HUNGARY Introduction According to Freedom House, Hungary, with a government currently led by Prime Minister Viktor Orbán, is the only partly free democracy in the European Union. Orbán’s government rules with a supermajority/constitutional majority through the Fidesz–KDNP coalition, a government that has been criticized for dismantling Hungary’s democratic institutions as well as its independent media (Freedom House, 2020). Orbán’s government has also been accused of playing a role in the spreading of fake news via social media platforms as well as more traditional channels. An Overview of Cyber Troop Activity in Hungary Organizational Form During the Victor Orbán-led government in Hungary there has been a decline in the number of independent media outlets. 2016 saw the closure of Népszabadság, the largest, independent daily newspaper (Freedom House, 2020), and many national, regional and local media have either closed or come to be controlled by oligarchs with ties to Orbán. The most striking development has been the consolidation of 476 media outlets within the Central European Press and Media Foundation (in Hungarian, KESMA), whose chairman was previously a Fidesz party legislator (Besser, 2019). With its control of various newspapers, radio stations, and websites, critics have dubbed KESMA a pro-government media conglomerate. When the Hungarian government created KESMA, it announced that it was in the national strategic interest that Hungarian newspapers be owned by Hungarian nationals, and that as such they amount to “critical infrastructure” (Aries, 2019). With this decision, the Hungary Competition Authority closed its investigation on the merger. However, according to a 2020 Hungarian court ruling this was deemed unlawful. In a study undertaken by Budapest-based Mertek Media Monitor, the total pro-Fidesz media portfolio, made up of public service media, KESMA-owned media and pro-government media not under the remit of KESMA, encompasses 77.8% of the entire news and public affairs segments in the Hungarian media (Mertek, 2019a). Mertek economist Agnes Urban noted that these outlets are not simply in tune with promoting Hungarian government rhetoric but are also dependent on the funding that it provides (Aries, 2019). According to a report undertaken by the investigative website Atlatszo, government funds amounting to over USD $250 million over the course of the past eight years have been spent on advertising campaigns to promote the government’s policies (Attila, 2019). Mertek’s report noted that more than half of the advertising revenues of KESMA-owned media outlets came from the Hungarian government (Mertek 2019a). As such, these funds are arguably a form of state subsidy that is illegal under EU law (Mertek 2019b). Critics have also characterized KESMA as a “media empire” that allows for the spread of “fake news and misinformation” through “state-sponsored media itself” (Besser, 2019). In a report undertaken by GLOBESEC on information operations and disinformation campaigns during the European elections in Central Europe, the main public broadcast news channel hirado.hu, and the leading commercial online news site origo.hu, were both listed in the top 15 pro-Kremlin disinformation channels in Hungary on Facebook. Both these news outlets are under the umbrella of KESMA, and both have been criticized for promoting conspiracist theories, including the likes of those attacking George Soros and those of the EU’s support for illegal immigration, and promoting pro-Russian disinformation media in the hope that it will become a key part of media consumption in Hungary (Sawiris et al., 2019). 170