Banned Hungarian racist site Kuruc re-posts on Facebook. Photo. Screenshot.

Facebook removed the page of a racist Hungarian website with 70,000 followers from its social media site after a complaint by the Action and Protection Foundation, an organization monitoring and combating anti-Semitism in Hungary, and the New York-based Anti-Defamation League, but a replacement page was online the very next day.

The Action and Protection Foundation made the complaint against Kuruc.info, which published white-supremacist, anti-Roma and anti-Semitic information to its site. The Foundation was supported by the ADL.

APF chairman Daniel Bodnar said “weeks ago” an application was submitted to the Facebook community portal, citing “dozens of clearly inciting and hateful” entries, which were unfit not only by “European human standards, but specifically as described in the Facebook hate-free social media rule, and seriously infringed the terms of social networking and ignored the the principle of operation and service mission.”

“[Kuruc] was the main representative of the insurrectionist info news website, which presented to the whole of society, and this induced repulsive views on the direction of hate for years. The portal has separate Gypsy [Roma] and Jewish Crime and Delinquency sections,” Bodnar said.

Abraham H. Foxman, ADL national director praised the social networking site, saying, “Facebook deserves credit for taking the time and effort to evaluate Kuruc.info’s activity on their platform and for making the right decision which is consistent with their policies.”

The page, however, was quickly replaced.

In a post to the main Kuruc.info page, its editors directed readers to a new Facebook page where the group claims, “It is not racist to have pride in being white.”

But the impact of Facebook’s decision is still important, as Kuruc lost its 70,000 followers; now just 10 people “like” the page.

A previous attempt to re-publish the page the day before was quashed by Facebook; Kuruc claimed 6,400 followers had returned within just 36 hours of being back online. Kuruc claims the current site, with 10 followers, is not controlled by the editorial team, but by fans.

APF’s Bodnar said Kuruc is indicative of a greater problem in Hungary: “The quality of Hungarian public speech is deteriorating day by day. The anti-Semitic utterances in Parliament are the representatives of employers and with a proud voice, and you hear their racist, anti-Semitic speeches blight the public thinking, destroying the quality of public discourse.”

The Action and Protection Foundation was created by the Unified Hungarian Israelite Community (EMIH), MAZSIHISZ and several other Jewish organizations.