Gábor Vona, leader of the Second Reform Age Party has turned to the President of the NMHH regarding an AI-generated war-themed video published on Facebook. The party leader asked the head of the Authority for an opinion on the challenged content.

In his reply András Koltay stressed that “the NMHH operates in accordance with the applicable legislation in force. Consequently, it can only deal with matters over which its jurisdiction can be established. This is not a matter of choice for the Authority but a statutory obligation.”

The NMHH President said: “The NMHH and its Media Council may only examine contents published in press products and media services (television, radio and their online equivalents), i.e. contents published on social media are not included.” András Koltay pointed out that the NMHH has no jurisdiction over the video mentioned by Gábor Vona. “It would therefore be a violation of the law for the Authority to give an opinion on matters outside its jurisdiction, outside the scope of an official procedure,” he added. The head of the media authority recalled that last week the Authority had already stated the above responding to several media outlets that made an enquiry to the same effect.

András Koltay also pointed out that “there are legal regulations (at EU level) concerning social media, but these do not cover content monitoring the way it is applied to traditional media. Following from these regulations, the NMHH can only take action against service providers established in Hungary. However, no social media site is currently under Hungarian jurisdiction.”

With regard to the video on Facebook challenged by the party chairman, the president of the media authority stressed that “the NMHH has no power to act in this regard, as the service in question is operated by Meta, which is based in Ireland.” András Koltay highlighted that “the regulation does not apply to the direct supervision of content posted by users anyway. Regardless, content that is deemed illegal or otherwise harmful may be reported by any user through the social media site’s dedicated interface, and Facebook may decide to moderate or leave the content intact following the report.”