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Flip the actors and imagine how you might feel. Imagine in Hungary if Orban was defeated by a radically pro-NATO, pro-EU guy. And then courts in Hungary ruled t

Flip the actors and imagine how you might feel. Imagine in Hungary if Orban was defeated by a radically pro-NATO, pro-EU guy. And then courts in Hungary ruled that said person was unfairly promoted by Google, Instagram, et al. And so the election had to be completely redone. And then some reason was found to exclude this individual from the next election (as will certainly happen here, or he'd probably just win again). There would be 24/7 headlines about tyranny, disregarding democracy, and more. The US would be leading the charge with sanctions against Hungary if not outright "regime change", and the EU would likely even begin working on motions to remove them from the EU. Yet when the wrong candidate wins a democratic vote, suddenly everything is entirely different. The 'rules based order' becoming a joke is precisely why anti-establishment candidates are winning everywhere.

zpeti 2y ago
Nicely said. The problem here is the message clearly resonated and people voted for him. Yes, he might have had help in spreading that message, but the message still landed and people chose him. To now say that the election was invalid when people actually chose him is extremely risky. My guess is it will reinforce a lot of narratives about how evil the west and the USA is. This will only make things worse, and will put the winner in an even stronger position.
- Cumpiler69 2y ago
  >The problem here is the message clearly resonated and people voted for him. Indeed, that's what a lot of the middle upper class urban Romanians with corporate jobs don't understand, that a lot of the people, especially the older less educated ultra conservative ones, resonated with him and his message so they voted for him. TikTok didn't hypnotize and mind control them to vote for him, they stil had free will, they just like his message the most. Sure his message was full of lies and pandering but that's every single politician. Do we discard the democratic process because someone undesirable by the educated middle upper class won by majority? Then what's the point of democracy? You keep repeating elections till your preferred candidate wins?
  - andrepd 2y ago
    >Do we discard the democratic process because someone undesirable by the educated middle upper class won by majority? Why do people on this thread keep hammering on this ridiculous point? He is discarded for breaking the law in multiple points, not because he is "undesirable by the urbanites" or whatever ffs. If it was the "soy globohomo candidate" or whatever you'd call it that was breaking these laws, he should also be suspended. This is the only conclusion I take from this: you are so anti-democratic that you cannot fathom following the rules impartially, that indeed if a court determines that a candidate broke the law it must be because it is trying to manipulate election results. Because this is what you would yourself do if you had that power, protect "your" guy and persecute the "other" guy?
    - Cumpiler69 2y ago
      [flagged]
- dragandj 2y ago
  People did not choose him nevertheless. He only got 1/5 of the votes and passed to the second round with another candidate. In the second round he would probably loose, but it is not the point. The point is that he broke the election law. That is not negotiable.
  - deleted 2y ago
    [deleted]
- andrepd 2y ago
  >Yes, he might have had help in spreading that message Modern mass social media isn't just "help spreading the message", as everyone on this website must surely be aware. It's not a guy handling out pamphlets. It's a hyper-optimised, hyper-targeted psychological howitzer that would make Goebbels or Bernays blush. Ffs I search for cake recipes on YouTube and my suggested videos are infinite hours of the local far-right guy ranting about gypsies and nepalis. Of course it has an effect, of course such one-sided avalanche of propaganda skews and manipulates things. This is obvious and also empirically verified. I stress: one-sided. It's not even so much as all the boomers (and impressionable kids) being fed this propaganda for hours on end, it's that it's the only thing that they are fed. Listening to 30 tiktoks in a row of the guy ranting about gypsies and the EU would not be so bad if at least it was followed by some tiktoks giving an opposing views, or exposing that guy's shady business deals and how he pockets millions in taxpayer money! But we all know echo chambers are more lucrative than balanced views......
  - quickthrowman 2y ago
    > Modern mass social media isn't just "help spreading the message", as everyone on this website must surely be aware. It's not a guy handling out pamphlets. It's a hyper-optimised, hyper-targeted psychological howitzer that would make Goebbels or Bernays blush. I still don’t understand why anyone willingly subjects themselves to mass social media, there’s absolutely nothing of value and disinformation runs rampant. I know I have blind spots in my knowledge and believe stuff that isn’t true, but I do my best to avoid being misinformed.
    - andrepd 2y ago
      Why do people gamble on the roulette? Why do people get addicted to cigarettes or to heroin?
      - quickthrowman 2y ago
        Good point, it’s the dopamine. Having your beliefs reinforced feels great.
dak89 2y ago
This is exactly right. While I think it would be suboptimal you could imagine "rerun the elections if the winner breaks campaign finance law or gets support from abroad" as an established norm in western democracies, but that's not the world we live in and the EU would not accept these shenanigans from a populist right wing government.
- rayiner 2y ago
  Developed countries never rerun elections because of stuff like that.
  - dak89 2y ago
    Yes, I think we agree!
  - briandear 2y ago
    Maybe they should. You can cheat all you want but as long as you win, you win. What’s the point of campaign finance laws if they can be broken with no meaningful consequence? The candidate’s campaign gets a “fine” that they pay out of campaign money anyway. But they still can win.
    - rayiner 2y ago
      No, they shouldn’t. Holding people liable for finance law violations can still provide signals to the public, which may affect their voting. But you can’t allow unelected criminal justice officials to override elections. That’s a path straight to hell, as has been proven time and again in Asian countries that do that.
      - ImPostingOnHN 2y ago
        How would you suggest they be held to account here? Keep in mind that their ill-gotten gains include votes, and that a criminal's ill-gotten gains of a crime must be disgorged to hold the criminal to account.
rdm_blackhole 2y ago
Very well said. All they have done is giving his supporters a martyr to support. Do they actually think that the mainstream candidates will get the votes of the people who voted for this man? If anything, this will reinforce their anger and distrust in the system.
- soco 2y ago
  The anger and distrust in the system are valid. But do you want Sauron to fix it?
  - rdm_blackhole 2y ago
    I only want to politicians to do their jobs. is that too much to ask?
trklausss 2y ago
We had that in the 1920’s in Spain, where only a group of oligarchs (named caciquism) were dictating whom the persons under their wing where voting for. Needless to say, there was collusion among the leaders and only puppet governments in place So be it, if Google, Instagram, et al. are influencing a campaign, and it is deemed to be illegal with proof, the results of the elections shall be repeated.
bojan 2y ago
> Flip the actors and imagine how you might feel. The same. If "my" candidate wins in a way that in the long term undermines democratic values, it's still a net negative and I don't want it. That would just empower the "they are all the same" narrative that autocratic politicians use to get to and stay in power.
- tiahura 2y ago
  democratic values Like “he who gets the most votes wins, even if the powers that be don’t approve”?
  - egeozcan 2y ago
    > he who gets the most votes wins, even if the powers that be don’t approve Through fair elections, yes. No election is ever 100% flawless as perfection isn't practical. However, what happened here is blatant cheating involving shady funds.
  - buran77 2y ago
    > he who gets the most votes wins Aren't you forgetting the essential "while playing by the rules"? Getting the most votes by cheating - and it looks like that was certainly the case here, no doubt about it - is the opposite of democracy. Winning by cheating just happens to be the staple of the very country suspected of interfering. Are you promoting the same "values"? > the powers that be don’t approve You are right here. I personally consider it completely normal if the democratically elected powers that be don't approve when someone claims to have won an election - which nobody actually won since the process didn't finish - despite cheating. Winning by cheating is the opposite of democracy. If breaking the law to win is considered democracy, then why is legally restarting elections to win any less so? Hypocritical or trollish preferences aside.
    - rayiner 2y ago
      “Cheating” means “manipulating votes.” It cannot mean “persuading voters through means I don’t like.” That opens up a Pandora’s box you cannot close. There’s no limiting principle to draw clear lines about what’s proper influence versus improper influence.
tlamponi 2y ago
Well, if that pro-NATO, pro-EU guy declared having spent no money on their campaign while their Face being plastered all over the place and other proof that someone spent money on a campaign for that person, and there's a law that spending and sources of money for elections must be made transparent then the election should be 100% nullified, just like here. Feelings are one thing, but breaking laws like here cannot just be brushed of as some people having hurt their feelings. What I do not really understand is why this hasn't been handled before the election, i.e., why was the candidate with seemingly zero monetary transparency even allowed to be on a ballot?
- Al-Khwarizmi 2y ago
  There is a lot of middle ground between "brushing it off" and cancelling a whole election and throwing the choice of millions of voters to the trash. In Spain there are violations of campaign laws all the time (and I'm talking by major traditional parties) and they are investigated, but typically the outcome is a fine, or maybe some jail time in severe cases, not invalidating a whole nation-wide election. And I suppose it's the same elsewhere because otherwise we would see news of invalidating elections left and right. Shady campaign financing is not exactly uncommon across the world.
  - egeozcan 2y ago
    > There is a lot of middle ground between "brushing it off" and cancelling a whole election and throwing the choice of millions of voters to the trash. If elections are rigged, the results cannot be accepted under any circumstances. Using shady, undeclared capital in elections amounts to cheating and invites outside influence. This is a serious issue because we entrust the governance of nations to those elected by the people. Democracy only functions if the outcomes cannot be bought. While no system is ever 100% immune to corruption, blatant disregard for election laws cannot be taken lightly. If irregularities occur, people can vote again. Yes, redoing elections costs time and money, but if voters still choose the same leaders after understanding how they gained power, then that's democracy in action. For me, the line is very clear because I've seen it blurred so many times in Turkey, where I come from, and I’ve witnessed the devastating consequences.
andrepd 2y ago
> The US would be leading the charge with sanctions against Hungary if not outright "regime change", and the EU would likely even begin working on motions to remove them from the EU. It's fucking hilarious that this is your argument when in fact blocking opposition candidates and stacking courts and centralising powers and receiving shady money and prosecuting freedom of speech is precisely what Orban has been doing for the past 15+ years, with the EU doing exactly... fuck all about it.
- soco 2y ago
  It's like the EU can't win here: if they do something some scream bloody murder interference. If they don't do anything, it's again damn bureaucrats siting on their asses. And it's not always different people holding those different attitudes.
zmgsabst 2y ago
To concur, the US and EU are screaming they’re required to report their foreign influence in Georgia — the same as FARA in the US. They deployed their NGOs to influence and led riots in the streets to block transparency about foreign funding. [0] While at the same time in the US prosecuting a media company for not reporting foreign money. [1] “Rules Based Order” is anything but based on equally applied rules. [0] - https://www.hrw.org/news/2024/05/09/georgia-foreign-influence-bill-threatens-rights https://www.hrw.org/news/2024/05/09/georgia-foreign-influenc... [1] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2024_Tenet_Media_investigation https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2024_Tenet_Media_investigation
- preisschild 2y ago
  > the same as FARA in the US. WRONG https://civil.ge/archives/591175 https://civil.ge/archives/591175
lm28469 2y ago
I really like how you start from an hypothetical scenario, then extrapolate even more ridiculous hypothetical scenarios to make it sound outrageous... Of course if you can prove someone cheated an election it should be scrutinized no matter the side. What even is your point here? That we shouldn't care because you imagine that your political enemies would do the same thing? What kind of argument is that > is precisely why anti-establishment candidates are winning everywhere. Anti establishment? Like Trump, Orban, Miley, Fico, Meloni? Lmao the only people saying they're anti establishment are themselves and their propaganda, as soon as they're in place they're very happy to milk the establishment and serve their own interests I'm the first to criticize the EU but if the only way out is through Russian puppets I'd rather stay in until we find a better solution.
chpatrick 2y ago
Hungarian state propaganda is already painting the pro-EU pro-NATO guy (Péter Magyar) as an agent of Brussels so don't speak too soon.
markvdb 2y ago
I don't claim to know all about this situation, but I do discern a recurring pattern that many IT professionals don't (want to?) realise: Information technology is giving all kinds of actors leverage to exploit our human brain's fundamental shortcomings. In this case, it's a fscking nazi sympathiser jumping to the fore of a presidential election from nothing. Remarkable and ironic to me, these actors weaponise the powers of technology while often spitting at the scientific method underpinning them.
- lenkite 2y ago
  > In this case, it's a fscking nazi sympathiser jumping to the fore of a presidential election from nothing. Why do you call him "a fscking nazi sympathiser" ?
  - preisschild 2y ago
    The russian govt are basically the nazis of the 21st century. And hes a sympathizer to them. Hence: Nazi sympathiser.
    - aguaviva 2y ago
      This equation is just wrong, as applies to both Putin and Orbán. And (ironically) simply convinces people that those who are concerned about Putin's arguably fascist (as opposed to actual Nazi) inclinations are just hyperventilating and overreacting. Thus, promoting his (and Orbán)'s longevity.
      - Woeps 2y ago
        > This equation is just wrong, as applies to both Putin and Orbán Why is this wrong?
        aguaviva 2y ago
        Because Putin isn't a Nazi. He's something new.

zpeti 2y ago

Nicely said. The problem here is the message clearly resonated and people voted for him. Yes, he might have had help in spreading that message, but the message still landed and people chose him. To now say that the election was invalid when people actually chose him is extremely risky. My guess is it will reinforce a lot of narratives about how evil the west and the USA is. This will only make things worse, and will put the winner in an even stronger position.

Cumpiler69 2y ago
>The problem here is the message clearly resonated and people voted for him. Indeed, that's what a lot of the middle upper class urban Romanians with corporate jobs don't understand, that a lot of the people, especially the older less educated ultra conservative ones, resonated with him and his message so they voted for him. TikTok didn't hypnotize and mind control them to vote for him, they stil had free will, they just like his message the most. Sure his message was full of lies and pandering but that's every single politician. Do we discard the democratic process because someone undesirable by the educated middle upper class won by majority? Then what's the point of democracy? You keep repeating elections till your preferred candidate wins?
- andrepd 2y ago
  >Do we discard the democratic process because someone undesirable by the educated middle upper class won by majority? Why do people on this thread keep hammering on this ridiculous point? He is discarded for breaking the law in multiple points, not because he is "undesirable by the urbanites" or whatever ffs. If it was the "soy globohomo candidate" or whatever you'd call it that was breaking these laws, he should also be suspended. This is the only conclusion I take from this: you are so anti-democratic that you cannot fathom following the rules impartially, that indeed if a court determines that a candidate broke the law it must be because it is trying to manipulate election results. Because this is what you would yourself do if you had that power, protect "your" guy and persecute the "other" guy?
  - Cumpiler69 2y ago
    [flagged]
dragandj 2y ago
People did not choose him nevertheless. He only got 1/5 of the votes and passed to the second round with another candidate. In the second round he would probably loose, but it is not the point. The point is that he broke the election law. That is not negotiable.
- deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]
andrepd 2y ago
>Yes, he might have had help in spreading that message Modern mass social media isn't just "help spreading the message", as everyone on this website must surely be aware. It's not a guy handling out pamphlets. It's a hyper-optimised, hyper-targeted psychological howitzer that would make Goebbels or Bernays blush. Ffs I search for cake recipes on YouTube and my suggested videos are infinite hours of the local far-right guy ranting about gypsies and nepalis. Of course it has an effect, of course such one-sided avalanche of propaganda skews and manipulates things. This is obvious and also empirically verified. I stress: one-sided. It's not even so much as all the boomers (and impressionable kids) being fed this propaganda for hours on end, it's that it's the only thing that they are fed. Listening to 30 tiktoks in a row of the guy ranting about gypsies and the EU would not be so bad if at least it was followed by some tiktoks giving an opposing views, or exposing that guy's shady business deals and how he pockets millions in taxpayer money! But we all know echo chambers are more lucrative than balanced views......
- quickthrowman 2y ago
  > Modern mass social media isn't just "help spreading the message", as everyone on this website must surely be aware. It's not a guy handling out pamphlets. It's a hyper-optimised, hyper-targeted psychological howitzer that would make Goebbels or Bernays blush. I still don’t understand why anyone willingly subjects themselves to mass social media, there’s absolutely nothing of value and disinformation runs rampant. I know I have blind spots in my knowledge and believe stuff that isn’t true, but I do my best to avoid being misinformed.
  - andrepd 2y ago
    Why do people gamble on the roulette? Why do people get addicted to cigarettes or to heroin?
    - quickthrowman 2y ago
      Good point, it’s the dopamine. Having your beliefs reinforced feels great.

dak89 2y ago

This is exactly right. While I think it would be suboptimal you could imagine "rerun the elections if the winner breaks campaign finance law or gets support from abroad" as an established norm in western democracies, but that's not the world we live in and the EU would not accept these shenanigans from a populist right wing government.

rayiner 2y ago
Developed countries never rerun elections because of stuff like that.
- dak89 2y ago
  Yes, I think we agree!
- briandear 2y ago
  Maybe they should. You can cheat all you want but as long as you win, you win. What’s the point of campaign finance laws if they can be broken with no meaningful consequence? The candidate’s campaign gets a “fine” that they pay out of campaign money anyway. But they still can win.
  - rayiner 2y ago
    No, they shouldn’t. Holding people liable for finance law violations can still provide signals to the public, which may affect their voting. But you can’t allow unelected criminal justice officials to override elections. That’s a path straight to hell, as has been proven time and again in Asian countries that do that.
    - ImPostingOnHN 2y ago
      How would you suggest they be held to account here? Keep in mind that their ill-gotten gains include votes, and that a criminal's ill-gotten gains of a crime must be disgorged to hold the criminal to account.

rdm_blackhole 2y ago

Very well said. All they have done is giving his supporters a martyr to support. Do they actually think that the mainstream candidates will get the votes of the people who voted for this man? If anything, this will reinforce their anger and distrust in the system.

soco 2y ago
The anger and distrust in the system are valid. But do you want Sauron to fix it?
- rdm_blackhole 2y ago
  I only want to politicians to do their jobs. is that too much to ask?

trklausss 2y ago

We had that in the 1920’s in Spain, where only a group of oligarchs (named caciquism) were dictating whom the persons under their wing where voting for. Needless to say, there was collusion among the leaders and only puppet governments in place So be it, if Google, Instagram, et al. are influencing a campaign, and it is deemed to be illegal with proof, the results of the elections shall be repeated.

bojan 2y ago

> Flip the actors and imagine how you might feel. The same. If "my" candidate wins in a way that in the long term undermines democratic values, it's still a net negative and I don't want it. That would just empower the "they are all the same" narrative that autocratic politicians use to get to and stay in power.

tiahura 2y ago
democratic values Like “he who gets the most votes wins, even if the powers that be don’t approve”?
- egeozcan 2y ago
  > he who gets the most votes wins, even if the powers that be don’t approve Through fair elections, yes. No election is ever 100% flawless as perfection isn't practical. However, what happened here is blatant cheating involving shady funds.
- buran77 2y ago
  > he who gets the most votes wins Aren't you forgetting the essential "while playing by the rules"? Getting the most votes by cheating - and it looks like that was certainly the case here, no doubt about it - is the opposite of democracy. Winning by cheating just happens to be the staple of the very country suspected of interfering. Are you promoting the same "values"? > the powers that be don’t approve You are right here. I personally consider it completely normal if the democratically elected powers that be don't approve when someone claims to have won an election - which nobody actually won since the process didn't finish - despite cheating. Winning by cheating is the opposite of democracy. If breaking the law to win is considered democracy, then why is legally restarting elections to win any less so? Hypocritical or trollish preferences aside.
  - rayiner 2y ago
    “Cheating” means “manipulating votes.” It cannot mean “persuading voters through means I don’t like.” That opens up a Pandora’s box you cannot close. There’s no limiting principle to draw clear lines about what’s proper influence versus improper influence.

tlamponi 2y ago

Well, if that pro-NATO, pro-EU guy declared having spent no money on their campaign while their Face being plastered all over the place and other proof that someone spent money on a campaign for that person, and there's a law that spending and sources of money for elections must be made transparent then the election should be 100% nullified, just like here. Feelings are one thing, but breaking laws like here cannot just be brushed of as some people having hurt their feelings. What I do not really understand is why this hasn't been handled before the election, i.e., why was the candidate with seemingly zero monetary transparency even allowed to be on a ballot?

Al-Khwarizmi 2y ago
There is a lot of middle ground between "brushing it off" and cancelling a whole election and throwing the choice of millions of voters to the trash. In Spain there are violations of campaign laws all the time (and I'm talking by major traditional parties) and they are investigated, but typically the outcome is a fine, or maybe some jail time in severe cases, not invalidating a whole nation-wide election. And I suppose it's the same elsewhere because otherwise we would see news of invalidating elections left and right. Shady campaign financing is not exactly uncommon across the world.
- egeozcan 2y ago
  > There is a lot of middle ground between "brushing it off" and cancelling a whole election and throwing the choice of millions of voters to the trash. If elections are rigged, the results cannot be accepted under any circumstances. Using shady, undeclared capital in elections amounts to cheating and invites outside influence. This is a serious issue because we entrust the governance of nations to those elected by the people. Democracy only functions if the outcomes cannot be bought. While no system is ever 100% immune to corruption, blatant disregard for election laws cannot be taken lightly. If irregularities occur, people can vote again. Yes, redoing elections costs time and money, but if voters still choose the same leaders after understanding how they gained power, then that's democracy in action. For me, the line is very clear because I've seen it blurred so many times in Turkey, where I come from, and I’ve witnessed the devastating consequences.

andrepd 2y ago

> The US would be leading the charge with sanctions against Hungary if not outright "regime change", and the EU would likely even begin working on motions to remove them from the EU. It's fucking hilarious that this is your argument when in fact blocking opposition candidates and stacking courts and centralising powers and receiving shady money and prosecuting freedom of speech is precisely what Orban has been doing for the past 15+ years, with the EU doing exactly... fuck all about it.

soco 2y ago
It's like the EU can't win here: if they do something some scream bloody murder interference. If they don't do anything, it's again damn bureaucrats siting on their asses. And it's not always different people holding those different attitudes.

zmgsabst 2y ago

To concur, the US and EU are screaming they’re required to report their foreign influence in Georgia — the same as FARA in the US. They deployed their NGOs to influence and led riots in the streets to block transparency about foreign funding. [0] While at the same time in the US prosecuting a media company for not reporting foreign money. [1] “Rules Based Order” is anything but based on equally applied rules. [0] - https://www.hrw.org/news/2024/05/09/georgia-foreign-influence-bill-threatens-rights https://www.hrw.org/news/2024/05/09/georgia-foreign-influenc... [1] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2024_Tenet_Media_investigation https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2024_Tenet_Media_investigation

preisschild 2y ago
> the same as FARA in the US. WRONG https://civil.ge/archives/591175 https://civil.ge/archives/591175

lm28469 2y ago

I really like how you start from an hypothetical scenario, then extrapolate even more ridiculous hypothetical scenarios to make it sound outrageous... Of course if you can prove someone cheated an election it should be scrutinized no matter the side. What even is your point here? That we shouldn't care because you imagine that your political enemies would do the same thing? What kind of argument is that > is precisely why anti-establishment candidates are winning everywhere. Anti establishment? Like Trump, Orban, Miley, Fico, Meloni? Lmao the only people saying they're anti establishment are themselves and their propaganda, as soon as they're in place they're very happy to milk the establishment and serve their own interests I'm the first to criticize the EU but if the only way out is through Russian puppets I'd rather stay in until we find a better solution.

chpatrick 2y ago

Hungarian state propaganda is already painting the pro-EU pro-NATO guy (Péter Magyar) as an agent of Brussels so don't speak too soon.

markvdb 2y ago

I don't claim to know all about this situation, but I do discern a recurring pattern that many IT professionals don't (want to?) realise: Information technology is giving all kinds of actors leverage to exploit our human brain's fundamental shortcomings. In this case, it's a fscking nazi sympathiser jumping to the fore of a presidential election from nothing. Remarkable and ironic to me, these actors weaponise the powers of technology while often spitting at the scientific method underpinning them.

lenkite 2y ago
> In this case, it's a fscking nazi sympathiser jumping to the fore of a presidential election from nothing. Why do you call him "a fscking nazi sympathiser" ?
- preisschild 2y ago
  The russian govt are basically the nazis of the 21st century. And hes a sympathizer to them. Hence: Nazi sympathiser.
  - aguaviva 2y ago
    This equation is just wrong, as applies to both Putin and Orbán. And (ironically) simply convinces people that those who are concerned about Putin's arguably fascist (as opposed to actual Nazi) inclinations are just hyperventilating and overreacting. Thus, promoting his (and Orbán)'s longevity.
    - Woeps 2y ago
      > This equation is just wrong, as applies to both Putin and Orbán Why is this wrong?
      - aguaviva 2y ago
        Because Putin isn't a Nazi. He's something new.