‘The Tech Giants Are Silencing Those Who Hold Different Opinions’: Hungary Govt Twitter Account Suspended

Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban arrives to give his first international press confer
ATTILA KISBENEDEK/AFP/Getty
Oliver JJ Lane

The official English language Twitter account of the Hungarian government was temporarily suspended on Wednesday, with no explanation yet given.

A Hungarian government spokesman told Breitbart London that @AboutHungary, a Twitter account used by the Ministry of Public Diplomacy and Relations went dark on Wednesday morning, before returning a few hours later. A placeholder message left by the micro-blogging network stated that “Twitter suspends accounts which violate the Twitter rules”.

The spokesman told Breitbart London that Hungary had requested an explanation from the Sillicon Valley tech giant. He said: “The government’s official English language Twitter page, and there was no response or indication from Twitter that they had blocked our account, they just went ahead and did it.

“We are waiting for an official response, but haven’t had one yet. Hopefully, they will say it was some misunderstanding… if you have another opinion to the liberal mainstream — on migration… these mistakes seem to happen”.

The official spokesman for Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban, Zoltán Kovács took to Twitter himself to decry the outage, and noted the timing of the event, as it came as the European Union launched a new report on the rule of law across Europe on Wednesday. Brussels and populist, conservatively minded nations like Hungary and Poland persistently lock horns over these issues, with Warsaw and Budapest citing states’ rights with the EU urging a continued move towards a more federated, globalist bloc.

Kovács said: “This is extremely interesting in view of the fact that the [EU Commission] will publish its first rule of law report today. It seems that the beautiful new world has finally arrived, in which tech giants are silencing those who hold different opinions. We have taken the necessary steps and are awaiting an official explanation from Twitter.”

The Hungarian government also blasted the EU’s Rule of Law Report on Wednesday, calling it fallacious and absurd, pointing out that the majority of contributing bodies to the paper on Hungary itself are funded by George Soros’s Open Societies Foundations. Budapest said in a statement seen by Breitbart London: “The choice of sources in the report is biased and non-transparent.

“It is unacceptable for the Commission’s Rule of Law Report to be written by organisations forming part of a centrally financed international network engaged in a coordinated political campaign against Hungary. The Hungarian chapter makes reference to twelve “civil society organisations”, eleven of which have in recent years received financial support from the Open Society Foundations linked to Mr. Soros.

“Hungary is one of the few Member States where genuine pluralism prevails in the media, in ideological debates, and in the public sphere in general. Unlike the Western European media landscape, which is overwhelmingly dominated by leftist and liberal outlets, in Hungary the situation is more balanced, with conservative and Christian Democratic views also receiving meaningful coverage in the public sphere.”

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