Of course this case was only a welcome trigger to implement some law to cause FUD. Austrian government is completely illiterate in all things regarding internet, but in this case (and the case of the copyright directive), I would go as far and presume malicious intent (not just stupidity).

> Criticism also came from the former Green Party politician Sigi Maurer, whose fight against sexist posts was cited by the government as proof that the law was needed. "The government abused my case to propose this censorship law," Maurer wrote in a tweet last week. "Not in my name."

https://derstandard.at/2000101677286/Government-Seeks-to-Eli...

(I see that Facebook's ineffective harassment policy is at the root of this again)

This is just the far right interior minister enforcing his ideology of control.

Existing hate-speech legislation allows persecution of users already, but in some cases the offenders hide too well or Facebook does not cooperate with authorities. Online newspaper forums are also now full of professionally organized dirt campaigns, sometimes tolerated by left-leaning media. The government wants to be able to persecute those who break the law and thinks it's the responsibility of media to at least make their users identifiable for authorities.

Edit: Previously, the political center of Austria was slightly to the left, like in most European countries. Bored with the great center coalition, the conservative party (ÖVP) has burned all bridges to the center-left social democrats (SPÖ) and is now considering the center rather more near its own right wing. Refugees and immigrants and "punishing" those are now the go-to argument for every legislative initiative. Also, governmental "message control", i.e., controlling what may be leaking of internal political communication or what may be setting an agenda, is deemed of high strategical importance by the ruling parties.

Please don't attempt to change the meaning of my post with your own interpretation. When I write "left-leaning", I mean exactly that.

Yet another historical marker, at the end of WW1 about 15% of the Viennese population was anarchists, some of them living in illegal settlements. (These anarchist settlements were mostly converted to allotment associations, some of them still carrying auspicious names like "Future". The reintegration of those who had already left the common political ground into a more traditional spectrum is a special and generally overlooked treat of the political history of Austria and probably the cause, why communists were rather rare in Austria as compared to the neighboring countries.)

Notably, this was about "left-leaning" as a qualifier for hate speech, which may be subject to prosecution (compare the original comment).

This law is part of their campaign to browbeat the press and public sphere into submission and it is following attempts to rein the austrian public broadcaster (orf) in.

The proposed law is useless for any legitimate purpose, as anonymity was never a problem with hate speech or other things. People are willing to engage in hate speech, libel or just in overall awful things with their name attached without reservation already.

The problem in Austria is that the Russians have started buying a lot of property there decades ago. Property prices in Kitzbühel have been going through the roof thanks to Russian oligarchs buying up everything. Russians love Austria (as much as Cyprus) because it's a great place to hide and launder money, see[2]:

Peter Pilz, a member of parliament from the opposition Greens party, said the Italian mafia, especially the Calabria-based ‘Ndrangheta, had years ago used Austria as a money-laundering centre, cleansing around 2 billion euros.

“Now it is mainly a matter of Russian money. A lot of banks must be afraid that the Russians will take their millions and flee to Asia,” he said.

[1] https://www.cbsnews.com/news/vladimir-putin-karin-kneissl-we...

[2] https://www.reuters.com/article/us-eu-banksecrecy-austria-id...

see also: How Russia stands to profit from Austria’s new government: https://blogs.spectator.co.uk/2017/10/how-russia-stands-to-p...

edit: parent is getting silently downvoted for stating facts. welcome to HN.

No one talks about Gazprom Schroeder (center-left SPD) who destroyed the welfare state in Germany and then joined Gazprom.

But that was there and then. We don't have any strong hard left movements of that kind in Western countries today. We do, however, have far right / "third position" movements of that kind. And ideologically, they align pretty well with Russia's own internal politics, so they're more reliable allies, as well. So, while there is some support for left-wing anti-establishment movements, most of it goes to the right. And hence we're mostly talking about that.

Isn't the proposal from an ÖVP minister? Does the ÖVP not qualify as center-right?

The policies that OeVP introduces and advocates are more restrictive and conservative than the FPOe did under Haider.

Compared to the past they have also moved left on other topics: e.g. by not touching pensions.

"restricts skilled immigration": Funny, since they have also been criticized for allowing more immigration. Ironically from left-leaning people.

"reduce social support systems": Well, they mostly retargeted social support. All polls showed that a large majority of the people supported these changes. People thought the old system enforced the wrong incentives.

Also let's not forget that they reduced taxes on salaries specifically for working-class families substantially.

"lowers corporate tax rates": IIRC they have only lowered one tax slightly for a single sector (tourism) so far. Hardly anything dramatic.

Still, all these points are not too surprising for conservatives in general. If this is enough for you to call them right-wing, that's certainly fine for me.

Just to add: I've talked to people that directly called the Austrian conservatives an extreme right party ;) I know you didn't go as far, but they were also pretty serious about that. Maybe we can agree that at least "extrem right" is ridiculous. I personally don't get where this overly-dramatic phrasing comes from. Are some people so upset that for once the chancellor is not a social-democrat?

Who criticised them for that? The only thing they did was introduce low skilled immigration (eg: fruit pickers, cooks and other people in the tourism industry).

> "reduce social support systems": Well, they mostly retargeted social support. All polls showed that a large majority of the people supported these changes. People thought the old system enforced the wrong incentives.

"retarget" just means to reduce support for foreigners and low income families with many children (which correlates to families of Turkish background). Yes, many people think the system enforces the wrong incentives but none of the proposals to improve the incentives where even considered. For instance Nostandshilfe is not being touched because it's predominantly Austrians that are hanging in it.

> Also let's not forget that they reduced taxes on salaries specifically for working-class families substantially.

Even after the tax cuts Austrians pay more in taxes and social contributions today than they did before. The reason for this is that DG/DZ and social contributions increase automatically every year.

None of your examples demostrate how this party would be in the center. They are significantly more to the right than the population is.

> Are some people so upset that for once the chancellor is not a social-democrat?

No, many people are upset because they worry about the future of the country. I for instance worry a lot because the policies set in place in the last few months are dangerous. We already have a very unstable system in the past with very little transparency into what the government is doing (eg: no freedom of information) but how they are from a central position controlling some of the entities that were at least somewhat impartial (like the central bank, the statistic agency etc.).

I don't care who controls the country, I want that the government is transparent and does not get too much power. They are putting more and more powers in place, they are enacting unconstitutional laws and are overwhealming the courts which are busy shutting these things down but it takes time. They are also completely eroding the public discourse with their framing.

Any hope that Austria would have a path towards social liberties and a more business friendly environment were completely scattered since the last election. It's a coalition that blames everything on foreigners and puts laws in place for large donors of the parties.

I was merely arguing that party is center-right. I think I brought some examples, but obviously I am biased as well. Makes me curious how you categorize other parties in Europe if the Austrian conservatives are already right-wings to you (think Orban, FPO, Le Pen, Golden Dawn, NPD,...)

> I for instance worry a lot because the policies set in place in the last few months are dangerous.

This is where I really disagree, so many of these accusations are so blown out of proportion to me.

Best example to me was when some party leader of the opposition was literally speaking of "fascism", such that even the president (former leader of the green party) called that exaggerated. The opposition was arguing this way since before the government was even appointed, this is not just about the policies in the "last few months". Certainly a legitimate tactic of the opposition, but nothing I fear at all.

Right wing to right wing extremism. In particular NPD is very far to the right. Some of these parties are not just about being on the right but also outright racist without hiding it.

> This is where I really disagree, so many of these accusations are so blown out of proportion to me.

You’re likely not directly affected by their policies. I am. I’m married to a foreigner and employ non EU foreigners and I got to experience the changes directly.

As an example to the new policies that silently became a thing is that my wife as a non EU foreigner is no longer allowed to carry a pepper spray. We now need to proof every year that our children are going to the doctor or Kindergarten and that my wife’s permit did not lapse to continue receiving tax credits and Familienbeihilfe. It’s a joke as the kids are Austrian citizens and entitled regardless of her status.

Citizen tracking sounds more like what the "communist" party of China would do.

Some decades ago Franz Josef Strauss was considered "right wing". It seems to me that the items you list would have been considered center-right in the 1990s.

The things the FPOe did was getting rid of the smoking ban, raising the speed limits to 140, renaming the immigration centers to “departure centers”, proposals to cut the funding of the public broadcaster.

Together they converted the country in record time into a dystopian place. Even putting childhood education back into former times by reintroducing marks for primary schoolers and minimum requirements that can cause children under 10 to have to repeat a class.

They are now both also starting to talk about rolling back abortion rights.

Like it or not: Some time ago, a left-leaning newspaper (Standard) wrote that the current government has the best polls recorded so far.

A country with that much power given to the government with so little oversight, no transparency is a problem. Austria is a country of immigration and the rules in place for immigrants are awful (from both access to citizenship and rights). What is currently being done has the chance to erode the social fabric more than any other government did before.

> Like it or not: Some time ago, a left-leaning newspaper (Standard) wrote that the current government has the best polls recorded so far.

Obviously I don't like it, and it worries me a lot. I'm not sure any if this is the country I want my children to grow up in.

And that's why these laws are popping up all over Europe: they want to maintain control, they are scared of new parties.

I'm ashamed to say that many people from my childhood, today consider themselves liberals but in their rethoric are nothing more than the descendants of Nazis. The first thing I did when being old enough was to GTFO of Austria, and I haven't been back other than on vacation. I have a couple of Turkish friends in Germany who feel quite comfortable and at home there. From those I met in Austria they were by far not as cheerful. There is a lot of talk about "integration" which is basically a way to say: don't speak your language, don't eat your food, and don't visit your mosques because it offends us.

Every attempt of me making friends among Turks in Austria has always been met with suspicion since they aren't used to it. Extremely sad and disgusting.

I guess the problem is that people view Austria as some kind of liberal "Western" country, while geographically it is part of Eastern Europe and ideologically they are closer to those cheering for Victor Orban in Hungary.

If you want to deeply offend (most) Austrians call them Eastern Europeans. They think they're better.

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...

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?

I think it's pretty universal across Europe that people are moving more to the extremes. But that doesn't make the original parties suddenly "centrist" -- they're just status-quo, "old school".

Centrist governments are trying to use "hate speech" laws as a way of curbing their loss of control of the media

I'm sorry, but this just sounds like populist propaganda. There hasn't been government control of the media like you suggest; instead, the media used to be civil. The current "popular" channels do away with civility, and any voice critical of that tone is immediately discarded by playing the victim, like you are doing here.

The establishment, still representing the civil masses, is perfectly within scope to try and curb uncivility. Whether their methods are effective is up for debate, but the goal isn't -- we all know what happened last time Europe went uncivil (80 million premature deaths).

How about Thatcher/Friedman/Chicago school/libertarian politics?

Has never been tried anywhere.