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Justice Minister: Tech giants should be transparent and respect the rule of law

Minister Varga said the tech giants are quoting community guidelines adopted arbitrarily and enforced onto their users.

Justice Minister Judit Varga said big technological companies should be transparent and respect the rule of law.

“If we are unable to control the activities of the tech giants that are building a pseudo legal system, they will rule our life and force us into a bubble”, the minister told an online discussion hosted by the 21st Century Institute.

Minister Varga said the tech giants are quoting community guidelines adopted arbitrarily and enforced onto their users. “It is also a question whether these guidelines are in tune with the principles of the rule of law,” she said.

The minister said that as someone with conservative views she had reservations about the community sites but felt obliged to use them as a platform for expressing her opinion seeing how active her liberal and left-wing opponents are.

The tech giants get everybody to be addicted to “this drug” so that they can then influence the public, she said. Minister Varga expressed concern over “Facebook’s move to reduce political content”, adding she was curious to see how the community site would simultaneously ensure equal treatment and the exclusion of double standards.