Hungary to consider sanctions against tech giants

Hungarian officials are currently mulling around an idea to impose sanctions on social media and tech giants ahead of a meeting with a watchdog later this week.

Hungary's Justice Minister Judit Varga raised the prospect to officials on Monday over what she described as a "systemic abuse of free speech."

Read more: Tech companies face £18m in fines for failing to deal with illegal content

She is to meet with the watchdog to discuss potential penalties for what she described as unfair commercial practices.

Some Hungarian officials have seen the recent actions taken against public figures such as Donald Trump in their latest ban waves as tech companies silencing conservative views on their platforms.

However, social media companies such as Twitter and Facebook say these bans have been levied against public figures who have repeatedly broken the platform's rules against discrimination, inciting illegal activity, or spreading disinformation through conspiracy theories.

In a statement, Varga said: “To reduce their reach, Facebook also limits the visibility of Christian, conservative, right-wing opinions. I also have personal experience of that."

Varga stipulated these actions should be regulated at the EU-level, but that action may need to be taken quickly. "Due to the systematic abuses, however, we may need to step up sooner,” she added.

Conservative voices are reportedly facing shadowbans - the act of having your content's reach restricted - according to the justice minister.

This marks a continued trend of European countries going against non-EU tech giants in order to mitigate their market dominance and allow for inter-bloc startups to gain a foothold within the industry.

The European Union has been imposing regulations on US-based technology companies for a number of months, with rumours circulating their intention to eventually break these larger companies up.

However, further sanctions have been on hold since the US election, awaiting President-elect Joe Biden's stance on digital tax. No new news has arisen since.

A US-backed coalition making waves across Europe has resulted in Chinese telecoms company Huawei losing contracts in several countries, including Sweden and the UK.

Read more: Huawei appeal ban from Sweden's 5G networks

This has been raised over concerns the company will hand over personal information to the Chinese government, something they may be required to do by law.

Poland is also considering taking action on tech giants for similar reasons, citing that technology companies have considerable control over voices in public debate.

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