European elections, Orbán criticized “the interference of that global, liberal mafia … players outside Hungary, manipulating huge funds, seeking to wage a campaign and interfere with the Hungarian elections” and argued that “Europe’s borders must be protected against the invasion of migrants” (MTI-Hungary Today, 2019). According to the Political Capital Institute, During the 2019 municipal elections KESMA launched a disinformation campaign against the opposition. The leading mainstream online pro-government news outlet, Origo.hu, stated that the mayoral candidate of Hodmezovasarhely, Peter Marki-Zay, would flood Hungary with immigrants by building a system modelled upon Canada’s immigration system. Marki-Zay had in fact only argued that Hungary needed to establish a more tolerant society akin to Canada (Political Capital, 2019). Moreover, progovernment online portal PestiSracok alleged that Peter Niedermuller, the opposition’s mayoral candidate in the capital’s 7th district, was mobilizing 90,000 foreign-born/non-citizen voters living in Budapest to decide the outcome of the mayoral races. This conspiracy theory was subsequently used by the Fidesz campaign chief and MP, Lajos Kosa (Ibid). In another case, pro-government news outlet Magyar Nemzet spread the conspiracy theory that Gergely Karacsony, the opposition’s candidate for lord mayor, was planning a deal with the president of the European commission that would settle Muslim migrants in Budapest and other cities as a precondition for receiving EU funds (Zgut, 2019). According to Political Capital “the most successful type of media related to the above-mentioned conspiracy theories were memes about immigration that were centrally disseminated by the official Facebook account of Fidesz and dutifully shared by dozens of local party affiliates’ accounts across the country” (Political Capital, 2019). Beyond controlling narratives in municipal elections, the highly centralized nature of the Hungarian media space has enhanced the dissemination of pro-Russian messages in mainstream pro-government outlets. These include major conspiracy theories such as the portrayal of the Ukrainian Maidan revolution as the “CIA executed plan of George Soros” to install a “puppet government”, with predictions of similar “Maidan-like” attempts to destabilize Hungary and overthrow its government. By expressing a pro-Kremlin geopolitical orientation, these Hungarian news sites echo the Fidesz party’s pro-Russian and Eurosceptic turn as well as Orbán’s praise for the Kremlin for withstanding the “Western attempts of isolation and regime change” (Gyori and Syrovatka, 2019). Conspiracy theories have a huge impact on public opinion. As a poll by Political Capital found, anti-Soros, anti-Muslim conspiracy theories are extremely widespread in amongst Hungarians, and especially in the supporters of the governing party (Political Capital, 2018). Trolls and the manipulation of media: Facebook in particular has been a popular platform for manipulation by the government and pro-government outlets. An investigation by the political weekly HVG found that governmental parties were the most successful at manipulating the electorate via Facebook during the last parliamentary election campaign (and that this was partially because they had the greatest resources to draw upon). One important tool was masked political messages: the promotion through advertising revenue of KESMA-produced media content that didactically pushed the government’s eurosceptic and anti-immigration rhetoric (Marton, 2019). According to an investigation by the online political news site 444.hu, the government also employed a network of trolls to share and engage with pro-Fidesz content (444.hu, 2018). These unpaid users were reportedly given directives to post particular content within a specified timeline. 172