1. The Information warfare on
the Internet
Exposing and countering pro-Kremlin
disinformation in the CEEC –
Project Summary in Hungary
Dániel Bartha – Botond Feledy – András Rácz
Kyiv, 24 February, 2017

2. Contents:
1. Channels and actors
2. Content and narratives
3. Conclusions

3. Part I: Channels and actors

4. 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

5. 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.

6. 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

7. 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.

8. 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.

9. 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.

10. Part II: Content and narratives

11. 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?

12. 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.

13. Part III: Conclusions

14. 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.

15. 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.

16. The project was co-financed
by the International Visegrad Fund
Dániel Bartha – Botond Feledy – András Rácz
Kyiv, 24 February, 2017