Vienna Festival cancels IT investor Thiel's appearance after criticism

The Vienna Festival cancelled an upcoming appearance by US right-wing IT investor Peter Thiel after growing criticism of a planned event, the organizers said in an Instagram post on Saturday.

Director and festival director Milo Rau, known for his political projects, had championed a public discussion evening with Thiel in June and Thiel had confirmed his attendance.

The US billionaire, who originally comes from Germany, is known for his libertarian and right-wing conservative views, for being a close supporter of US President Donald Trump and his criticism of liberal democracies. Recent reports about Thiel's apocalyptic worldview also made headlines.

Festival artists and participants withdrew from the event due to the plans to feature Thiel. Their cancellations weakened the festival "to an unacceptable extent," which is why the management has decided to cancel the debate with Peter Thiel, the organizers said.

Other critical voices have also become increasingly prominent, according to the festival, which is funded by the City of Vienna. Vienna's City Councillor for Culture, Veronica Kaup-Hasler, told Der Standard newspaper: "The invitation to Peter Thiel is quite rightly causing great discontent among the public."

However, many festival-goers were looking forward to the discussion, to be held under the title "Armageddon and the Antichrist? From Theology to Realpolitik." Some saw this as a chance for Thiel to put his views forward and respond to counter-arguments, they said at a public forum on the pros and cons of Thiel's appearance staged by Rau on Friday.

Thiel is co-founder and chairman of the software company Palantir which specializes in analysing large datasets and provides software used by intelligence and military agencies.

The company's software is used by agencies including the US Department of Homeland Security and the Pentagon. Controversy over whether security agencies should rely on Palantir's controversial data analysis products has sparked debate in many countries.