Seems that lots of people on the “anti-Fascist” left are cheering reports that the hacker group known as “Anonymous” just hit a bunch of neo-Nazi or otherwise hard-right Hungarian-language websites. I can certainly share the disgust that people may have with some of these sites, and in the past this site has helped ferret out such nastiness. But is actual cyber-warfare really where people want to start taking things?
For one thing, the left has been spending the better part of two years loudly complaining about the threat of censorship in Hungary, and you can’t complain about a lack of free expression while applauding an attack on someone else’s expression, even if it is patently offensive to the great majority. Second, what happens if the hard right decides to join battle, and starts hacking the sites that they find offensive? Will the victims file complaints with the same government they accuse of being an enemy of free speech? Everyone seems fond of saying that it’s 1938 again in Hungary, but in terms of Hungarian cyberspace, all this makes it feel more like August 1914. Seems like time for a preemptive cease-fire.
