Fake TikTok accounts are impersonating hungarian opposition MEPs

Someone is producing a series of fake social media profiles of Hungarian opposition MEPs, and is using them to attribute false statements to the politicians. One such fake account has been cited as real by pro-Fidesz media. The leading opposition party TISZA suspects that the so-called „Fight Club”, a group of social media activists recently formed by PM Viktor Orbán is behind the action. Átlátszó’s research suggests that the disinformation campaign may be linked to the publicly funded government propaganda network based in Pécs.

If we search for the names of the opposition TISZA Party’s MEPs on TikTok, the app yields a series of similar results: profiles with the names and photos of the MEPs, with a handful of simple videos with short political messages, and 1000 to 2000 followers. At first glance, they look like typical, basic politicians’ social media profiles, but in reality they are not controlled by the MEP whose name they are using.

Following Átlátszó’s inquiry, TISZA Party EP faction shared a list of its MEP’s official social media accounts, confirming that the TikTok accounts were created as a part of a disinformation campaign.

Divide and conquer

This is further evidenced by the accounts’ latest content. After generic posts promoting TISZA and repeating the party’s slogans, the accounts started posting, in unison, messages in support of the LGBTQ Pride march, a recent target of the Orbán government’s restrictive measures.

Some context: one of the main tricks in Orbán’s political playbook was centering public discourse around a few divisive, often identity-based issues, then simplifying it as a binary choice.

This is often done through provocative statements and attacks on vulnarable groups that his core voters applaud and liberal-minded opposition figures are compelled to protest, thus walking into a trap. This was first used during the 2015-16 migration crisis, where government propaganda painted all opposition to Orbán’s policies as being driven by „pro-migration” (and by extension, pro-terrorism, pro-crime, pro-population replacement) agenda. Later, during the pandemic, criticism of the government’s measures was painted as „anti-vaccination”, and since the Ukraine war, the binary became „pro-peace” vs. „pro-war.”

Videos on the account set up for MEP Zoltán Tarr (source: TikTok)

Apart from identity politics, centering discourse around this tactic serves another purpose: it distracts voters from the poor state of the Hungarian economy, the deterioration of public services, and the cost of living crisis caused by low wages and high inflation.

Enter Péter Magyar and his new TISZA Party: as a former Fidesz official, Magyar openly states that he refuses to play this game, calling identity politics a distraction, and focuses his campaign exclusively on the cost of living crisis and the government’s many corruption scandals.

After TISZA party’s gains in the polls, Orbán took his strategy of division to a new level with an attack on LGBTQ people, culminating in the ban of the Budapest Pride march. Like before, the measure is presented as a move to protect children, thus the issue is simplified as „you are either on the side of children or the LGBTQ movement who would corrupt them.”

At the same time, government officials and pro-Orbán media tried to put pressure on Magyar and his party to take a side in the „debate” about Pride.

As they see, if TISZA refuses to protest the measure, it will create bad blood with some of their liberal constituents. If they protest it, they can be smeared as „woke radicals coming for our children”.

Or, if they are not speaking up in support of the Pride march, let’s pretend they are

– which is where fake TikTok accounts come into the picture.

The fanpage loophole

TikTok’s terms of service (and Hungarian law) prohibit impersonation of public figures or private individuals. However it does not prohibit the creation of a “fan” page, where you can repost content from your favorite celebrity – or politician. This loophole is exploited by the operators of the fake MEP profiles, who use the word “fan” or „fans” in the url, so in a possible proceeding they can claim that they are not trying to impersonate anyone.

However, the content and format is clearly meant to give the impression that the sites are not run by the MEPs themselves, not enthusiastic fans. The accounts’ descriptions are nothing but names of the MEPs. Comments also suggest that most users think that these accounts are official.

We contacted TikTok’s press department about the matter, asking how much the misleading pages disguised as fan accounts comply with the user terms and conditions, but we had not received a reply from the platform by the time of publication of our article.

Not an isolated incident

This is not the first time TISZA Party was targeted with fake social media accounts. Pro-government accounts on Facebook circulate a fake quote attributed to MEP and former doctor András Kulja, promising to fight for „state-funded sex-change operations”.

Pro-government news portals also quoted a fake Facebook page, attributing it to the TISZA chapter in the town of Pécs, Southern Hungary. Earlier this March, an EP proposal came out, urging for more military support for Ukraine. TISZA Party avoids statements about Ukraine, not giving Fidesz the opening to use the „pro-war” smear again. However, Péter Magyar’s name was included in a version of the proposal as a signatory, and was quickly pounced by pro-government media – if this was a mistake or deliberate fraud is still unclear.

Soon after the incident, a Facebook page using the TISZA Party logo and the name „Tisztelet és Szabadság Párt Pécs” published the following post next to an AI-generated image: “Péter Magyar once again courageously stood up for Ukraine when he proposed further armed and financial support for the freedom fighting country in Brussels! Thank you, Peter!”

A few days later the pro-government news site Mandiner (affiliated with the state-funded Matthias Corvinus Collegium), and members of the Megafon social media influencer network, reported this post as an official statement by the Pécs chapter of the party.

In reality, not only the page has nothing to do with TISZA, but the party also has no traditional chapters: its national network is made up of so-called „islands”, largely autonomous networks of activists loosely tied to the party leadership.

Pro-Orbán troll factory

In a statement issued by the TISZA EP Group, they said that they suspect the online propaganda „army” nicknamed „Fight Club”, created by Fidesz, of being behind the phenomenon. “Not only does it seek to control the information space, but it also tries to amplify propaganda lies on social media with targeted smear campaigns and to make it impossible for opposition opinions to spread.

According to press reports, the club’s members are being specifically “prepared for war in the online space”,

and their “task-based mobilisation” has already begun. The often genuinely upsetting posts published by fake profiles are almost immediately shared, disseminated, and commented on by this army, thereby amplifying the reach of the fake content.”

Átlátszó could not verify the connection between the fake accounts and this „Fight Club”, however, we found ties leading to a well-known propaganda network based in Pécs.

Origins in local political smear campaigns

In 2022, we wrote about a wave of newly created online media campaigning for Fidesz candidates in Pécs running for election that year. Behind these, we found a network of NGOs linked to the local Fidesz party, which recieved generous funding from the government, particularly through the Municipal Civil Fund (VCA). Using this funding meant to help local civic society, they published magazines amplifying the campaigns of pro-government candidates.

According to László Bogos, a journalist from Pécs, the same network „bought up” the Facebook page named „Otthonom Pécs” (My home Péce). Until the beginning of 2022, this page only posted about local sights and leisure activities, but then suddenly switched to exclusively political content, publishing posts discrediting the opposition in Pécs.

Two years later, during the 2024 local election campaign, another page called Pécsi Sztorik (Stories from Pécs) was launched, which posted professionally produced videos attacking the opposition administration of Pécs. The videos featured Márk Móna, a member of the Fidesz youth wing Fidelitas. Móna also worked for the pro-government HírTV, and later became a staff member of Mandiner, the site which quoted the fake Pécs TISZA page as real.

The videos of Pécsi Sztorik were also regularly published on the Otthonom Pécs site at exactly the same time, with the same accompanying text, which indicates that the two sites were run by the same people.

Video published on the Pécs Sztorik and Otthonom Pécs pages at the same time

The Otthonom Pécs page also presents content from the fake TISZA Facebook page as real. It should also be noted that the two almost always post on the same days, usually less than an hour apart.

Both pages also reposted the videos of the fake TikTok accounts, again, in very short intervals.

This is significant because so far the fake videos have not been reposted outside of TikTok, meaning that the two Pécs-based pages were the first to „notice” them outside the platform.