Both Fidesz and far-right party Mi Hazánk welcomed the news that Elon Musk is buying the social media site Twitter. The company’s board of directors recently accepted the billionaire’s $44 billion purchase offer.
This article was originally published on our sister-site, Ungarn Heute.
We can only hope that Twitter will be a digital space where all opinions – regardless of political alignment – will remain equally visible.”
Justice Minister Judit Varga wrote on her Twitter page, quoting Elon Musk: “Free Speech is the bedrock of a functioning democracy.”
The minister has repeatedly criticized major social media sites in recent years for what she sees as their silencing of right-wing conservative Christian voices. “We see what’s happening in the world, we see that the power groups behind global tech companies can even decide elections. We can’t be naive, we have to be prepared for all eventualities, and we have to be transparent about the activities and decisions of these global companies,” she said as recently as last year.
Welcome @elonmusk in your new position! We can only hope that #Twitter will be a digital space where all opinions – regardless of political alignment – will remain equally visible. As you said, „#FreeSpeech is the bedrock of a functioning democracy.”
— Judit Varga (@JuditVarga_EU) April 26, 2022
The leader of the far-right party Mi Hazánk Mozgalom (“Our Homeland Movement”) also reacted to Musk’s purchase, tweeting: “We occupied Andrássy Street in Budapest before Pride, and Elon Musk bought Twitter. There will be a family parade, and there will be freedom of speech (at least here). It was quite a successful day today,” the party leader said on Twitter.
Mi a budapesti Andrássy utat foglaltuk el a “Pride” előtt, @elonmusk pedig megvette a Twittert. Lesz családi felvonulás, és lesz szólásszabadság (legalább itt). Elég sikeres nap volt ez a mai.
— Toroczkai László (@ToroczkaiLaszlo) April 25, 2022
László Toroczkai also had problems with social media in the past, as the party’s page was blocked in 2019. He then sued the operator of the social network.
Featured image via Tamás Vasvári/MTI
