Poll-axed

The electoral defeat of Hungarian prime minister Viktor Orbán’s Fidesz party, after 16 years in power, brings to an end his long and relentless campaign to undermine media freedom, including purges at the public broadcaster and the targeting of independent journalists with charges of espionage and sedition. 

The Hungarian election was also one of the first national votes after Meta and Google, which dominate the European online advertising market, both decided last October to prohibit political advertising on their platforms within the EU. Their decision was brought on by the obligations each faced under the EU Regulation on the Transparency and Targeting of Political Advertising.  

This law, which came into effect on 10 October, places obligations on actors across the political advertising supply chain, from political parties, advocacy groups and PR companies who buy advertising space, to digital platforms and other publishers which sell advertising spots. These obligations include clear labelling of political advertisements, periodic reporting and public complaints mechanisms.  

The law also disallows ads by non-EU citizens in the lead up to elections, prohibits user profiling using sensitive or ‘special category’ information, including political opinions, and requires explicit consent from users for data harvesting for the purpose of political advertising. As well as onerous regulatory obligations, then, the law potentially undercuts the business model of large platforms, which relies on user data. 

In the run up to the Hungarian election, some feared that Meta’s and Google’s shutdown of political ads would open space for disinformation and propaganda to spread through other channels and make campaigning difficult for opposition parties. Indeed, online platforms were reportedly flooded with deepfake videos and messages attempting to discredit opposition candidates, with many promoted by Russian-backed disinformation operations. Some of these were even propagated via Facebook advertisements, circumventing the platform’s ban. Yet, journalists at Hungarian fact-checking outfit Lakmusz argue that the shutdown had a net-positive effect by severely disrupting Fidesz’s propaganda machine, which spent 5.4 million euros on political advertising during the 2024 EU elections.  

Meta contends that the EU’s political advertising regulation left it with an impossible choice: 'to offer an advertising product which doesn’t work for advertisers or users, without guarantee that our solution would be viewed as compliant, or stop allowing political, electoral and social issue ads in the EU.' Of course, since they made it, the choice was not impossible. Yet, although the effect in Hungary may have been a reduction in state-backed disinformation, concerns remain that the ban will generally make it more difficult for political candidates to reach voters, particularly if they are not savvy with social media. 

We will see how this plays out as other European nations go to the polls over the coming years. Either way, it will have lessons for other jurisdictions, including Australia, as we continue to grapple with how to manage online misinformation and misleading political advertising.