So Austria is to become Internet Annex No. 2, second to China. Three cheers for democracy!
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Austrian government seeks to eliminate internet anonymity, with severe penalties
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Re: Austrian government seeks to eliminate internet anonymity, with severe penalties
#32The article states a number of laws this proposition is most likely to conflict with. I very much doubt it will hold in court, and certainly someone will sue. I guess it won't even land at the European Court of Justice (ECJ).
But even if I'm right, it still damages the public discussion on privacy and civil rights. It is one of many steps pulling public opinion in a frightening direction.
Re: Austrian government seeks to eliminate internet anonymity, with severe penalties
#33It will fail.
Re: Austrian government seeks to eliminate internet anonymity, with severe penalties
#34The funny thing is, they have a threshold of 100.000 users that must be registered at the site. So a site like unzensuriert.at (like breitbart in the US) which is a right leaning / government favourable website will not fall under such a law and won't get penalties.
So, will a site maintainer simply remove the older accounts that have not accessed the site in a while, to keep number of accounts below 100 000?
If it works out, and there's no public outcry, they'll just reduce the limit to 10k after a while.
Re: Austrian government seeks to eliminate internet anonymity, with severe penalties
#35Earlier quoted context omitted.
Traditional parties center/left center/right in Europe have run their respective countries into the ground. Now they think that censoring information will save them so they can get back to the cozy system where state television is the source of truth. Also, of course it is always good for a politician to show some sort of activity, no matter how silly.
Describing the current government in Austria as center-right is a bit ridiculous (to say nothing of putting words like centrist or left anywhere near descriptions of that government). Austrian politics have been moving further and further to the right and the FPÖ (junior coalition partner) is a xenophobic far-right party with authoritarian streaks. I’m really not comfortable in describing a government where such a pa…
Censoring the internet is a popular topic among all center parties in Europe. For example "Hate-speech" censorship, where the end justifies the means, is popular among many left leaning parties.
Isn't the proposal from an ÖVP minister? Does the ÖVP not qualify as center-right?
Re: Austrian government seeks to eliminate internet anonymity, with severe penalties
#36Earlier quoted context omitted.
I wonder what will happen if somebody motivates a lot of people to register on a site, to push them over the threshold. It may also be possible to split your forums to different sites / domains if you reach the thresold. Anyhow I can't see how this will play out in real life and I hope our president will step in and prevent it from happening at all.
So distributed social media communities like Mastodon will not have the problem?
I guess not, since there is no single entity/company which holds 100.000 users.
But I am 100% sure, our current government would never ever grasp the concept of a federated social network and probably just try to ban it.
Re: Austrian government seeks to eliminate internet anonymity, with severe penalties
#37[deleted]
Re: Austrian government seeks to eliminate internet anonymity, with severe penalties
#38Earlier quoted context omitted.
Traditional parties center/left center/right in Europe have run their respective countries into the ground. Now they think that censoring information will save them so they can get back to the cozy system where state television is the source of truth. Also, of course it is always good for a politician to show some sort of activity, no matter how silly.
Describing the current government in Austria as center-right is a bit ridiculous (to say nothing of putting words like centrist or left anywhere near descriptions of that government). Austrian politics have been moving further and further to the right and the FPÖ (junior coalition partner) is a xenophobic far-right party with authoritarian streaks. I’m really not comfortable in describing a government where such a pa…
I think the wrong words were chosen by the parent. For many decades politics in Europe were dominated by traditional globalist governments, which I would describe as "centrist". For many people those governments are failing and voters are moving to the left and the right, depending on the country of course.
Centrist governments are trying to use "hate speech" laws as a way of curbing their loss of control of the media; before they could control the newspapers and the telly and therefore they could control dialogue, now with social networks that's not that easy. We are seeing that with some stories, such as rapes in Sweden and all of that. They could simply tell their friends in TV networks not to talk about it. Problem solved. That doesn't work anymore. So they need the law.
In Germany and Austria for example you need to put your real name and address in a visible part of your website known as the Impressum. What's a better way to make sure you keep your opinions under control and your head low?
Re: Austrian government seeks to eliminate internet anonymity, with severe penalties
#39Earlier quoted context omitted.
Traditional parties center/left center/right in Europe have run their respective countries into the ground. Now they think that censoring information will save them so they can get back to the cozy system where state television is the source of truth. Also, of course it is always good for a politician to show some sort of activity, no matter how silly.
Describing the current government in Austria as center-right is a bit ridiculous (to say nothing of putting words like centrist or left anywhere near descriptions of that government). Austrian politics have been moving further and further to the right and the FPÖ (junior coalition partner) is a xenophobic far-right party with authoritarian streaks. I’m really not comfortable in describing a government where such a pa…
correct the FPÖ is in fact the continuation of the Nazi government and was founded by former Nazis (VDU)[1].
The FPÖ used to be mostly a problem of in Carinthia, where the party was infamous for it's beerfests crawling with skinheads.
You might love the place as a tourist, but if you're an immigrant (even born there) and especially Turkish/Muslim (or simply have a different accent), then living in Austria is no fun.
[1] (in German sorry): https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freiheitliche_Partei_%C3%96ste...
Re: Austrian government seeks to eliminate internet anonymity, with severe penalties
#40Be still my beating heart. I misread this as for Australia and while I wouldn't put this past the current right-wing government they are coming into an election. But it's for Austria.....so....while I'm not affected I'm still annoyed.
I misread as Australia too.