The Information warfare on

the InternetExposing and countering pro-Kremlin

disinformation in the CEEC –

Project Summary in Hungary

Dániel Bartha – Botond Feledy – András Rácz

Kyiv, 24 February, 2017

Contents:

1. Channels and actors

2. Content and narratives

3. Conclusions

Part I: Channels and actors

Mainstream media

A Hungarian particularity: government-influenced mainstream

media is often a direct channel of Russian narratives. A key

difference compared to other Visegrad countries. Meanwhile,

independent media is largely resilient.

1. State news agency MTI

- Gives a lot of room to Russian (and even Ukrainian

separatist!) narratives

- Occasionally legimitizes Ukrainian separatists

- Occasional distortions in reporting

- Very strong effect due to its national reach

Mainstream media II.

2. Pro-governmental TVs and newspapers

- Articles from RT and Sputnik re-published as op-eds (!!!)

- Often direct influx of Russian narratives: unbalanced

quotations, etc.

- A lot of conspiracy theories with strong anti-Western tone

3. Pro-governmental network of „yellow pages” websites,

operated by GONGOs.

- Harsh, radical anti-Western and anti-EU propaganda that

overlaps with the Russian anti-Western narrratives.

- Often re-publishes „news” from known Russian propaganda

websites.

Mainstream media III.

4. Mainstream independent media (dominantly online)

- Highly resilient to Russian narratives

- Frequent efforts to de-bunk propaganda

- Their anti-Russian stance has a domestic political dimension

as well: stepping up against Russian propaganda implicitely

means stepping up also against the government

Alternative media

- One „official” Russian disinformation website: hidfo.ru (earlier

hidfo.hu) – allegedly close GRU connections. Runs from Russian

server, but in Hungarian, written by native Hungarian(s)

- Some 6-10 other websites spreading pro-Russian narratives,

which are relatively serious (articles get hundreds of likes)

- Approximately 80-100 other, largely irrelevant, marginal

disinformation sites.

Public opinion data: only 16 % of Hungarian prefers alternative

media to mainstream media (GLOBSEC Policy Institute, 2016) – all

in all, the situation is not very serious.

Alternative media II.

- Pro-governmental network of „yellow pages” websites,

operated by GONGOs. Harsh, radical anti-Western and anti-EU

propaganda that overlaps with the Russian anti-Western narrratives.

Often re-published „news” from outright Russian propaganda sites,

doctored pictures, etc.

Public opinion data: only 16 % of Hungarian prefers alternative

media to mainstream media (GLOBSEC Policy Institute, 2016) –

hence, all in all, the situation is yet not very serious.

Individual actors: few and known

• 3-5 direct multipliers of Russian narratives working at governmental

newspapers and journals (all of them with documented connections to far

right or far left ideologies)

• 1 well-known, respected Russlandversteher, a longstanding expert on

Russia and probably one of the most knowledgeable Hungarians on

contemporary Russia. This person started advocating Russian views,

positions well before Moscow had started its coordinated disinformation

efforts – a good example to the hardship of distinguishing

propagandists from people with honest convictions.

• Approximately a dozen of journalists traditionally critical to the West

and to the U.S. Through their views they passively contribute to the

Russian narratives, but they are not active propagandists.

All in all, a limited number of actors and most of them are known. There

is no serious shadow-network.

Part II: Content and narratives

Few Hungary-specific contents

So far Russian propaganda failed to produce too many Hungary-

specific contents. Reasons are unknown. So far only 3-4 Hungary-

specific narratives.

Possible explanations:

- Lack of knowledge?

- Lack of capabilities? (Hungarian is a REALLY complicated

language: only native-speakers can write in Hungarian in such a

way that gets the message through. This applies also to trolling.)

- Lack of will? Moscow might consider the Budapest government

already as a willing, co-operative partner, thus there is no need to

launch any serious information offensive?

Instead, general anti-Western

content

The most frequently promoted, generally anti-Western and anti-

Ukraine contents intend

• to erode trust in EU

• to foster anti-migration and anti-refugee sentiment

• to generate and strengthen anti-NATO sentiment

• to generate and strengthen anti-Americanism

• to discredit Ukraine, by picturing it as a fascist-ruled, aggressor, corrupt,

failed state

• to discredit the report of the Joint Investigation Team about the downing of

Malaysian Airlines MH17 flight

• to discredit liberal values, human rights approach and NGOs dealing with the

promotion of these values.

Part III: Conclusions

Quite a special case

Hungarian society is receptive to Russian narratives only to a very

limited extent. Russian information network is not small, but is not

too effective.

Four particularities:

No. 1.: Overlapping Hungarian and Russian narratives: the

strongly anti-EU, anti-migration and anti-refugee approach of the

Hungarian government strongly overlaps with the general anti-

Western Russian narrative spread around in Europe – it is often

hard to separate the two from each other

No. 2.: government-affiliated media is the main influx channel

of Russian disinformation, while independent, online media is

highly resilient to Russian informational influence.

Quite a special case

No. 3.: Increasing dominance of government-affiliated media:

decisive majority of the population gets informed from pro-

governmental channels, particularly in the countryside. Hence, the

situation is likely to get worse in terms of social resilience

No. 4.: Lack of informational counter-measures from the

government side: contrary to the Czech Republic, Ukraine,

Poland or the Baltic States, the Hungarian government neither

conducts, nor supports any measures aimed at countering Russian

disinformation.

All in all, though the situation is yet not bad, serious

worsening cannot be exluded, because vulnerability is high.

The project was co-financed

by the International Visegrad Fund

Dániel Bartha – Botond Feledy – András Rácz

Kyiv, 24 February, 2017