Recordings manipulated by AI?
Having heard of an operation against him, Péter Magyar tried to clear the bomb which was about to explode, by urgently calling a press conference. “The one-party Orbán mafia has planned an unprecedented discredit campaign, which will include a mix of video and audio recordings obtained through illegal means, audio recordings purchased from Evelin Vogel [son ex-petite amie]and fake products by artificial intelligence“, he said. Péter Magyar also accused the government of having wiretapped his office and his vehicle, hacked his phone and invested in an artificial intelligence tool to produce “deepfakes”.
But in the absence of evidence of “Hungarian Watergate” that he denounces, even the independent media treat the affair as the revenge of a girlfriend, certainly exploited by those in power. The recordings received by the press seem to have been made clandestinely by Evelin Vogel, who would have tried to extort the equivalent of €75,000 to the Tisza party founded by Peter Magyar before finding a buyer elsewhere. The person concerned today resides in a luxurious apartment near the Parliament which belongs to a businessman long linked to Gábor Kubatov. , the boss of Fidesz The latter also employs Judit Varga, the ex-wife of Péter Magyar and former Minister of Justice.
Péter Magyar defends himself by asserting that the remarks attributed to him were manipulated – which is entirely possible – and criticizes the media for reporting them, playing into the hands of the government which wishes, according to, “distract from issues like poverty, the economy, and health“.
Hungarian democracy in bad shape
The government spokesperson responded to Péter Magyar’s allegations by assuring that “the government had never used the secret services to discredit political opponents“But nothing encourages confidence in a country where the governing party has almost merged with the state and where the secret services have been concentrated in the hands of Antal Rogán, a faithful among the faithful of Viktor Orbán. It is also proven that, in the recent past, the executive has used spyware Pegasus to carry out illegal surveillance of journalists and opponents; as it is likely that he is behind the traps set by the Israeli security company BlackCube to Hungarian NGOs.
Viktor Orbán’s citadel is taking on water
It is not certain that these attacks can shake up public opinion, in a relatively polarized society which does not believe anything that comes from the opposite camp. Are these recordings manipulated? Is Péter Magyar the cynical and violent man portrayed by the ruling media? Who is right about the pro and anti-government polling institutes which give diametrically opposed results? No one knows who to believe anymore, the line between truth and lies is blurring, and the poison continues to be instilled into an already damaged democratic life. The campaign which is already beginning will undoubtedly have many other surprises in store between now and the legislative elections in a year and a half.
