The Open Society Foundation, Rockefeller Foundation, and Biden administration are funding an “opposition media” organisation setting up an office in Hungary, reports have claimed.
Internews, an organisation that aims to support “independent media” in various countries, is said to be setting up a branch in Hungary using funding granted to it by the Biden administration.
With the group also receiving funding from Geroge Soros’s Open Society Foundation, the Rockefeller Foundation, and a variety of Silicon Valley tech giants, the reported plan for the new Internews office comes amid increasing tensions between Budapest and Washington D.C.
According to Hungarian outlet PestiSrácok, the “opposition media” organisation is setting up an office in Budapest with the support of the U.S. government.
Such a claim appears to be backed up by a number of job postings on Internews websites, which say that the group is now hiring “for a U.S. government-funded project” that is to be based out of the Hungarian capital.
In one posting, the project is described as aiming to champion “a strong independent media sector in Armenia, Georgia, Hungary, Poland, Romania, and Ukraine that is resistant to powerful interests seeking to manipulate, isolate, or control the press”.
The post notes Internews aimed to have their Hungarian Office set up by October 2022, though it is unclear as to whether or not the office has actually been put in place as of the time of publication.
While this most recent project is described as being funded by the U.S. government, Internews receives funding from George Soros’ Open Society Foundation, the Rockefeller Foundation, Rockefeller Brothers Fund, and Rockefeller Family & Associates.
Major Silicon Valley tech firms are also said to be funding the “independent media” organisation, with Google and Facebook both listed as donors to the group.
However, it appears to be the U.S. government funding that has caught the eye of a number of commentators, with multiple publications having interpreted the setting up of an Internews office in Budapest using funds from the Biden administration as another attempt by America to meddle in Hungarian affairs.
In particular, The European Conservative notes that the U.S. government had already attempted to back so-called “independent” media in the country back in 2017, though such plans were reportedly shut down by President Donald Trump’s government.
With Trump out of office, however, the U.S has returned to applying significant pressure to Hungary, with relations between Joe Biden’s Democrats and Viktor Orbán’s national conservative Fidesz party appearing to sour over the last year in particular.
Evidence of this comes in the form of the U.S. Embassy in Hungary posting a video to social media last month accusing senior Hungarian “government-funded” commentators of making “harsh anti-Western and anti-American statements.”
Consisting of speech bubbles with various quotes, with the viewer being asked whether such quotes can be attributed to Vladimir Putin or a Hungarian commentator.
With the entire production punctuated by strange trap-like music, the decision to post the video resembles recent so-called “Wolf Warrior” tactics employed by Xi Jinping’s China, which has used its embassies to lambast a number of Western governments using strange social media posts.
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