According to a recent report by the National Media and Infocommunications Authority (NMHH), Facebook and YouTube's moderation practices significantly impact Hungarian users' content. Automatic content filtering performed by algorithms is often opaque, and in many cases, it is unclear to users what rules form the basis for restrictions. The report highlights that increasing numbers of content removals, account suspensions, and shadow-banning practices are affecting the Hungarian community.
According to the report, 12.5% of Hungarian Facebook users over the past three years have had their posts deleted, whilst 3.3% have faced account suspension. On YouTube, moderation primarily occurs due to copyright infringements and content classified as disinformation. NMHH data shows that more than 60% of bans are based on the platforms' own regulations, which are automatically enforced by artificial intelligence. Users have only limited opportunities to appeal these decisions. Moderation decisions are predominantly made by artificial intelligence, which operates according to rules defined by the platforms. The NMHH report indicates that 63.8% of deleted content was posts that violated regulations. The system's operation is often not transparent, and users do not have access to detailed information about the background of moderation. The phenomenon of shadow banning—whereby users' content is inconspicuously suppressed—mainly affects political and news portals, whose reach has significantly decreased over the past two years.
The Digital Services Act (DSA), (EU) Regulation 2022/2065 aims to make moderation more transparent; however, according to the NMHH, the transparency of decisions and the limited availability of legal remedies continue to pose challenges for users. Whilst complaint-handling systems are automated, the report emphasises that platforms urgently need to introduce more transparent, verifiable mechanisms so that users do not remain defenceless in a system controlled by arbitrarily operating algorithms. If this does not occur, the issue of moderation could become not merely a technological problem but a fundamental legal and democratic one, which could threaten the freedom of online expression in the long term.
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