A newly launched Hungarian social media network claims it wants to create a censorship-free platform with one million users in a country of ten million people by the end of the year.

The new social media network, called Hundub, has so far attracted 40,000 subscribers after it launched for a Hungarian audience on December 6, 2020. It is seen as a similar form of Facebook, but has promised users to provide a censorship-free environment that goes beyond what is illegal under Hungarian law.

According to a report by the French newspaper La Croix, the network has some differences to Facebook, including a button that allegedly encourages users to post politically incorrect images on the platform.

Csaba Pàl, the network’s founder, said he was surprised at the platform’s rapid growth. However, some have criticized Hundub‘s launch; others have even claimed that Prime Minister Viktor Orbán is secretly behind the network, which the makers have denied.

The launch of the new social media company comes after members of Victor Orbán’s party, the conservative Fidesz, clashed with Facebook, including Justice Minister Judit Varga.

In December, Varga accused Facebook of tampering and altering its algorithms to reduce the number of interactions with its Facebook page. She also discussed the role of social media in the upcoming 2022 national elections.

“We see what is happening in the world, we see that the power groups behind the global tech companies can even make decisions. We must not be naive, we must be prepared for any eventuality and the operations and decisions of these global companies must be made transparent,’ she said.

While Hundub claims to be free of censorship, swastikas and the communist hammer-and-sickle symbol are both banned from the platform as she works under Hungarian law. The makers of the censorship-free social media network hope to gain one million users by the end of 2021, in a country with around ten million inhabitants.

Big tech censorship has been a big issue in the US, where many social media giants like Facebook, Twitter and Google are based.

In November, conservative political commentator Tucker Carlson stated that corporate censorship was a form of election rigging. ER cited a well-documented claim that Google suppressed stories about then-candidate Joe Biden from its search algorithm. Source