BlossomingAsp [none/use name]

No statements so far, every one of them is trying to suck up to the government as expected.

I think there is merit to this type of criticism, and it would be great to have a conversation about pinkwashing, and how movements like this fail to analyse deeper societal problems caused by capitalism and imperialism.

Sadly, we are back to square one, where I have to argue my right to exist. To hell with this system

To be honest, ameding the constitution with shit like this is an annual occurence at this point. They came into power in 2010, scrapped the old constitution almost immediately and came up with a new one that went into effect in 2011. I graduated high school in 2014, and as a “present” everybody received a hardcopy of it. It was a hardcover, printed on expensive paper, full of pictures. My school had to print out 2 pages on cheap printer paper, staple them together and put it inside, as the publisher didn’t even have the time to print out the latest edition with the new amendment. It is truly a joke

Hungary Banned Pride

While education and healthcare is in shambles, taking no action that would actually remedy the situation in the last 15 years, the Hungarian parliament proves, it can take swift action when their goal is restricting human rights.

Viktor Orbán, the PM of Hungary foreshadowed earlier this year, that the organizers of Budapest Pride should not waste time and money on this years event, as it is not going to happen.

Swiftly after this, the parliament voted on amending the constitution, to make it possible to restrict people’s right to assemble under the pretense of protecting children’s rights to “proper moral development”. They also added that Hungary only recognizes 2 genders, male and female, delivering another blow to LGBTQIA+ rights in addition to the amendment years ago, which made it unconstitutional for same sex couples to have a family, by declaring that the father is always male and the mother is always female.

In another step to make sure the country is on the right path to become a theocracy, they referred to the bible to ensure that the “order of Biblical creation” is respected when considering legislation.

The amendments of the contstitution did not take effect yet, despite this the parliament proposed a bill on 17/03/2025 to restrict people’s right to assembly, if an event would display or popularize same sex relations and trans identities. At almost record speed, the bill was voted on the next day. In addition to the ruling party, Fidesz, the far right wing Mi Hazánk, and right wing Jobbik, also voted in favor, amidst liberal politicians demonstrating against the bill, by playing the Russian anthem on speakers, distributing pictures of Orbán and Putin sharing a kiss, and causing chaos with smoke bombs.

That same evening on 18/03/2025, the bill was signed into law and went into effect the next day. There are only a few examples of Hungarian lawmakers doing their jobs in such a hurry, but it seems like causing suffering to marginalized people is such an important task that immediate action was necessary.

In previous elections, one of the opposition parties, Jobbik, who also supported the bill made alliances with other opposing parties that are liberal or moderately left wing. The sad reality of current Hungarian politics is that, while there are oppositin parties, that tend to the left, there is no real political challenger to the ruling parties conservative right wing ideologies.

The biggest opposition that Fidesz curently has is from Tisza, which is a party headed by Péter Magyar, who is a the ex-husband of the former Minister of Justice, Judit Varga, who resigned after a scandal involving the president granting pardon to a person aiding a convicted pedophile. He worked in positions tied to the government and in turn to Fidesz, before taking up the mantle of political activism after the aforementioned scandal.

While his party promises reforms, the end of corruption, closer ties with the EU and denouncing Russia, and restoration of human rights, he comes from the same ideological background az Fidesz politicians. More concerning is the fact that he does not take strong stances on more divisive matters, that would alienate his voters that he aims to Syphon from Fidesz, after absorbing nearly all voters of other opposing parties. For example, he only stated about the current legislation, that everybody’s right to assembly would be restored, while failing to recognize that this affects certain marginalized groups disproportionately, or to highlight that protection of LGBTQIA+ communities and other marginalized groups will be an important responsibility of our next government.

Hungary is a small country, with very limited influence on international politics, however analyzing the shift to the right and its consequences, might give important insights into what’s to come in other EU countries that have managed delay the complete takeover of their politics by the far right.

Please see below a proper article about the current legislation by one of the remaining independent media outlets of my country:

https://telex.hu/english/2025/03/19/hungarian-parliament-adopts-law-banning-pride

ADJ

Hiding behind the notion of leaving sexual education to the parents is the same old narrative that my country used to erase LGBTQ+ representation from media and ban sex ed from schools. Good job, Disney, you have the same morals as a right-wing dictator. Which is not surprising given the history of the brand.

At least they are consistent, Bobby boy said “he would quiet the noise” of the culture war back in 2023, so congrats, I guess?

To be honest, I’m not surprised and not disappointed, I just hope that more and more people realize that these companies are not our allies and never were. Under the veneer of being progressive their sole purpose is to make money for investors and they would throw anyone under the bus to make that happen. Today it’s trans people, tomorrow some other marginalized group. Business as usual.

I just started using it, and I would say it’s even snappier then G Maps. I was pretty skeptical at first, and it does have a few things I miss, like public transport live updates, but I can use the app of the local provider for that and in my experience G Maps can be quute inaccurate anyway. No way I’m going back now. You need some space to preload the maps though.

I work in customer services, and I do believe the whole thing is a joke, brought to life by the necessity to present accountability on part of the company and try to dodge it at the same time. We are literally paid to sit there and take it like a good soldier, explaining the same thing over and over, until the customer starts screaming down the line and calling us names. At this point I usually smirk, I can finally hang up.

At this point, my only role is literally to be a person that they can talk to, as I still can’t do anything most of the time. I can ask questions from other departments and gave the answer to the customer. I’m just a relay between the “experts” and the customer, there to take the flak when they feel dissatisfied.

The company I work for is a contractor for a car company. I don’t even have a license. I know nothing about cars. Some of my bosses don’t have a license. They know nothing about cars. I was lucky enough to be in a training session with one of them, and they asked the coach responsible for the training, what is a clutch. These are the kind of people that these companies put on the frontline to “help” you. I have to say some of us are trying our best, but obviously we won’t be using our free time to educate ourselves on this. We make minimum wage.

I believe it is the logical choice for these companies to just completely restrict customers from talking to anyone. If you talk to me on the phone for half an hour that costs like 20 bucks for the company. I’m not sure how much the tokens would cost if you handled the query by ChatGPT or something like that, but I guess you can’t even compare. Who cares if the model was trained on stolen content using slave labor, if I lose my livelyhood, or if you can’t talk to anyone? The company gave you an answer to your question now their job is done.

The truth is they don’t want to have customer services, it is just an uncomfortable complication that comes with having customers. But they do care about their brand image, so I recommend posting and complaining on their socials, you are much more likely to get a reply. At my job, if a customer posts on social they get a case opened and an agent assigned almost immediately. This is not going to work for the big tech companies obviously. Tesla might even sue you lol.

The takeaway is that companies are not your friends and the people you can talk to are not put there to help you even if they have good intentions. The people responsible for these practices are chilling on their private islands not giving a shit, or sitting in the offices where you will not get into, because they have security. But at this poin, I’m pretty sure even they can’t help you at this point. It is the system they exploit that is broken beyond repair, and they don’t care to even try to fix it. They have bigger fish to fry, as they have to give a presentation at the end of the quarter on profits and growth.