungarians still keep them. (Essentially “Try That in a Small Town” without the cowboy hat.)
Facebook of course publishes the data about advertising revenue. This shows that Megafon-influencers spend crazy amounts on paid reach. Even so their reach is fairly low but that was never the purpose of this.
The purpose was that whoever wants to spread political content on Hungarian Facebook, they have to overbid these amounts.
Where does the money come from?
Our readers from rule of law countries might ask: Isn’t there an IRS in Hungary? Or GAO? Or the FBI? The answer is that of course we have similar institutions here. But they simply don’t investigate how a freshly registered company suddenly has a couple of hundred thousand dollars to spend on Facebook on pro-Orbán messages.
By this September the “donations” to Megafon influencers reached HUF 8 billion ($ 20 million). This is more than the campaign expenditures of all opposition parties combined. And remember: this is just for social media.
One could of course ask Mr. Zuckerberg about this…to hear a rant about how wonderfully free Facebook is. The fact that a petty Eastern European dictator can basically buy all the paid reach for stolen taxpayer money is somehow an integral part of this beautiful freedom.
How did the opposition react?
Opposition parties did not start projects like Megafon. Obviously they don’t have the money for the business model.
They seem to be content with being more at home on social media. But they fail to realize that Megafon might look flimsy, but they are up against a professional opponent. Megafon is just part of a broader strategy. The other part is that Fidesz politicians are required to maintain social media presence. Many of them only have a quite passive facebook account. Others are more active, posting a lot about their public engagements. Almost every account is managed by at least a part time social media specialist.
The opposition fails to realize that this is not only about being good on Facebook or Instagram. The name of the game is consistency, especially when the opponent has more money.
Organic reach can be built but that means years of solid, ordered work. I know, because my Facebook page produces the reach of a Megafon influencer and I paid it with seven years of work instead of taxpayer money. The Hungarian opposition is yet to realize and internalize this concept of working for good results.