'We stand up for Viktor Orbán', 'Crying Liberals', 'Boycott the Liberal Media" – only a few examples from the diversity of Facebook pages that flooded the feeds with trashy internet memes adoring PM Viktor Orbán and smashing opposition politicians in the run-up to the 2018 general elections in Hungary. In the eye of their 10 thousand followers, they could pass as the output of zealous civilians, but in fact

posts on these pages were created for money, following pro-government guidelines.

Our source (in the article, we refer to him as Dániel) knows this for certain as he was one of the people trusted to create content for these sites for 15 thousand Forints per month (around 50 euros at the time).

A journalist at 888.hu recruited him (888 was a pro-government portal that promoted itself as the "opposition of Soros" and aimed to reach the young). Dániel got into the inner circles after he proved with a viral meme: he understood internet culture and could even sell political messages with it.

"There is a dam, on the water retained by the dam is written 'billions of migrants', on the dam 'Viktor Orbán', on the cracks of the dam 'György Soros' and on the field in front of the dam 'the world' – this meme guaranteed Dániel an entry to the world of pro-government meme makers.

He talked about his former job after five years, having gained some critical distance. Now he is estranged from his former employees, moved to Budapest, and changed his political views (maybe now for good). However, we masked his face and altered his voice in the interview at his request.

Dániel's story sheds light only on one personal segment of the pro-government Facebook universe. Still, it might contribute to understanding who, how, and for what reasons operate in the digital public sphere. The public already gained some insight into this world thanks to whistleblowers. For example, a former "Facebook warrior" of Fidesz shared his insider views with 444.hu on the highly organized virtual network that managed smear campaigns from the party's headquarters. In this hierarchical system, local party members and volunteers performed closely controlled tasks out of enthusiasm and loyalty, using an in-house task management system. They posted content on grassroots-looking Facebook pages as part of an all-out astroturf campaign.

From the summer of 2017, Dániel performed a similar job in a more informal setting that gratified personal inputs and creativity for almost one year. As a content creator, he influenced public discourse by following loose guidelines from a pro-government media outlet.

Since founding the Megafon Centre in 2020 (financing pro-government social media personalities), the social media strategy of Fidesz has stepped up to the next level. Now digital influencers boosted by billions of tax-payers money populate social media feeds, and the media landscape also underwent some changes (888.hu, for instance, ceased to exist as an independent brand, and many Facebook pages mentioned in the interview are unavailable today). Still, parallel to the world of political opinion leaders, deceptive accounts (even within Megafon) are out there to influence unsuspecting users.

Cover image: Bence Kiss