Fidesz Circumvents Political Ad Ban with Facebook Campaign
Budapest, Hungary – Despite a recent EU-wide ban on political advertising, Hungary’s ruling Fidesz party is continuing to actively recruit members and expand its voter database through a network of Digital Civic Circles (DPKs) on Facebook, according to a report by political Capital.
As of Tuesday afternoon, Political Capital identified 230 active Facebook advertisements run by the DPKs, following an initial wave of 260 ads earlier in the week – some of which expired on October 28th. The ads feature prominent Fidesz influencers,opinion leaders,and even Minister of Defense Kristóf Szalay-Bobrovniczky,often utilizing images from the party’s ”Peace March” campaign event.
The campaign isn’t solely focused on membership growth; the DPKs are actively collecting personal data from potential recruits,including email addresses,full names,cities,zip codes,and phone numbers. Political Capital asserts this data collection is a purposeful effort to bolster Fidesz’s mobilization system, a point underscored by recent comments from Viktor Orbán at a “Fight Club” training camp, where he urged supporters to assist “Commander Kubatov” (Gábor Kubatov, Fidesz’s director).
The situation highlights ongoing challenges with enforcement of the EU ban. Both google and Meta rely on self-declaration to classify political advertising,and Meta’s system has demonstrably struggled to identify and block Fidesz-linked ads. Recent examples include advertisements from the National Resistance Movement featuring AI-generated Minecraft videos of Péter Magyar, and an animated video discouraging relocation to the Tisza River region.
This isn’t the first instance of DPK ads slipping through Facebook’s filters.Previous reports have documented numerous ads successfully recruiting members despite being linked to Fidesz’s campaign efforts.
