And it is a major problem: Hungary’s new media law.
Bloggingportal.eu launched a European Blog Action against Censorship in Hungary and also provides a good round-up of reactions and some background documents (just go through the comment thread!)
I don’t want to repeat the points that were made elsewhere. It is never a good idea to pass a law that can be used (even if nobody wants to use it in a specific way) to increase political control over the press. Even the slightest possibility of a a problematic legal clause needs to be addressed. Press and media freedom are too important for democracy in Europe. Simple as that.
As you know Hungary will take over the Council Presidency of the EU in January 2011. And there is even a new blog by the HU presidency. So feel free to voice your concern about the new law. Obviously they are not amused about the critical reactions and claim that the Council Presidency has nothing to do with Hungarian politics. But the new media law seems such a major problem that I think it is a legitimate thing to do. And anyway, the Council Presidency is organised by the Hungarian government… It would be a major embarrassment if the Council presidency was overshadowed by the media law…
So let’s take a picture of Viktor Orbán and transform him into Viktor #Censorbán (yes it is inspired by schäublone, #zensursula & #censilia). Basically it is a wordplay of Viktor Orban and Censorship. In other languages one could use Zensorban or Cenzorbana… the idea is quite flexible. Feel free to use, remix and share the picture (cc by-nc-sa). As you will notice, I am not a professional photoshop/gimp user and I did not have a good picture of Orban in the first place. So any quality improvements are much appreciated. Not sure whether this also makes sense in Hungarian as I do not speak the language. (so if you speak Hungarian leave a comment with improvements!) I know that it should rather read “Censorban Viktor” but well, let’s say it is designed for an international audience.
But there are a couple of things that we should think about in more detail:
First of all: It seems to me that media freedom and internet freedom are increasingly attacked by democratic governments around the world and Europe is following the trend. There are two principal strategies:
Option No 1: A government wants more control over the press or the internet. It is interesting to think about why this happens more frequently ( – and not understanding the internet is a big part of it) Usually it is framed as a security problem: “We need to know more about terrorist networks” or it is about the children: “We have to protect our children” . It can also be the result of intense industry lobbying to “protect customers and offer a better product” or it is connected to copyright issues. All these claims are very difficult to challenge in any campaign. (but it is not impossible!) Just think about the French internet blocking law, a couple of German internet laws (from “zensursula” to “JMStV”) or even international negotiations that include internet related articles such as ACTA. The debate on net neutrality can also be cited in this context. But the Hungarian law seems to go one step further as it us includes all types of media plus a governmental media watch dog…
Option No 2: A toxic combination of private and public interests mixed with strange business models, corruption and media monopolies. For example Murdoch in the UK, Berlusconi in Italy or the general level of corruption in Bulgaria that also affects the media. This is usually a gradual but equally dangerous process. (but also a topic for another blog post…)
The main question for the EU: What to do with those countries? The accession process is a straight forward process: Copenhagen criteria and conditionality prevent countries to adopt certain laws. However, once a country joined the EU there are not many possibilities to interfere with laws that might not be in the “spirit of the EU”. Italy or France can get away with laws that would not be allowed under a strict accession regime. And it is similar in the case of Hungary. So what could be done? Ignoring certain people in Council meetings (it did not work with Austria), reduce or stop payments of the cohesion funds/CAP or a suspension of voting rights in the Council? To impose a supervisory mechanism (mixed results in Romania and Bulgaria)? I am not convinced any of this would have an effect. But do we really need a new legal tool regarding fundamental freedoms?
The main question for the blogosphere: How to campaign against the various laws and legal practices that restrict press freedom (not only Hungary)? Media freedom in other (European) countries should be of concern for the (European) blogoshphere(s). So the question is whether this topic could potentially become a pan-European topic? There have been great blogging campaigns in Germany and France relating to press and internet freedom. We need to learn from successful campaigns in other EU countries and replicate the most efficient tools. And especially for smaller countries support from the rest of the EU might be crucial to run effective campaigns. In fact, it is one of the few topics that resonate with all national (political) blogospheres in Europe - which is not a surprise as every blogger can identify with the potential problems of a proposed law.
So what should be done with the Hungarian media law? Let’s keep the topic on the agenda, use the Council presidency to get EU wide media coverage – and embarrass the Hungarian government.
Update 27/12: Now you can also follow @censorban on twitter…
Update 30/12: SME Dennik, one of the biggest daily newspapers in Slovakia, mentions the bloggingportal campaign alongside the Censorban pic (although attributed to bloggingportal.eu which is not a problem – but a factual mistake) Anyway, the article can be found in the print (e-paper) and online version of the paper!
[...] This post was mentioned on Twitter by kosmopolit, R P. R P said: RT @kosmopolit Introducing: Viktor Censorbán #NoToHuEU http://ow.ly/3uy54 http://twitpic.com/3k069u #zensursula #censilia [...]
Kosmopolit, you seem to be politically biased here. The Hungarian media law may be wrong, I don’t know I have not read it yet. The problem is that reading your article (and related blogs) it seems you have not read it either. No hard facts, quotes, etc. This is not serious. Moreover, I have not seen the same blog action happening in 2006 against socialist PM Gyurcsány, after police brutalities (see for details: helsinki.hu/dokumentum/HHC_CAT_info_on_police_action_Fall_2006.PDF
So would you have the same action against a socialist politician? I doubt…
Blogging is by nature biased and opinionated. I agree I did not provide hard facts this time but this was not the purpose of this post. Maybe you should also read the law before commenting on blog posts
Generally, I don’t have any problems criticising socialists either. Not sure how you can reach such a conclusion. I just started blogging in 2006 so criticising me for not covering an event in this year is a bit of strange thing to do. Moreover, I can’t blog about everything all the time; I need to select my topics so it is quite normal not to cover everything in every European country…
I am sad to inform you and anyone out there, who might be reading this, but this is how things are going right now in Hungary. If anyone dares to argue against anything Orban and his party does, one gets this same response about 2006 and Gyurcsany and the Oszodi talk. It is the paranoid mentality of “if you are not a vocal, loyal follower of our “saviour”, then you are a dirty communist. In Hungary “liberal” or “leftist” have become “swearwords”, insults hurled at you for any sentence that contains anything that might disagree with out “leader”, Orban. Yes, instead of a real counter arguments, the things a democracy needs.
But anyway, I just wanted to respond to your post,Kosmopolit. First, I want to thank you for listening and caring for what goes on in this country. But mostly, I want to react to your questions regarding how one can argue with those “reasons” governments come up with to defend their wanting to controll the Internet.
As far as I see, I think the Internet among a lot of other things, represents a sort of collective human consciousness. It is the representation f “what goes on in our societies, in our minds”. Anyone who wants to controll it, has to be crazy on a certain degree. As for claims such as wee need to controll the Internet for “protecting children”, for “national security”, etc… Well, I think that they are targeting the wrong target here. As if by controlling what people are thinking they could solve all these problems. Well, real solution I think, lies elsewhere. Like… parents actually putting energy into the raising of their children, coming up with real, contructive programs for them instead of just making them sit in front of a computer or a TV and complaining about how these are corrupting poor children. Yeah… poor children. I am only 26 but my parents actually played with me, checked my homework, put me into meaningful programs etc… and what a surprise! they were just as busy working and earning money than present they parents are.
As for national security. Well… I am an idealist, and not ashamed for that. But what about trying to find real, diplomatic solutions, peacful solutions, trying to find a way to live together in peace and come to common grounds with our “devil enemies”? The Internet is not out here for controll, it is not out there to use it as a tool to win wars. It is completely against the spirit of the Internet. Or at least, it is completely against the spirit of the Internet as it began some decades ago…
A Hungarian.
Dear Kosmopolit, You ask me why I think you are politically motivated. Because you refer to facts about the media law (collected on bloggingportal), which are simply and plainly incorrect. Here are a few facts from the law (which is bloody boring and took me a whole day to read carefully in Hungarian):
1. no fines can be levied for unbalanced reporting (explicitly stated in article 181), the media provider can only be required to publish a correction and it can go to court if disagrees
2. blogs and blog portals are clearly not covered according to the definitions
3. all the soft rules (like no discrimination, etc) are to be enforced by self-regulating associations of the media providers, journalists – articles 190-200 – who have to draw up a code of conduct for their members.
I could list the mistakes in the related blogs, but don’t want to bore you. Your original information must come from some very-very misleading source. You should double check them and see what is actually written in the law. (FYI – the OSCE report is not a source as it is dated September 2010 and concerned an early version of the bill. If you look it up there was nothing from OSCE ever since and the law was adopted in December 2010.)
I have read some of your other entries and they seemed to be well-founded. But this one on Hungary is an exception, somehow extremely far from reality – now this is where I feel the political motivation.
The obvious solution should be that individuals in Hungary sue the state based on the Charter of fundamental rights, and get the court to strike down the law. But alas in Europe we only have political solutions – meaning no solutions..
Conservative,
Actually – the OSCE has issued a press release in December, strongly condemning the new media law: http://www.osce.org/item/48262.html
As to your other points – you mention Article 181. Could you provide a link? I can’t find it in any of the documents published about the media law on the Hungarian Parliament’s website or http://www.complex.hu (I’m not saying it doesn’t exist – but it would be nice to have a link).
Also, from my understanding, blogs CAN be included in the legislation if they carry advertising.
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