AI videos fuel rhetoric as Orbán bids for four more years in Hungary

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Reha Kansaraand

Rita Pálfi,Global Disinformation Unit

Fidesz/Hungary

The controversial AI-generated video depicts a girl waiting at a window for her father to return from war

Warning: This piece refers to scenes of violence from the start

When a video went viral appearing to show a Hungarian soldier’s execution, its disturbing nature came as a shock to anyone who saw it.

Ahead of pivotal Hungarian elections on Sunday 12 April, the AI-generated, fake clip was posted on the social media accounts of Prime Minister Viktor Orbán’s Fidesz party in February.

It tells the story of a young girl at a window yearning for her father’s return home from war, and then the video cuts to him - blindfolded, bound by the hands, and then shot by his captors.

The video targeted Orbán’s election rival, Péter Magyar, who could unseat him after 16 years in office.

The Fidesz campaign has made unsubstantiated claims about the war in Ukraine and Magyar’s intentions, at times using AI-generated videos like this, even though it makes clear the video is fake.

“The video is an AI video, but the war is really horrible,” the video says. “Péter Magyar doesn’t want you to see this video. He doesn’t want you to see what an irreversible tragedy it is to join a war.”

Fidesz alleges that Magyar, from the centre-right party Tisza, will bring Russia’s war against Ukraine to its doorstep if elected, even using pension money to support Ukraine and imposing forced conscription.

Reuters

Péter Magyar’s Tisza leads the election race, according to most opinion polls

Such narratives have been widely rejected by Magyar and by his party Tisza. In its manifesto, it pledges it will not send troops to Ukraine and does not plan to revive conscription.

We asked ruling party Fidesz whether it had made the AI execution video and why it had posted it on to its social media channels, but the party has not responded to our questions.

In an interview with a journalist posted to Facebook, Támas Menczer, who is communications director of the Fidesz-KNDP alliance, responded to a question about the AI video saying he believed “the greatest possible danger is that Hungarian people could die if Tisza wins, because Tisza supports the war, Tisza supports sending money”.

However, he did not comment on the video being made with AI.

Magyar has condemned the video stating that Fidesz “crossed all limits”, and called the video “heartless manipulation”.

Zsófia Fülöp, a journalist at Hungary’s only dedicated independent fact-checking website, Lakmusz, says while such narratives from the ruling party are not new, the use of generative AI is.

“It is omnipresent in this campaign, especially in the communication of the ruling party and its media and proxies. They’ve used it before but now it’s massive.”

The strategy does not appear to have had much of an impact on voters, with Magyar leading in most opinion polls.

NEM/Hungary

Another AI-generated video depicts European Commission chief Ursula von der Leyen

Social media posts by Fidesz’s allies have parroted similar anti-Ukrainian narratives.

Last month the National Resistance Movement (NEM) - a pro-Fidesz political activist group - shared a video made using AI that depicts a phone call between European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen and Péter Magyar discussing sending money to Ukraine.

It was viewed more than 3.7 million times.

“When the phone rings and a request comes, then he won’t be able to say no,” the accompanying caption read. NEM did not disclose the video had been made using AI.

Magyar called it out as fake, but the video had already been shared widely by pro-government media as well as Fidesz politicians, including the prime minister. In his post, Orbán stated that the video had been AI-generated but warned it could become a reality.

We asked NEM why they had posted the AI video and whether they had made it, but they did not comment.

More about Hungary’s election

After 16 years in power, can Viktor Orban finally be unseated?

Peter Magyar, the former Orban ally vying for power in Hungary

War in Ukraine spills into Hungarian election campaign

“We’re in a state of hallucination,” says Éva Bognár, a researcher at the Central European University’s Democracy Institute. “In a way the whole campaign is a disinformation campaign because it’s all based on a complete false narrative that we’re on the brink of war.”

In another instance a few weeks ago, Hungary’s anti-terrorism police arrested seven Ukrainian bank workers who were transiting through with $80m (£60m) worth of cash and 9kg (20lb) of gold in cash-transport vehicles to Ukraine.

Ukrainian Foreign Minister Andriy Sybiha accused the Hungarian government of taking the group hostage and stealing money.

Ukraine’s state savings bank, Oschadbank, said they had a valid licence and that it was a routine journey between Austria and Ukraine.

But the Hungarian government alleged that money laundering was taking place and suggested it might be to “finance pro-Ukraine forces”.

Ukrainian bank workers released after detention in Hungary

Although the Ukrainian bank workers have been released without charges, authorities are yet to return the money and gold.

On Facebook, pro-government outlets used AI images to report on the arrests. One pro-government outlet uploaded hyper-realistic images of the arrest, reporting the images as fact.

When compared with images and videos of the event posted on the Hungarian government’s official Facebook page, they are wildly different. Inaccuracies can be seen in the uniforms of the officers as well as the clothes of the Ukrainian individuals.

Facebook’s third party fact-checking service has labelled the post as “partly false”.

Facebook

One pro-government outlet used AI-generated fake images of Ukrainians being arrested

Hungary had better relations with Ukraine in the past, and even backed Ukraine’s bid to join the EU until late 2023, but relations deteriorated as Orbán maintained close ties to Russia’s Vladimir Putin.

One survey by research institute Policy Solutions suggests the level of anti-Ukrainian feeling in Hungary is barely lower than anti-Russian sentiment, with 64% of Hungarians holding a negative opinion of Ukraine’s Volodymyr Zelensky, and 67% disliking Putin.

“One side holds all the cards,” says researcher Éva Bognár. “Fidesz has infinite resources at its disposal: from public funds, state agencies and offices to a media conglomerate that operates as a propaganda machine, including the public service media.”

Magyar is partly cutting through the fraught media landscape using social media.

Reuters

Prime Minister Viktor Orbán has been in office for the past 16 years

According to 20k, a Hungarian election integrity watchdog tracking the social media activity of political actors during the election, Magyar’s posts on Facebook, TikTok, and Instagram receive twice the level of engagement of Orbán’s.

Magyar posts a mixture of professional content and images portraying himself as a younger and more relatable leader, showing him partying, playing volleyball, flipping burgers at a restaurant, and enjoying water sports.

But the Tisza leader has also engaged in milder forms of misleading rhetoric, including inaccuracies about the number of Hungarian babies born outside of the country in an attempt to evoke a sense of missing national pride.

He has even played the ruling party at their own game, alleging that it is Fidesz, not Tisza, that wants to reintroduce compulsory military service.

Apart from it being briefly mentioned by two Fidesz politicians in 2016, we found no evidence that the party wants to revive compulsory military service.

Péter Krekó, who heads independent political research institute Political Capital, says Magyar has also been able to “exploit… strong public resentment” towards the government.

Much of that is being driven by people between the ages of 18 and 40.

A survey by the Median agency suggests that support for Tisza remains strongest amongst those under 40, while nearly half of people over 65 support Fidesz.

Despite this, Fidesz clings to its anti-Ukrainian narrative, in both traditional media and online, with posters showing Zelensky and Magyar together under the warning “They are dangerous!”

If Fidesz wins, we will see the same disinformation tactics being used beyond the election, says Krekó. But if it doesn’t win, there will be a “more tumultuous relationship between the media and politicians”.

War in Ukraine

Ukraine

Hungary