Sutaj Estok: Political Views Were Censored by Governments in 2022-23

Bratislava, 18 November (TASR) - Interior Minister and coalition Voice-SD leader Matus Sutaj Estok spoke at a press conference on Tuesday about censorship applied to certain views on social networks from 2022 to 2023, claiming that state and public institutions were misused by the governments at the time in order to manipulate public opinion, TASR reported on the same day. Sutaj Estok referred to an article published by the marker.sk website, according to which some institutions allegedly asked Meta to delete certain posts on its social network. "Representatives of the governments of [then prime ministers] Eduard Heger and Ludovit Odor asked online platforms such as Facebook to block or delete posts or even entire accounts that were inconvenient for them," he said, adding that the deletions concerned a specific range of posts, such as those criticising the then government or liberal views. Sutaj Estok said that state institutions, civil servants and public funds were misused for this purpose, pointing to the involvement of the Council for Media Services (RpMS) and the Centre for Combating Hybrid Threats, which falls under the Interior Ministry. The minister announced several measures to be proposed in this connection, including an audit at RpMS. He also wants to consider whether the Centre for Combating Hybrid Threats should be replaced by specialised units staffed with people who "respect the law and impartiality". "At government level, we'll also deal with the hybrid threats agenda being handled exclusively by people with the highest security clearances," he added. jrg/df