It is surprising. Even here, in Russia, we don't have such laws working yet. And I wonder, what Austrian authorities are going to do with foreign platforms like Telegram, which are unlikely to comply? Russian government has been trying to block Telegram using DPI for a year and didn't succeed.<p>What about Twitter? Reddit?<p>> In addition, web platforms would be required to appoint a liaison in Austria who would be responsible for making information about platform users available if it becomes necessary. If this person does not ensure that the regulation is followed, he or she could be punished with a fine of up to 100,000 euros.<p>This will just put foreign platforms, who will ignore the law, into an advantageous position compared to local platforms. Users might switch to foreign platforms that don't require identification.
In case anyone wants to know how this should work, this is the explanation by the minister:<p>There are "technical possibilities where software can run on the backend that can immediately identify: Does the registered mobile phone number match the name and address or not?" - derstandard.at/2000101678440/Minister-Bluemels-Ominous-De-Anonymization-Software
(from <a href="https://derstandard.at/2000101678440/Minister-Bluemels-Ominous-De-Anonymization-Software" rel="nofollow">https://derstandard.at/2000101678440/Minister-Bluemels-Omino...</a>)<p>Translating it as "backend" is very friendly as he literally said "a software in the rear end".
Could anyone shed some light on which problem this is supposed to solve exactly and what triggered it in the first place in Austria right now?<p>Have there been any issues caused by anonymous posts recently? Maybe I'm just living under a rock, but my feeling was that the main issues we're currently facing stem from political distortion caused by populism misusing platform mechanisms to spread misinformation. I don't see how this is supposed to help.
The 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).<p>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.
It's not the only attempt of the current government of Austria to do something against privacy on the internet.<p>- There is the idea of a tax called "Digitalsteuer": A tax for internet companies which didn't pay taxes for some reason. However, it is estimated this would make only some million dollars (~25 to 30/year). At the same time, it could lead to too much surveillance because somebody would have to save the address and location data of Austrian users somewhere. <a href="https://derstandard.at/2000100880156/Kritiker-befuerchten-durch-DigitalsteuergesetzTotalueberwachung" rel="nofollow">https://derstandard.at/2000100880156/Kritiker-befuerchten-du...</a><p>- And the "Überwachungspaket":<p>-> you need to register prepaid sim cards<p>-> limitation of the secrecy of letters<p>-> data retention by ISPs etc
<a href="https://epicenter.works/thema/ueberwachungspaket" rel="nofollow">https://epicenter.works/thema/ueberwachungspaket</a>
"Results show that in the context of online firestorms, non-anonymous individuals are more aggressive compared to anonymous individuals"<p><a href="https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0155923" rel="nofollow">https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal...</a>
Laws like this one and the recent anti-crypto law in Australia have me really worried for the future of small, privately owned sites. If laws like these continue to pass, it's going to become more and more difficult for small sites to navigate the legal regulations around running a web application. This, in turn, will discourage people from building their own web applications, which will lead to a decrease in overall innovation in the online space.<p>The conspiracy theorist in me is starting to see these laws as some sort of ploy by the big players(google, amazon, facebook, etc.) to create a sort of monopoly on the internet by making it so difficult to enter the web application space that only large companies with massive amounts of resources can even play the game.<p>As someone who is currently working on a new art sharing platform that will include discussion threads, I'm starting to get worried about needing to comply with these types of laws. Not that I would comply, as I believe one's internet experience should be as anonymous as one wants it to be.<p>It's a real shitty place to be. I hope this law gets shot down and all future laws in the same vein don't gain traction.
The funny thing is, they have a threshold of 100.000 users that must be registered at the site.<p>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.
To preserve the anonymity of the source of my own ideas, I might write every tweet/post like so:<p>“A friend of mine says, ‘Woke politics are getting absurd.’”<p>I wonder if this would be violation of the law...
Today I was driving around beautiful spring-time Vienna, and I happened to stop at a traffic light as Chancellor Kurz, sitting in the passenger seat of some 2019 rich-car convertible, also happened to stop in the lane next to me.<p>He gave me such an evil glare, it was astonishing. So I glared back at him.<p>In real life, I found him to be as loathsome a creature as in media. Perhaps, fatter than I thought he was.<p>I hope I can continue to report such things on the Internet in the future.
<i>If you try to ban the future, it will just happen elsewhere.</i> - Paul Graham (2017)<p>... via <a href="http://github.com/globalcitizen/taoup" rel="nofollow">http://github.com/globalcitizen/taoup</a>
There is also an interview (unfortunately in German, but automatically translated subtitles are available) with the minister who is responsible for the bill: <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8Sm7Q1bjW5o" rel="nofollow">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8Sm7Q1bjW5o</a>
More information asymmetry. The government can know about you but you can't know about the government. To ask this the government must be perfectly transparent and by that contradict the definition of government
There was a point made where an opposing lawmaker said that foreign companies like Facebook would not bother to comply. Ha! They will all love to have your real name and address confirmed, they will be more than happy to oblige. It would make many things easier, and allow them to monetize you much better.<p>So strange, this seems to be the exact opposite of the trend in the USA where the public desire is moving towards requesting these companies to allow us to be anonymous. Just like...Europe? What’s going on in Austria?
> service providers on the web only have to obey the laws of the country in which they are situated ...<p>What does it mean for an internet site to be situated somewhere? What country is that?<p>For example, <a href="http://dreadditevelidot.onion" rel="nofollow">http://dreadditevelidot.onion</a>. Where is it situated? It does have an interesting discussion forum. It certainly has rules. Is it now supposed to appoint a liaison officer in Austria (and 200+ other jurisdictions)?
The fact that they're calling it "digitales vermummungsverbot" already tells you everything you need to know: There is no real rationale here, besides a political stunt of the right-wing government to curry favour with the right-leaning parts of the populus.<p>The original "vermummungsverbot" is a law to prohibit people from wearing a veil in public. The pretense was that people hiding their identity were by definition a security threat to the law abiding general public. The political effect was that xenophobs liked the idea of a law that was opposed to certain aspects of islam. The reality is that the law has no effect, since there are almost no people in Austria would would want to wear a veil in public in the first place apart from maybe the odd female tourist visiting from Saudi Arabia.<p>The idea now is that the same should apply to the digital sphere.<p>My guess would be that they know full well that it's never going to pass into law and make it past Brussels. But to them it's a win-win. Either they get a law that appeases the right-wing populus. Or Brussels stops them, playing into their anti-European narrative, which would also gain them political capital.
Related: UK and NL secret services no longer share data with Austria b/c Russia ties [1]<p>[1] <a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19701958" rel="nofollow">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19701958</a>
The comparison to the real world is rather flawed, especially in countries like Austria. For instance your not required to show an ID when buying groceries, buying alcohol or entering a bar.<p>Identification is on demand, not mandatory.
There's already the Handy Signatur (<a href="https://www.handy-signatur.at/hs2/" rel="nofollow">https://www.handy-signatur.at/hs2/</a>) - a way to digitally sign official documents using your smartphone ('handy'). The only way to obtain this is to have your ID and phone number registered with the authorities. It's convenient, but it's also a system that removes any possibility of anonymity.<p>I imagine this kind of digital signature will be mandatory when signing up for the internet services described in the article...
On reading the headline my first thought was "That's fine just as long as it applies to everyone" and then I see that it's just a measure to control people.<p>Eliminating anonymity should be done through measures that amount to enforcing traceability at fundamental technical levels - that will affect everything from spam to fraud. But simplistic things like this just require people to identify themselves, which is just a form of social control.
<p><pre><code> Users of online forums in Austria will have to provide
operators with their true identities or risk fines that
could run into the millions.
</code></pre>
How trustworthy is a publication where the very first sentence of an article is nonsense?<p>Users do not risk being fined millions. The webmasters will.
In practice (particularly in europe and particularly the current regulatory MO) regulating the internet will often be deeply linked to de-anonymizing it. It isn't necessarily that way, but it is where the ball rolls by default, atm.<p>A lot of the financial regulations of the past decade have been heavily identity oriented. Companies/banks need to ID customersID the origin/destination of funds, etc.<p>Gambling has recently become more regulated in a lot of european countries. Similar story. ID customers (mostly for age, but also aml). ID where the money is coming from. Take all reasonable steps to find out if a customer is has more money than they should have, is a thief, gambling addict, etc.. In practice, this they request customers' passports, bank statements, payment slips... while at the same time pay for services that estimate customers income, review social media profiles, and such.<p>Even GDPR, which I think did some to improve data security and a lot to reduce data selling, requires (in practice) most websites to keep of track of users' consent, which means keeping track of user identity, to some extent.<p>I have a bad feeling about the current political drive to "regulate" more. There are certainly problems that need solutions, which are likely regulation. But, the details matter a <i>lot</i>. We don't want the default regulations.
In the US we have a little freak-out every time a private entity like the Blizzard gaming forums or Google+ does this. I cannot imagine the shitstorm if it was attempted on a national level.
I don't understand why there's so much racism in that tiny nation. Almost every time I cross the border into Austria, the police flags me down and asks for my passport. I'm Austrian citizen, born and raised but a person of colour. Even though I speak German fluently, authorities always speak in English to me. It gave me so much anxiety that I moved to the UK and noticed that I'm treated with much more respect and opportunities.<p>Austria is a beautiful country and most people are nice but man..some people can be very small-minded there. The news would make you believe that the UK is this backwards right-wing nation because of Brexit but you'll never see a muslim of Pakistani descent as mayor in Vienna or people of colour in the Austrian parliament and that's honestly very depressing.
Be still my beating heart.<p>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.<p>But it's for Austria.....so....while I'm not affected I'm still annoyed.
Laws like this are long past due. This particular law may not be the best implementation but governments do need to take action to provide their citizens with a real public square online.<p>Excluding fake and paid users (without a declaration of who is paying them) from that space and protecting free speech in that space is essential to having a public policy discussion.<p>Private corporations have not done this, and probably never will, so government is the only option left.