“They should be here with us” and “let’s not let these groups suffer the fate of the civil society” – these and similar messages are now encountered by the protagonist of our article, Károly, who became a digital citizen last summer. He applied to several Digital Civic Circles (DPK) and joined their Facebook groups as a silent observer. A week and a half after the election, it seems that Fidesz has left these communities that were previously held in high esteem and flooded with dozens of posts and tasks. Disappearing politicians, fear and confusion in Digital Civic Circles left alone by defeat.
Zsófi Szabó said that
“Károly infiltrated the digital citizen circles of the Orbáns and watched the first month of the digital conquest” – we wrote it at the end of August last year The story of our Károly, who looked at Fidesz’s innovation, which was considered one of the important tools on the way to electoral victory. The saying then was that the opponent (read: Tisza) is strong in the digital space, they attack the community with laughing heads and funny comments, so now is the time to organize and fight back.
When announcing the DPKs, Viktor Orbán set quite a few expectations. Tusványoso said that they need to do something about the digital space, which according to him is dominated by trolling, and therefore their community needs to be reorganized according to the new world: a culture of patriotism must be created against trolling. “The leftists, the globalists, the pro-war people are already running amok in the digital space. We also need a digital conquest,” Orbán set the goal.
Until election day, Károly really felt that he was not alone. Even on the day of the election, April 12, at 17:05, he received an email from the presenter Zsófi Szabó, who had previously posted the same message in the first DPK:
“It’s not too late to start.”
This Facebook group, or DPK, was founded directly by the outgoing Prime Minister last July and has become one of the largest such communities. It is among the members Erika Miklósa and Dopeman too.
On the day of the election, the posts from the leading faces of Fidesz were still spinning nicely: they started with Gábor Reviczky’s video, Viktor Orbán himself said that “the stakes are huge: war or peace”; Balázs Orbán asked the Károlys to comment on the post of prime minister, but Péter Szijjártó and Alexandra Szentkirályi also wrote. The today Rákay Philip from NAV and he called out like this: “EVERYONE POST ON YOUR OWN MESSAGE WALL! Write that you have already voted for Fidesz and encourage others to do the same.”
Anyway, there was no shortage of messages and exhortations in the days and even months before the election, and Károly had fun reading them. Simple DPK members joked about the energy program of the Tisza (a man frozen to the ice bar wrote “it works”), vented about the “aggressiveness” experienced in the field of Heroes and they also contemplated separation from Russian energy. Meanwhile, Alexandra Szentkirályi encouraged the more than 115,000 members to share Viktor Orbán’s post on About 1 million handshakesbecause “1 MESSENGER MESSAGE = 1 HANDSHAKE”. Szentkirályi went further. He also gave advice to those who “want to do everything for the success of the ‘national site’. Write to at least 10 of your friends on Facebook and tell them what is at stake in the election, convince them.”
You have to press the choice
Meanwhile, the administrator Digital Civic Circle flooded Károly and the group non-stop with videos in which athletes such as Balázs Baji and Réka Rubint, or even singers and presenters such as Zsófi Szabó, Heni Dér and Attila Pataky shared why they vote for Fidesz on Sunday. In addition to the invitation to share, comment and chat, one thing was highlighted in every post and video in the number one Digital Civic Circle:
Péter Magyar and Brussels want war, and the stakes of the election are, in short, war or peace.
The question of energy security was also raised, and the fear of abolishing the utility bill. Károly watched in amazement when Viktor Orbán’s right-hand man, State Secretary János Nagy, wrote such Turkish Stream understands “sabotage action”that “the situation that has developed is extremely serious: the supply of Hungarian families and the Hungarian economy is also at risk”. It was also argued that in this uncertain period, the country needs the “safe hand” of Fidesz, which has been governing for 16 years, and not Péter Magyar and Tisza.
Among these posts, sometimes Zsófi Szabó asked that the members talk about politics during the Easter holidays, and sometimes ordinary users asked what if they started liking the page of Híradó.hu, because there was an excess of laughing heads. In summary: Károly, as a simple DPK member, could feel that in this community the tasks are assigned, they are provided with a lot of encouraging content, but sometimes a little humor also fits in. Of course, everyone felt that the election should be pressed, because the fate of the country will be decided, i.e. there will be war or peace after April 12.
Károly was so enthusiastic that he joined not only DPK, but also the Warriors Club (HK), which was first anyway. Although Orbán justified the creation of the Digital Civil Circles by saying that “the fight is not for everyone”, Károly found it difficult to distinguish between the content of the two groups. By the end of the campaign, this club was only used to assign tasks to the digital warriors: comment, post, make a still video for the site, convince everyone!
There was so much unique content in the Warriors’ Club that a more personal message from the Prime Minister arrived every day. During the campaign, it also happened that the public of the country learned about some information from here. Orbán always ended these messages with the number of days left until the election and saying “Let’s fight for the truth! Let’s fight against lies.” In his last such message, on April 12, he wrote: Today we must defend Hungary!
Based on the prime minister’s words, Károly saw that the digital citizens did what the homeland required – or at least what Fidesz certainly did. Viktor Orbán at their campaign finale he encouraged everyone with thatthat more than half a year ago – when these communities were created – they were the majority, but they were silent.
“Their community was not used to being attacked in the digital space, the laughing heads being sent at them. Our task was to be the vocal majority, and today we are the vocal majority”
encouraged the Prime Minister. Admitting publicly that it bothered them more than anything that there were many critical and deplorable comments under their posts, and the number of “laughing heads” on the posts increased.
The tellers disappeared without a trace
On the evening of April 12, Károly received devastating news. After 16 years, Fidesz-KDNP did not regain the trust of the voters, and even the Tisza Party won by two-thirds. “The days ahead are about healing the wounds, but then the work will start again and I count on all of you for this,” Orbán told the community after the defeat. Then, after wishing “evenings more beautiful than today”, he said goodbye.
In the single DPK, Károly experienced great silence after the results were announced. The dozens of politicians and pro-government commentators who posted dozens a few hours ago have disappeared without a trace. They didn’t even leave behind a single encouraging post, such as “now there’s a bit of silence, but then we’ll continue with renewed strength”. On April 13, while the victory of the Tisza was being celebrated in the streets across the country, after midnight, the number one DPK received only a handshake from Tamás Menczer: “It’s not over. Don’t be afraid! We’re here. We’re always here. With you.”
Then, after waiting in vain for the applications of politicians, Fidesz spokesmen and administrators, what remained were individual initiatives. The bewildered, outraged and, of course, disappointed posts came from ordinary members. Several people wrote that they expect horrors, they are worried about their families and their existence, while others explained that now is the time to really come together.
And many people described that they are really afraid, terrified of what is coming next. What will happen if Viktor Orbán is not the prime minister of the country?
And there were indeed several people who asked that public figures, leading Fidesz politicians and administrators not stop posting. “Stay here with us,” one of them asked. “After this humiliating electoral defeat, the great DPK groups of selfless patriots must not suffer the same fate as the bourgeois circles back then,” wrote another member.
The requests and suggestions from the bewildered community, in many cases even afraid of war, are in vain. For the time being, Károly finds that in the group with 115,000 members, where until April 12 posts were received every hour from the leading faces of Fidesz, now at most 3-4 posts per day appear from ordinary members who are trying to provide some kind of comfort or even interpret the results.
Zsófi Szabó and Philip Rákay at the anti-war rally of the Digital Civic Circles in the Messzi István Sports Hall in Kecskemét, December 6, 2025 – Photo: István Huszti / Telex
Neither Viktor Orbán, nor János Lázár, nor Péter Szijjártó, nor Alexandra Szentkirályi said anything to Károly and the community from which they expected a miracle in the election, and where tasks were assigned daily to sympathizers. The administrators shared Viktor Orbán’s two or three Facebook posts since the election and the only interview he gave since the election. Károly no longer receives daily messages in the Warriors Club either. Moreover, it currently seems that Viktor Orbán’s innovation, which was proudly announced a year ago with 61,000 members, has completely died since the election.
Stay with us here
Károly felt disillusioned and lonely. Searching for a message, he looked around in some other, smaller DPK, to see if he could find something there. After Péter Magyar was congratulated on April 12 in the Zebra DPK, which in principle fights against fake news, a few days later, although not as regularly, they continued where they left off: they “expose” one alleged fake news a day.
The only reason Károly found many posts in the anti-war DPK is because there is a very active member who forwards the posts of all the Fidesz politicians and influencers who speak. In addition, one of the founders of the DPK, the diplomatic head of the MCC, Rajmund Kiss, who recently He traveled to Moscow to tell the story from therewhat opportunities the Russian army offers.
“What’s the situation here now? It’s very quiet”
– a DPK member wrote to the Budapest community, where the Fidesz faction leader in the capital, Alexandra Szentkirályi, said late on the evening of April 12 that “we will never give up”. Apart from this, only four posts have been published so far, but these are also the posts shared by Viktor Orbán or the messages of one or two enthusiastic members. Károly saw that even in the DPK, which has more than 6,000 members, life has stopped since the election. Here, it only ran until the cover image encouraging voting was replaced. There is a similar silence in the DPK, which in principle deals with economic topics, Economic Affairs.
Károly’s post-election uncertainty and feeling of isolation are not helped by the fact that several politicians he followed deleted themselves or disappeared from Facebook. However, they posted up to 10 times a day until April 12.
Károly then received another email on the evening of April 21, Tuesday, which had not happened since Zsófi Szabó’s message on April 12. Philip Rákay wrote to him and asked him to support the petition, in which the president of the Republic Tamás Sulyok, who was called on by Péter Magyar to leave, is encouraged to persevere. That’s it. That’s it for now.
