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Often the most interesting details in the writings of these “scholars” are the parts that they conspicuously leave out, facts that would undermine or contradict their politically driven argument.
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“…Anti-Roma hatred on streets of Budapest“. Read on »
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| Zoltan Kovacs |
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Earlier this year, at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, Soros shocked more than a few people by claiming Facebook was working with Donald Trump to get him re-elected.
This wasn’t the first time that Soros had taken on the social media giant, but it was the first time that Mark Zuckerberg appears to have caved to the wishes of the billionaire “philanthropist.”
Just a few days later, January 31, Soros penned an op-ed in theNew York Timesunder a quote: “Mark Zuckerberg Should Not Be in Control of Facebook.”
That alone takes cheeks, but that was nothing.
Following the argument that Facebook supports Trump “because it’s good for business” — and some conspiracy theory about what really took place during the meeting between the Facebook CEO and the US president — Soros then went on to say “Facebook is a publisher not just a neutral moderator or “platform’” and “should be held accountable for the content that appears on its site.”
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Then the “philanthropist” closes his opinion article with these chilling lines:
“I repeat and reaffirm my accusation against Facebook under the leadership of Mr. Zuckerberg and Ms. Sandberg.
They follow only one guiding principle: maximize profits irrespective of the consequences. One way or another, they should not be left in control of Facebook.”
Little more than three months later, Facebook announced it has created an Oversight Board to help decide what content stays for viewing and what content will be removed from the world’s largest social media site – and it appears to be packed with liberals, including more than one with direct ties to Soros himself.
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The news set off alarm bells among free-speech advocates, conservatives, and proponents of causes unpopular among liberals and the left. People in these circles have been vocal for some time about having their content suppressed or outright censored. Many fear that things are about to get worse. Or will they?
The Free Speech Alliance (FSA) came out swinging saying, “This new board will damage Facebook more than it can imagine.” What they then disclosed was even more disturbing.
Of the four co-chairs on this new board, only one could be called conservative – to some, the statement infers. From there, it’s all downhill. A bit of digging reveals many ties to Soros-funded organizations and mouthpieces.
Amongst the other co-chairs are Catalina Botero Marino, a board member of the pro-abortion Center for Reproductive Rights, funded by Open Society Foundations.
Then there’s former Danish prime minister Helle Thorning-Schmidt, who does not believe in salvation (or heaven… or hell) and is unequivocally and vocally anti-Trump.
Helle is also CEO of Save the Children International, an organization partnered with Open Society Foundations. She additionally serves as a trustee of the International Crisis Group, a group that George Soros funded originally and one where he and his son Alexander both serve as trustees alongside Helle.
Lastly, among the board chairs, we have a Columbia University professor Jamal Greene. He served as an aide to Senator Kamala Harris (D-CA) during Justice Kavanaugh’s confirmation hearings, when Harris stated that Kavanaugh was a “a direct and fundamental threat” to the Supreme Court’s promise to carry out justice fairly.
These co-chairs apparently then hand-picked the other board members for Facebook’s Oversight Board (how convenient!), who appear to range from left-liberal to far left-liberal. These include Alan Rusbridger, former editor at well-known Soros mouthpiece The Guardian, who has come out in support of outright censorship (of what he disagrees with, of course). In 2015, Rushbridger took up a cushy position at Oxford University and then in 2016 became chair of the school’s Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism, whose board includes Marty Baron, executive editor of The Washington Post, and which is partnered with the European Journalism Observatory, which also lists — you guessed it — Open Society Foundation as a contributor.
Wait, there are more. This new, objective board will also include:
That former head of Article 19, the Soros beneficiary, is now in a position to protect “free expression” for those he deems worthy at the helm of the world’s largest social media platform.
This is not the first time left-wing media companies have taken it upon themselves to censor what they do not like. And it’s not the first time we’ve heard that those with a clearly liberal bias are in bed with Facebook.
Arvato, a subsidiary of left-wing media giant Bertelsmann, has long been in charge of censoring Facebook posts and ad campaigns.
Mind you, Bertelsmann also owns RTL Group, a media entity known for its critical coverage of the Hungarian government and its pro-migration stance. Prior to the 2018 Hungarian parliamentary elections, Facebook content that was embarrassing to the opposition was taken down and pro-government campaigns were blocked.
So we’ve already seen the censorship of content, but the establishment of this board to have supposedly far-reaching decision-making authority with such an imbalanced, left-leaning composition takes matters to a new, troubling level.
The FSA statement asks, “There are many wealthy donors on the right who also espouse free speech. Why aren’t they equally represented?”
Good question.
Here’s another one: How does this private citizen, a person who promotes an ideology far outside the mainstream, along with a group of his like-minded associates, paid employees and sympathizers move in to become regulators-in-chief for a platform catering to over 30 percent of the world’s population?
Turning again to that disturbing quote at the end of his op-ed, the line where Soros says that Zuckerberg and Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg “should not be left in control of Facebook” because they seek only to “maximize profits irrespective of the consequences.”
Two things:
That strikes me as deeply cynical coming from a man who said in an interview that “I am basically there to make money. I cannot and do not look at the social consequences of what I do.”
Secondly, his insistence that Mark Zuckerberg should not be left in control of Facebook sounds disturbingly familiar to someone who lived under communism.
Zuckerberg is one of the founders and controlling shareholders of Facebook.
But in the Soros worldview, ideology trumps all and if a powerful platform like Facebook does not toe the open society party line, then ownership control must be taken away.
Then again, maybe I shouldn’t be so concerned. I mean, like the New York Times wrote in the byline of Soros’ op-ed, “Mr. Soros is a philanthropist.”
What could go wrong?
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| Zoltan Kovacs |
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The Hungarian Parliament passed a declaration this week, refusing the ratification of the Istanbul Convention.
Here’s why.
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Acting upon an initiative of the governing Fidesz-KDNP alliance, Hungary’s National Assembly passed this week a declaration that refuses to ratify the Council of Europe’s Convention on preventing and combating violence against women and domestic violence, dated 2011 and widely known as the..
The protection of women and the fight against domestic violence have always been of central importance to the government.
In fact, it was an Orbán Government that issued a zero-tolerance policy on violence against women when it took power in 2010 and assigned to domestic violence an independent statutory definition in the new criminal code of 2013.
Had the Convention stuck to the protection of women’s rights, Hungary would have been among the first countries to ratify it and adopt corresponding domestic legislation. In fact, we have already included most of the Convention’s recommendations, those pertaining to the protection of women, into Hungarian law.
But the Convention went far beyond this, with its final text including sections that could not be incorporated into our domestic law because they run counter to Hungary’s constitution, the Fundamental Law.
One of these sections is found in Article 3(c), where the Convention defines “gender” as “socially constructed roles, behaviours, activities and attributes that a given society considers appropriate for women and men.”
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This “social gender” definition, however, conflicts with Hungary’s constitution because the clause denies that there are only two biological genders, male and female. Without biological genders, for example, Hungary’s constitutional definition of marriage (the matrimony of a man and a woman) would become void.
And if something contradicts the Fundamental Law, it cannot be adopted by Parliament.
In Chapter VII. Article 60 on “gender-based asylum claims,” however, the Istanbul Convention goes even further, attempting to intervene in the sensitive field of migration policy.
It requires that signatories to “take the necessary legislative or other measures to ensure that gender-based violence against women may be recognised as a form of persecution.”
Such an extension of the legal category of “persecution” could clearly lead to a dramatic increase in the number of migrants who set out westward to Europe.
Also, there is one possible interpretation of Articles 60 and 61 that would automatically grant “gender-based asylum” to applicants.
In other words, if certain conditions are met, the ratification of the Istanbul Convention would mean that Hungary may be forced to grant entry to illegal migrants…
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…on grounds that run contrary to Hungary’s well-established policy of discouraging and putting an end to migration.
It is difficult not to see the Convention as yet another attempt by pro-migration groups to find a way to force the issue of migration.
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Migrant savages attack Hungarian border
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By refusing the ratification of the Istanbul Convention, Hungary, says “Yes!” to the protection of women but “No!” to gender ideology and illegal migration.
http://abouthungary.hu/blog/yes-to-protection-of-women-no-to-gender-ideology-and-illegal-migration/
Dear Editor,
With his opinion article, “Stopping the authoritarian rot in Europe,” Kenneth Roth joins what are now dozens of critics who have turned to accommodating international media outlets to criticize the Orbán government and insult the Hungarian people with the charge that Hungary’s extraordinary measures to fight Covid-19 amount to “dictatorship.”
What these critics will not tell you is that Hungary’s measures – thus far – have been effective in flattening the curve, supporting the health care system, and saving Hungarian lives.
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“The data shows,” said Ledia Lazeri of the World Health Organization in an interview earlier this week, “that Hungary succeeded in avoiding the exponential growth [of confirmed coronavirus cases].”
They also ignore the fact that these measures are popular with the Hungarian people.
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| Zoltan KovacsR |
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Nearly 60 percent, according to a recent poll, said the extraordinary measures should be extended until the end of the pandemic.
While the director of Human Rights Watch gazes at his navel in Geneva, fretting about “authoritarian rot,” the Hungarian people look for a steady hand at the rudder to navigate this storm.
They also conveniently omit the fact that many EU states have imposed a state of emergency and some give the government sweeping powers.
A minister of health in Germany can issue a directive even if there are constitutional concerns that it contradicts the law. The federal government in Switzerland rules via directive, bypassing the legislature. In Spain, the parliament remains in session but cannot question the government.
But Roth and his cohorts seem unconcerned about dictatorship in those countries.
They omit these details because what we’re dealing with is not a legal problem, not a “breach” of the rule of law. Quite the contrary.
Roth arrives a couple of weeks late to the party, but copying and pasting from all the other Op-Eds written by western critics who have drawn from the same liberal, Hungarian sources, he levels exactly the same charges we’ve read so many times before and, like the rest of them, offers nothing to back them up.
“Orbán and his ruling Fidesz party,” writes Roth, “have politicised the courts, decimated independent media, destroyed academic freedom, hobbled civil society”.
On courts, media, academic freedom and civil society, where the Orbán government actions or laws have been challenged by the European Commission, we have addressed them.
TV and internet media outlets that are staunch critics of the government enjoy a commanding lead in audience share and page views, but according to Roth, Orbán decimated independent media.
Joseph Goebbels, they say, wrote that “if you tell a lie big enough and keep repeating it, people will eventually come to believe it.”
They can make outrageous and condescending insults like Roth does – “Ten million EU citizens now live under authoritarian rule” – and none of them have to offer any proof of their claims.
A compliant mainstream media allows them to dismiss, or ignore altogether, the ample, fact-based counter-arguments. It has become, as György Schöpflin wrote recently, a discourse that “is immutable and beyond questioning,” claims “that cannot be interrogated.”
“To anyone who has lived in a Soviet-type system,” adds Schöpflin, “this all sounds very familiar indeed.”
Isn’t it odd that at a time when Europe faces its most serious crisis in 100 years, a clique of the liberal elite would insist that the most serious problem today is a government in a small country in central Europe doing everything it can to protect the health and economic livelihood of its citizens?
At a time when the action of sovereign national governments have proven effective, it’s time to stop the globalist rot undermining European solidarity.
Yours,
Zoltan Kovacs
Zoltan Kovacs is the Hungarian government’s secretary of state for international communication and relations.
…and then there’s this…
…and this…
…and so very many more examples!
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| Zoltan Kovacs | |
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Viktor Orban
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I saw that.
Sackur was just rude. Kovacs put him in his place, as you say.
BBC is very biased and it was a pleasure to see the Hungarian burst Sackur’s balloon the way he did, with facts!
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According to the opinion piece published by the EUobserver June 6, the Orban government is waging a concerted effort to capture the media.
“Media capture,” claims Harlan Mandel, “is when governments and business interests collude to control and manipulate the flow of information.”
The “spiritual home” of this phenomenon is, of course, Hungary, but it’s spreading its “tentacles into new territories,” Mandel warns.
He draws a dramatic picture indeed, but it leaves out some rather important details that I would like your readers to know.
Mandel’s “media capture” nightmare is revealed in a report published by the Media Development Investment Fund, a New York-based organisation where he is the CEO. MDIF has received at least $16.5m from George Soros.
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The fund’s previous directors and several of its board members over the years come from the Soros-funded Open Society circles. The MDIF is born of Soros funding and is very much part of the Soros world.
What does that mean in practical terms? In Hungary, for example, MDIF funds exclusively left-liberal media outlets. It has financed Magyar Narancs and 444.hu, both staunch critics of conservative governments and causes.
They are free to do so, of course, but let’s not pretend that the MDIF, as an investor in media, is somehow a neutral, value-free player on these media markets. The MDIF is an investor with a political agenda.
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![[Hungarian flag after 1989]](http://fotw.fivestarflags.com/images/h/hu-1990s.gif)
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Any reasonable person reviewing a list of media enterprises that the MDIF has invested in would see a distinct pattern: left-liberal media that conform with the Soros, Open Society world view. Some might even argue that it’s a clear case of special interests that “collude to control and manipulate the flow of information.”
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They’re not the only special interests in this media game, of course. The Bertelsmann Foundation differs from the MDIF, but the overarching goal, as Politico Europe reported in May, is similar: “message control” to the extent that the foundation, according to Politico, has the commission “tacitly allying itself with the corporate interests of the media giant that bankrolls it.”
Secondly, the Hungarian media landscape is still far more colourful than Mandel would have you believe. The MDIF CEO claims that dissenting voices are being silenced but, the biggest television audience share by far belongs to RTL Klub – and 71 percent of Hungarians get their info from television.
RTL Klub could hardly be considered a government mouthpiece, and week after week, at least four out of the top five TV programs belong to RTL Klub.
Furthermore, some 35 percent of Hungarians get their news and information from the Internet. Who has the biggest online audience? Index.hu, a news platform staunchly critical of the Orban government that is also the most popular Hungarian site on the internet.
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Among the top 100 Hungarian websites, according to the DKT council that measures audience share, media that could be considered as having conservative leanings and sympathetic to the government garner approximately 1.7m pageviews daily. Online, liberal media critical of the government pull in 3.5m per day – more than double.
That’s hardly a captured media.
Thirdly, he has his facts wrong on the media law. Not long after the Orban government took office in 2010, parliament indeed passed a new media law. The law, however, has been amended several times, following negotiations with EU institutions, and is completely congruent with European norms.
But when you’re in the business of financing liberal media, as Mandel is, you’ve got to make your sales pitch, and that’s precisely what he does with this opinion piece, closing with a not-so-subtle appeal to new investors.
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You do a fine job bashing back at our common enemies but it is encouraging to see a senior ministerial level reaction when the media publish extremist Sorosoid attacks.
It is not something we see often. Is this because no reactions are offered or do the media hide them away?
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Noreen Paterson is discussing. 
Petra Malley is discussing. 
rossrightangle 
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