tripu

I'm not denying that bias or that animosity that you describe. It may well be that Hungary is despised in some circles because it's more conservative than most European countries.

That is still compatible with a dispassionate evaluation of the democratic quality of its political system.

Again, I'm not necessarily defending my sources here. But I'm not automatically discounting them, either.

The Economist classifies Hungary as a flawed democracy due to a very poor mark in "political participation", "functioning of government" and "civil liberties". Those sections look at measures such as "voter participation/turn-out for national elections", "the degree to which the judiciary is independent of government influence", "the degree to which citizens are treated equally under the law", "how pervasive is corruption", "is there an effective system of checks and balances on the exercise of government authority", etc.

Freedom House ranks Hungary poorly in aspects such as "are safeguards against official corruption strong and effective", "are there free and independent media", "is there freedom for nongovernmental organizations, particularly those that are engaged in human rights– and governance-related work", "is there an independent judiciary", etc.

If you have reports that put Hungary at the top on rankings of democratic health, freedom, civil rights, etc — please share them, and we can evaluate their merits. Otherwise, these reports are the most comprehensive I know of, so I have to use those.

> Norway is not in the EU.

You are right, thank you! I just fixed that.

> Coming from a Spaniard? Go fuck yourself.

I was already fixing the error, and writing in my head the kind answer above. I hadn't seen this nasty comment.

Why the ad hominem?

I'm ranking governments — not individuals — according to international reports I've seen. Those classifications are debatable, of course. There might be bias, or nuances I'm missing. But why do you presume malice on my part?

How on Earth is it relevant that I'm a Spaniard?

(Stylistic) point taken.

I stand by what I wrote, although it could be argued in less stringent terms.

Author here. (Thank you for all the comments!)

Yes, I know SSH tunnelling and compiling your own Android are tall orders for the average user. Here I'm just hinting at some examples that are well-known among us geeks, but there are easier to use alternatives to all that. I suspect Protonmail is as easy to use as GMail. VPNs are so easy to use nowadays. The UX on Signal isn't particularly challenging to the average user of WhatsApp.

There is a lot we techies can do to educate normies and respectfully push them in the right direction, but we keep on neglecting that responsibility under the excuses of bad usability, lack of features, or convenience for users.

On an earlier draft I also had a sentence like: “a big effort in usability and outreach is needed”. Definitely so.

My point is not that we can get all EU citizens to switch to SSH tunnelling and Purism, but that we IT professionals should spend more time and effort educating a fraction of the population to move the deal in the right direction and avert catastrophe.

For some reason seems a bit fishy to me.

Thoughts?

Very useful, thanks!

How's that?