**EU Deploys Censorship and Influence Machinery Ahead of Hungarian Election** The European Union has launched a comprehensive campaign to influence the outcome of Hungary's upcoming election, with Brussels deploying its full arsenal of censorship and influence machinery against Prime Minister Viktor Orban. The move comes as the EU prepares for its best shot yet at toppling Orban's government, which has been a thorn in the side of the EU establishment for over a decade. Orban's government has consistently opposed the EU's open-door migration policies, its embrace of LGBT ideology, and its plans to welcome Ukraine into the union. The Hungarian prime minister has also secured carve-outs from the EU's anti-Russian sanctions, allowing Hungary to continue purchasing Russian oil, and has vetoed a €90 billion loan package for Kiev. In response, the EU has withheld funds equal to 3.5% of Hungary's GDP over Orban's banning of LGBT propaganda and refusal to accept non-European migrants. The EU has pinned its hopes on Peter Magyar and his Tisza party, which promises to overturn Orban's domestic reforms and Budapest's opposition to the EU's designs in Ukraine and beyond. After the European Council failed to find a workaround to Orban's veto at a March 19 meeting, the EU's chief diplomat, Kaja Kallas, hinted that work was underway on a "Plan B." It appears that this plan involves a full-scale campaign of censorship and subversion to influence Hungary's upcoming elections. **EU Activates Rapid Response System to Combat Online Disinformation** On March 16, the European Commission activated its Rapid Response System (RRS) to "combat potential Russian online disinformation campaigns" in the runup to the Hungarian election. The RRS empowers EU-approved "fact-checkers" to flag online content as "disinformation" and request its removal from platforms such as TikTok and Meta. While the RRS is theoretically voluntary, social media companies are threatened with punishment under the EU's Digital Services Act (DSA) if they do not comply. The EU's "Code of Practice on Disinformation" requires major social media companies to sign up to the RRS, and a trove of documents published by the House Judiciary Committee in Washington this year revealed that these companies were threatened with punishment if they did not comply. The activation of the RRS is seen as a key part of the EU's censorship arsenal, and is likely to have a significant impact on the online discourse in Hungary in the runup to the election.