Silberstein affair

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Silberstein valley (center)

The Silberstein affair (also known as the Silberstein affair or the Silberstein scandal ) was a political affair in the final phase of the election campaign for the 2017 National Council election in Austria . The political advisor Tal Silberstein , who was engaged by the Social Democratic Party of Austria (SPÖ) and who had been employed by the SPÖ several times as an advisor for election campaigns since 2001, had done “ dirty campaigning ” with a team from the election office, which was reported two weeks before the election date Daily newspaper Die Presse and the weekly magazine profil became known.

The campaign was mainly directed against Sebastian Kurz , who took over the leadership of the Austrian People's Party (ÖVP) on May 14, 2017 . It was mainly conducted under false authorship on anonymous Facebook pages, which were initially assigned to the local area of ​​the Freedom Party of Austria (FPÖ).

After Silberstein's arrest on August 14th in Israel on suspicion of bribery , forgery and money laundering and the subsequent termination of his contract with the SPÖ, the first SPÖ election campaign documents from his environment appeared in the media a little later. The affair was intensified in mid-September by further extensive documents leaked to Die Presse and Profil from the SPÖ party headquarters. Up until the election on October 15, the SPÖ was forced to make numerous denials , which were refuted by the two media shortly afterwards, thus keeping the public discourse going. The media coverage overshadowed the election campaign and largely pushed factual issues into the background.

In the election, the ÖVP overtook the SPÖ by a considerable margin and became the party with the strongest vote. The SPÖ kept its share of the vote from the 2013 National Council election and landed second just ahead of the FPÖ, which also increased significantly.

prehistory

On October 5, 2016, it became known that Federal Chancellor and SPÖ party chairman Christian Kern had engaged Tal Silberstein, who is known for negative campaigns, for an early National Council election in 2017. This took place on a recommendation of the ex-Federal Chancellor Alfred Gusenbauer (SPÖ), who had a business and friendly relationship with Silberstein. Silberstein was assigned a decisive role in the 2006 National Council election and the overthrow of the then Federal Chancellor Wolfgang Schüssel , who was accused in a bogus letter to the editor of having employed a nurse illegally. At that time, a negative campaign against the ÖVP and Schüssel was deliberately planned for over a year with the Chancellor candidate Gusenbauer. In addition, in autumn 2016 he was able to impress the SPÖ leadership with his work in the repeated runoff for the 2016 federal presidential election.

In 2016, the coalition government between the SPÖ and ÖVP was criticized for frequent blockades among each other. However, after several rounds of elections were necessary in the 2016 federal presidential election, studies show that two thirds of election-weary Austrians opposed early elections to the National Council. All studies also referred to the “extremely high level of popularity” of Foreign Minister Sebastian Kurz, who achieved “dream values” on the confidence index ahead of all other government politicians.

For the SPÖ, it made a difference whether the ÖVP would go to the next National Council election with Kurz or with Vice Chancellor Reinhold Mitterlehner , who was under pressure from within the party . If Mitterlehner had contested the election, the SPÖ could lead the usual, tried and tested election campaign: “We, the good guys, against the racist blue enemies of Europe”. With Kurz, the SPÖ would not face “no deniable blue”.

Silberstein describes the method of dirty campaigning himself in the US documentary Our Brand Is Crisis (2005) on the presidential election in Bolivia in 2002 against an impeccable political opponent who is favored by the voters: “We have to change the dynamic. We have to start negative campaigns against him. We have to change him from a clean candidate to a dirty one. ”This should be done outside of the parties and one must not be caught.

course

Research on Sebastian Kurz

On September 4, 2016, Kurz reported to the ÖVP party executive that he was being spied on by “Silberstein and Co.”. At the beginning of January 2017, the ÖVP claimed that the SPÖ was conducting research into his past. Interior Minister Wolfgang Sobotka (ÖVP) underlined the allegations that the SPÖ should say if they want new elections . "Dirty campaigning is usually not carried out during the election campaign, but before the actual election campaign begins". But there is no evidence. Vice Chancellor Mitterlehner contradicted that he did not believe that the SPÖ was preparing for elections. The investigations were denied by the SPÖ. Kern said that under his leadership there was no such thing and he would not tolerate it either.

Public criticism of Kurz and the ÖVP

On July 19, a survey was put online for Sebastian Kurz on the apparently Facebook fan page Wir for Sebastian Kurz : “Tens of thousands of migrants are waiting in Italy to move on to Central Europe, NGOs are threatening to bring people to Austria. Should Austria put up with that? "

The Secretary General of Caritas Vienna , Klaus Schwertner , criticized Kurz for his ambiguous appearance on Facebook. This dirty campaigning site would stir up resentment : “In any case, I expect a politician who wants to become Federal Chancellor to show more fairness and respect for the thousands of volunteers. Anyone who loves Austria does not divide it. ”He also compared the page with We support Norbert Hofer , who pretended to support the FPÖ presidential candidate in the 2016 federal presidential election campaign. There the rumor was spread that Caritas was distributing free smartphones to refugees. Peter L. Eppinger , spokesman for the ÖVP, said that his party had nothing to do with the alleged short fan page and that they had already requested deletion.

Citing unnamed “social media experts”, the ÖVP complained that the SPÖ had spent around 100,000 euros per month on “anti-Kurz campaigns” in social networks since Kurz became party chairman and top candidate of the party. They referred to negative articles in the blog kontrast.at of the SPÖ parliamentary club , on the SPÖ-related site politiknews.at or the costs for the anti-short platform kurz-nachgerechte.at . ÖVP general secretary Elisabeth Köstinger criticized that Silberstein imported the bad election campaign style of the USA.

On August 3, the ÖVP once again suspected that the SPÖ was behind the Facebook page Wir für Sebastian Kurz , because the former ÖH general secretary ( VSStÖ ) and employee of the former Vienna City Councilor Sonja Wehsely (SPÖ), the lawyer Vanessa Schwärzler, who had the domain of the same name secured. This did not go into operation.

Change in the election campaign management of the SPÖ

On July 27, 2017, the election campaign manager Stefan Sengl, who had been working for the SPÖ since the beginning of June, resigned for private reasons, whereby it was stated that there were disagreements between Sengl, Silberstein and SPÖ federal manager and campaign manager Georg Niedermühlbichler in the direction of the election campaign strategy. Johannes Vetter followed Sengl as part of the head of the election campaign team. In this context, Niedermühlbichler assured that Silberstein would only be responsible for evaluating surveys and making strategic recommendations.

Silberstein arrested in Israel

On August 14, 2017, Silberstein was arrested in Israel on suspicion of money laundering, embezzlement and obstruction of justice, whereupon the SPÖ terminated his contract. Kern explained that at the beginning of the year Silberstein's private business had been checked, but that there were insufficient clues. Faced with the new allegations, the cooperation has now been terminated, with Kern describing it as a mistake not to have done this earlier. After the departure of Silberstein, the SPÖ election campaign manager Paul Pöchhacker took over his agenda, which was criticized by the ÖVP and the FPÖ.

Finance Minister Hans Jörg Schelling (ÖVP) suspected the SPÖ, referring to unnamed media reports, according to which Silberstein had previously been accused of organizing election donations through dubious associations in Israel, of practicing this during the current election campaign. It would be "deliberately bypassed the party financing law ". He was referring to a personal committee set up for Kern, which was rejected by the SPÖ. At the turn of the millennium in Israel, donations of millions in the election campaign in favor of Ehud Barak are said to have flowed through Silberstein . At that time Barak's party was fined DM 7 million . He later advised Barak's opponent Ehud Olmert , who subsequently had to resign due to several corruption scandals and was sentenced to imprisonment.

After Silberstein's arrest, his team was disbanded in the SPÖ election campaign headquarters in Löwelstrasse. Subsequently, the first SPÖ election campaign documents were passed on to various media.

Anti-short videos

On September 11th, profil reported , citing internal documents of the advertising agency GGK MullenLowe, that the advertising agency not only oversees the official election advertising of the SPÖ, but also developed a negative campaign against Kurz. A deliberately unprofessional video produced by the agency with the title No! was published in June on the SPÖ-related website politiknews.at , from where it was apparently further disseminated and could also be seen on the Facebook page The Truth About Sebastian Kurz . In the video it was assumed by means of quoted quotes that Kurz wanted to cut pensions, minimum wages, and education and health expenditure. SPÖ campaign manager Georg Niedermühlbichler complained about data theft and that misusing internal data was not a trivial offense, but a crime.

In the documents in August a project "Negative Campaign, Buberlpartie" was mentioned, which is supposed to be the production of a video in which the advisers from Kurz should be compared as Buberlpartie II with the so-called Buberlpartie , a group of close associates of Jörg Haider during his rise to party leader of the FPÖ. Such a video did not appear on the Internet.

Niedermühlbichler emphasized that the videos were not commissioned directly by the SPÖ. Rather, the now terminated Silberstein has developed concepts in order to test them internally in focus groups . The advertising agency stated that it had "contractually agreed with the SPÖ to design, produce and supervise only the classic election campaign" and "not designed and produced a single negative campaigning concept for external use".

Profil reported on further details in the next issue . As emerged from new internal documents, the advertising agency developed the videos in cooperation with Silberstein in the form of guerrilla marketing . Silberstein's role was also more significant than Kern had publicly stated. In the minutes of the meeting on June 28, there was a ban on Silberstein's work on further slogans and messages before the final focus groups were evaluated. In this regard, the agency comes to a close with the SPÖ campaign member Paul Pöchhacker . SPÖ election campaign leader Niedermühlbichler confirmed that there had been a proposal "to produce videos for internal use in order to test them in focus groups". He did not approve the costs because they were too high for internal use. Only one video was produced about Silberstein and further ideas stopped.

Facebook pages

On September 30, the journalists Anna Thalhammer published in Die Presse and Gernot Bauer im profil , each via their online portals, that the Facebook pages We for Sebastian Kurz and The Truth about Sebastian Kurz had been organized by Silberstein. Both pages have been online since early summer 2017 and continued to be used after Silberstein's termination in August 2017. In addition to the two pages, a third Facebook page, The Truth About Christian Kern , attracted media attention from the end of July .

The We for Sebastian Kurz page was intended to give the impression of being run by the ÖVP itself or by fans of the ÖVP candidate, and to scare away liberal voters through radicalized positions. The site started operations around Reinhold Mitterlehner's resignation and quickly gained momentum.

The alleged Pro-Kurz page first attracted media attention in July 2017 with a survey as to whether Austria should “put up with” the fact that NGOs allegedly threatened to bring “tens of thousands of migrants” into the country from Italy and whether the Brenner Pass should be closed .

The ÖVP tried to have the page deleted, but failed. ÖVP general secretary Elisabeth Köstinger accused the SPÖ of being behind the page. SPÖ election campaign leader Niedermühlbichler reacted indignantly that there was "a sharp shot at [...] Christian Kern", that would be "dirty campaigning, as it is in the textbook." In September, before the publications in profil and Die Presse , Niedermühlbichler was again confronted with the accusation that SPÖ adviser Silberstein had commissioned the two sides. This time he stated that they had "had the case checked in-house" and found out that there was an employee "who knew about this website". At the same time, he emphasized again that the website was "in no way" supported by the SPÖ, "especially where outrageous content against our top candidate is published there".

The page The Truth about Sebastian Kurz suggested authorship by politically far-right, FPÖ-affiliated forces and partly used racist , anti-Semitic and xenophobic schemes . This should harm both Kurz and the FPÖ.

Briefly it was described as “Fake-Basti”, in a quiz visitors to the site were asked to distinguish slogans from the Ikea catalog from his statements and he was vilified in video clips and photo montages, for example when spraying glyphosate on a field as Wolfgang Schuessel's puppet or Münchhausen on the cannonball. In a photo morphing , Karl Heinz Grasser transformed himself into Kurz. He was repeatedly described on the site as an understanding of Islam who advocates “a new culture of welcome ”, unbridled influx and the preference of foreigners. The majority of the contributions were directed against migrants. In a posting, anti-Semitic conspiracy theories about George Soros were taken up and presented to Kurz as part of his “dubious political network”. In the comments on the contributions, there were election recommendations for the FPÖ . Due to the content, the page was assigned to circles close to the FPÖ.

The truth about Christian Kern

A tasteless site that was supposed to discredit Chancellor Kern received less media attention. At the end of September she had 685 “likes”. In terms of content, the value of the Chancellor's watch was compared with the annual salary of an ÖBB employee, or Kern was shown in a photo montage while masturbating . The operators of the site were later also suspected in the vicinity of Silberstein. The media scientist Stefan Weber doubted the same authorship. Kern subliminally stated that the authors could be the same people who ran the anti-Kurz pages and who would later have defected to another party.

Shutdown of the Facebook pages

On September 30, the three Facebook pages were shut down immediately after new online publications by Die Presse and profil , which proved that the SPÖ was the author of the two short pages. The next day, SPÖ federal manager and campaign manager Georg Niedermühlbichler resigned. He emphasized that there was no cash flow from the SPÖ for the dirty camping team from Silberstein: "We have neither commissioned, nor financed or even operated these pages." The short Facebook pages are "horrible [and] with democratic ones." and social democratic values ​​in no way compatible ”. The main victim is Christian Kern anyway. It was a mistake to hire Silberstein. The Greens welcomed the resignation, but demanded that core wear as chairman responsibility in the SPO, a statement: "How does it social democracy with the use of anti-Semitism and racism as a campaign tool?" For the Freedom Party was Niedermühlbichler a pawn and she called for the resignation of Kern. The ÖVP did not comment on the developments.

Response of the SPÖ

On October 1st, Chancellor Kern reaffirmed in a press conference that it had been a mistake to engage Silberstein as an advisor and announced “full clarification”. An internal task force will be set up and the auditor Christoph Matznetter (SPÖ) will be appointed as head . The consultant contract with Silberstein should be disclosed.

At the same time he repeated that he had not known anything about the dirty campaigning activities; that an SPÖ employee was involved is not acceptable. He emphasized that the conspiracy theory , according to which Sebastian Kurz would be financed by George Soros , was only published on the Facebook page after Silberstein's dismissal. To this end, he located disloyal Austrian employees from Silberstein who had previously worked for other parties and who are said to have continued to operate the Facebook pages on their own after Silberstein's arrest. Kern also said that the tone on the fake Facebook page became rougher and more anti-Semitic after the Silberstein team was fired. You will legally defend yourself against anyone who has harmed the SPÖ.

The next day the police were asked to initiate administrative criminal proceedings because the Facebook pages We for Sebastian Kurz , The Truth About Sebastian Kurz and The Truth About Christian Kern had not shown an imprint . The public prosecutor's office was also authorized to initiate investigations into defamation and to announce the operators of the incriminated sites in a letter to Facebook. The Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution and the Fight against Terrorism was brought in because of the racist and anti-Semitic content of the Facebook pages .

In interviews with Silberstein, organized by Chancellery Minister Thomas Drozda (SPÖ) on October 2 , he also stated that Kern did not know anything. The SPÖ employee named by Kern only contributed information from surveys and focus groups. The Kronen Zeitung described the offer for such an interview as "another stupid and stupid attempt by the SPÖ leadership to instrumentalize the media for their cause" and refused.

On October 3, Die Presse and profil published further internal SPÖ documents, according to which, even after the withdrawal of Silberstein and his Israeli team, a “high-ranking employee of the SPÖ campaign team”, Paul Pöchhacker , was about the activities and the continuation of the pages Knew. Pöchhacker was suspended the same day .

Compared to the head of the task force (Matznetter), Pöchhacker further denied having been involved in the incriminated pages after Silberstein's dismissal. According to internal correspondence, however, after Silberstein's arrest, Pöchhacker had instructed the political advisor and Silberstein employee Peter Puller that the pages should remain online for the time being, otherwise the connection to Silberstein would be seen immediately. At the beginning of the Silberstein affair, Pöchhacker's role was downplayed. In fact, he has been involved in all of the Chancellery's coordination activities relating to Silberstein since autumn 2016 . The SPÖ reserved legal steps against Pöchhacker, Puller and Silberstein. The version that Pöchhacker acted on his own is doubted by party insiders. Niedermühlbichler himself is said to have chatted internally about the campaign. The journalist Barbara Tóth sees Pöchhacker as the key person who "should have sounded the alarm much earlier in the interests of the party."

In February 2018, the SPÖ declared that Pöchhacker had left the federal party by mutual agreement . In March 2018 Christian Kern signed a contract on behalf of the SPÖ with Pöchacker's newly founded public relations company . In the course of the financial crisis of the SPÖ after the National Council election in 2019, this contract would be "up for grabs" according to Federal Managing Director Christian Deutsch .

The Silberstein team

The documents continuously transmitted to Die Presse and Profil indicated that Silberstein was not just a single advisor, but had built up an Austrian-Israeli team around political advisor Peter Puller in an office in Vienna that was supposed to be dedicated to dirty campaigning . Puller initially rejected his activity. He never worked with Silberstein for the SPÖ. He also has nothing to do with the Facebook pages. According to the documents, however, there is no doubt about the work of Puller. Together with Silberstein and the SPÖ liaison officer Paul Pöchhacker , he is said to have implemented the campaign. Puller made it clear in an interview with the newspaper Der Standard on October 7th that he had claimed that he had not worked for the SPÖ because Silberstein was his contractual partner. In the cooperation he was "involved in the strategic planning and analysis", but not for the "operational use of the pages". Federal Chancellor Christian Kern , on the other hand, referred to Puller on October 5th as "an employee of our team".

A woman who was well connected in the SPÖ and who remained anonymous, who as a central member of the secret Silberstein group looked after the Facebook pages and posted the content online, was accepted as a SPÖ guest member in 2018.

Additional external advisors commissioned were Moshe Klughaft, who was compared to Julius Streicher because of his methods against political opponents , and Sefi Shaked. The two are considered specialists in new media and in the election campaign for the parliamentary elections in Romania in 2016 they used political messages that traditionally come from right-wing parties in order to improve the image of the later victorious Social Democratic Party (PSD) . Other advisors were Dahlia Scheindlin, pollster from Tel Aviv , the political adviser Arthur Finkelstein from Irvington, New York and George Birnbaum from Atlanta . The latter for a fee of 44,000 euros. Alfred Gusenbauer was also involved in the associated mail traffic .

Disclosure of the agreement with Silberstein

Christoph Matznetter commissioned the auditing firm Merkur Control Wirtschaftsprüfungsgesellschaft mbH , a subsidiary of Merkur Treuhand Steuerberatung GmbH, which was co-founded by his father Otto Matznetter and to which he belonged until 2005 , to present the business relationship with Silberstein . The actual contract will "probably not be disclosed".

On October 6th, the SPÖ published documents about the consultancy work and fees to Silberstein. A signed contract could not be found, but Georg Niedermühlbichler is sure to have signed the contract that is suspected at Silberstein in Israel. A signed supplementary agreement dated February 28, 2017 was found, with which the fee was increased by 180,000 euros due to increased workload. An offer called a "contract" was submitted from January 1, 2017 by Silbersteins, GCS International (2010) Ltd., Israel , founded together with Stan Greenberg , James Carville and Bob Shrums in 1999 and dissolved in February 2017 , as well as other documents and invoices . The agreements provided for fees totaling 536,000 euros, of which the SPÖ would like to reclaim 131,000 euros. There are no passages such as the place of jurisdiction or the terms of termination, as well as an assignment for dirty campaigning . 40,000 euros were transferred to Silberstein for advisory services by the SPÖ Lower Austria for the election campaign for the state elections in 2018 , whereupon the ÖVP suspected that Silberstein had also been involved in dirty campaigning in Lower Austria.

Information to the press

Who sent the internal SPÖ documents on which the revelations were based to the magazine profil and the daily Die Presse , what type they were and whether there was a connection with an older "psychogram" from the environment of the SPÖ that had already been leaked to the Austrian daily not known.

A translator from the SPÖ environment, who had done translations from German into English for Silberstein, was suspected of having passed on internal information to circles close to the ÖVP. At the beginning of October, Rudolf Fußi , who had previously worked as a speechwriter for Kern, put the former employee under pressure via WhatsApp . On Facebook he offered 30,000 euros for information that should lead to the investigation of the informant. SPÖ Federal Managing Director Andrea Brunner said that they were "horrified by the methods" and that "attempts to intimidate are by no means in the interests of the party". In October 2018, in October 2018, Fußi was acquitted in the process of suspected coercion initiated by the public prosecutor's office.

The political advisor and former press spokeswoman and strategy advisor to Wolfgang Schüssel , Heidi Glück, said in the ORF's Special Report , “If the ÖVP receives information about the internal issues of the SPÖ election campaign, what should it do, except to tell journalists, or that it should spread it? "

Strategy, reach and costs

The strategy behind the Facebook pages, pictures and videos was to scare off those who sympathize with Kurz and, on the other hand, to attribute the design of the pages to the FPÖ because dirty campaigning always has a negative effect on the sender among voters.

The anti-short video No! had a media reach of 700,000 hits and thousands of likes by August 27th . The Anti-Kurz fan page received around 15,000 subscriptions, but sponsored postings reached several hundred thousand users in Austria.

In interviews organized by the SPÖ, Silberstein stated that he had used less than 100,000 euros from his fee of 536,000 euros for the Facebook pages without the knowledge of Chancellor Kern and the SPÖ. Payment was made with prepaid credit cards .

Official investigation

End of October 2017 investigated the prosecutor Peter Puller as administrator of the Facebook pages we for Sebastian Kurz and The Truth About Sebastian Kurz from. The operator of The Truth About Christian Kern , a former ÖVP or ÖAAB functionary, who, out of annoyance, "that all other top candidates got their fat in the election campaign, only SPÖ boss Christian Kern not," the site since the end of July, has also been researched had operated. He estimated the cost of advertising he placed at 30 to 40 euros, and a one-time fee of 150 euros. The SPÖ estimated the costs at up to 100,000 euros.

Reactions

Yussi Pick, a former member of Hillary Clinton's online team and former member of Section 8 of the SPÖ, made a move in connection with the short video No! the boundary between negative and dirty campaigning there, "[W] where you put things in the mouth of the political opponent that he did not say or put together in abbreviated form and presented differently [...]". Political scientist Peter Hajek described the affair as a worst-case scenario, political advisor Thomas Hofer described the damage to the SPÖ as maximum. The head of the opinion research institute OGM, Wolfgang Bachmayer, asked the question: “Can someone who is not able to lead a proper election campaign himself, can someone like that lead a country?” And the impression would arise, “Kern has his party not under control. "The political scientist Peter Filzmaier :" What is worse: You commission someone with hundreds of thousands of euros and have no idea what he is doing, or you knew it? Both are equally disastrous. "

Caritas Secretary General Klaus Schwertner apologized to the ÖVP that he, like many others, had been deceived. Caritas President Michael Landau also criticized the deception.

Stefan Sengl criticized the justification of (among others) Peter Puller, who, as a service manager, was forced to fulfill the wishes of his client. “Part of the professional responsibility of a communications consultant is to reject orders that are ethically unjustifiable.” He also referred to the guidelines of the PR Ethics Council founded by the Public Relations Association Austria . The PR Ethics Council, in turn, stated that it was inadmissible to shift responsibility for attempted deception in online communication to contractors. The media attorney Maria Windhager recommended a report to the district administrative authorities in the absence of an imprint from online appearances .

Anti-Semitism allegations

After Silberstein's arrest, the profile was accused of anti-Semitism because of the use of his picture on the cover entitled “The secret of Mr. Silberstein” . Sebastian Kurz later said that the upcoming election would also be a referendum on whether “we want the Silbersteins in Austria”, and Peter Pilz from the electoral list of the same name said that if “we want to make Austria Silberstein-free”, clear penalties would be needed Prison terms. The ORF presenter Armin Wolf held up a National Socialist banner to Pilz with the words “This city is free of Jews” on Twitter. The linguist Ruth Wodak warned against “a dangerous game with Jewish names”.

In the course of the Ibiza affair (2019), Kurz pointed out that Silberstein was behind what could be seen as an anti-Semitic cipher. The Jüdische Allgemeine says: “Who is always to blame for everything? The Jew, of course. In this case the Jew Silberstein. ”Silberstein denied any connection. For a moment he was what George Soros was to Viktor Orbán . There are no similarities with Soros, "but we happen to be both Jews".

Allegations against journalists

After the first publications, Bauer and Thalhammer were accused of being fed information in order to harm the SPÖ. Bauer says: “Feeding and instrumentalization would only be conceivable if the journalist wrote his article according to the informant's ideas. This can be categorically excluded for 'Profil'. ”The magazine Falter claimed to want to check the information leaked to Profil and Die Presse and was referred to the source protection . Even Christoph Matznetter (SPO), which by Chancellor core as head of a crisis management team affair Silberstein was to educate the employed and "some aggressive, some erratic performances" into a " victim-reversal operation", "seriously challenged the journalist of Press to reveal their sources. "

The media scientist Fritz Hausjell criticized that the revelations did not come about through journalistic work such as research . The data protection activist Maximilian Schrems indirectly suggested a softening of the editorial secrecy .

Legal processing

The ÖVP filed charges against unknown persons in charge of the SPÖ for violating the Prohibition Act for comparing and disseminating National Socialist propaganda . Because of unfair competition , the ÖVP sued the “SPÖ, Christian Kern, Georg Niedermühlbichler, Tal Silberstein, Peter Puller, Paul Pöchhacker and Robert L. because of the distribution of credit-damaging, insulting, racist, anti-Semitic and inflammatory content” at the Vienna Commercial Court . Gerald Fleischmann charged Puller with defamation .

The SPÖ reported Fleischmann for bribery and exploration of a business or company secret and sued him for breaching a business or company secret under the Unfair Competition Act. The public prosecutor closed the case because of the lack of criminal conduct, which was criticized by Christoph Matznetter. Christian Kern sued "Unknown" for defamation and insults because of the postings that appeared on the three Facebook pages.

In January 2018, the ÖVP offered "eternal rest" of the civil law proceedings, which the SPÖ wanted to examine for the time being.

Others

Together with the publisher of profil , Christian Rainer , Gernot Bauer reported on October 3rd of threats: "not as usual from anonymous, mostly right-wing and left-wing radicals, but from what one calls seasoned SPÖ voters who have really threatened us."

Bauer and Thalhammer were made aware in mid-October 2017 that they were being shadowed . The Vienna State Office for the Protection of the Constitution is pursuing evidence of an Israeli security company.

A study carried out by the OGM Institute on October 4 and 5, 2017 revealed an “all-time low” in trust in politics in general and in politicians. According to a study published in January 2018 by the opinion research institute IMAS, three fifths of Austrians are “reasonably certain” that fake news in connection with dirty campaigning influenced the outcome of the election. For 59 percent, fake news poses a threat to society. According to Weltwoche , the affair "resulted in a landslide victory for the ÖVP and FPÖ." According to the Jüdischer Allgemeine , the Silberstein affair cost the SPÖ quite a few votes, and Kurz helped to achieve this Election victory.

literature

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Thomas Hofer : Spin Doctors in Austria. The Practice of American Campaign Advisors. What they can do, whom they advise, how they work . 1st edition. LIT , Vienna 2005, ISBN 3-8258-8645-X , p. 76 ( limited preview in Google Book search).
  2. ↑ Leila Al-Serori : Sebastian Kurz, the "young Metternich". Courier , January 16, 2014, accessed November 1, 2017 .
  3. ↑ Oliver Pink : Everyone is preparing for new elections . In: The press . October 6, 2016, p.  7 ( Online [accessed November 2, 2017] Online title: Preparing for new elections I: Kern engages campaign guru).
  4. ↑ Michael Nikbakhsh: Partner Swap . In: profile . No. 6 , February 8, 2016, p. 40, 42 ( online [accessed November 7, 2017]).
  5. ↑ Barbara Tóth : You don’t know any genius, Mr. Gusenbauer? In: Falter . No.  24 , 23 August 2017, p. 10-12 ( Paywall [accessed November 7, 2017]).
  6. ^ A b c Daniela Kittner: Crazy election campaign: "Slimfit in the Danube" . In: Courier . October 8, 2017, p. 4 ( Online [accessed October 27, 2017]).
  7. ↑ Thomas Hofer , Barbara Tóth (ed.): Election 2013. Power, media, billionaires - analyzes of the National Council election . 2nd Edition. LIT , Vienna 2014, ISBN 978-3-643-50549-1 , p. 19 ( limited preview in Google Book search).
  8. ↑ Robert Kriechbaumer : “It's enough!”. The Gusenbauer - Molterer government . Austria 2007/2008 . 1st edition. Böhlau, Vienna 2016, ISBN 978-3-205-20252-3 , pp. 203 ( limited preview in Google Book search).
  9. ^ Daniela Kittner: Tal Silberstein: Chancellor Makers, Chancellor Killer. Retrieved February 23, 2020 .
  10. ↑ Claus Pándi : Little joy with the coalition - but the majority does not want new elections . In: Kronen Zeitung . December 11, 2016, p.  2 ( Online [accessed November 2, 2017]).
  11. ↑ Kern leads with party leaders, but clearly behind Kurz. Kronen Zeitung , November 18, 2016, accessed on November 2, 2017 .
  12. ↑ a b Oliver Pink: How Sebastian Kurz prepared for the big day . In: The press . September 16, 2016, p. 2 ( Online [accessed October 31, 2017]).
  13. ↑ Michael Sprenger: Silberstein or House of Cards for the poor . In: Tyrolean daily newspaper . October 3, 2017, p. 11 ( online [accessed November 7, 2017]).
  14. ^ Tal Silberstein on Dirty Campaigning. (Video; 38 seconds) YouTube , 2005, accessed on October 8, 2017 (English).
  15. ↑ Silberstein's strategy for negative campaigns. Der Standard , October 4, 2017, accessed October 5, 2017 .
  16. ↑ Reinhold Mitterlehner : attitude. Show the flag in life and politics . Ed .: Barbara Tóth . Ecowin, Salzburg / Munich 2019, ISBN 978-3-7110-0239-6 , pp. 166 .
  17. ↑ Oliver Pink: A duel casts its shadow ahead . In: The press . January 8, 2017, p. 3 ( Online [accessed October 1, 2017]).
  18. ↑ Sobotka: SPÖ wants to “shoot softly” in short. Die Presse , January 8, 2017, accessed October 1, 2017 .
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