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Telegram messaging app proves crucial to Belarus protests

latimes.com

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Re: Telegram messaging app proves crucial to Belarus protests

#121

Post by throwaway8941 »

BelleOfTheBall wrote: post #107
vel0city wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So when you try and go tell the other person's device to delete your message, how does it go into their iCloud backups and delete that message, or some other backup? Don't depend on asking someone else's device to delete the data as that data being gone.

Telegram doesn't store messages on the device, you don't need to "tell the other person's device" anything, it's deleted from the Telegram cloud.

It is stored locally, although only temporarily. I rarely connect my phone to the internet and still can scroll through quite a bit of message history.

Re: Telegram messaging app proves crucial to Belarus protests

#122

Post by rectang »

Nasrudith wrote: post #75
soufron wrote: post #10

It's never "the work of a long-preparing revolutionnary crowd" revolution, but always a "latest fashionable technology" revolution. Tech propaganda at its best.

To be fair "long preparing revolutionary" people tend to be dogmatic loons who are obsessed with some pure concept (religious fundamentalism, communism, ethnonationalism) that aren't enough to be a crowd. As opposed to a general populace pushed to an edge by extreme conditions and leadership which does the exact wrong thing in a circumstance.

"Dogmatic loons", like, say, Nelson Mandela?

Re: Telegram messaging app proves crucial to Belarus protests

#123

Post by HPsquared »

diimdeep wrote: post #118

Telegram created Belarus language public channel. And posted poll to vote for new president with some clever restrictions. Anyone can vote, but you can't choose options with candidates if your phone number is not Balarusian. "I am not from Belarus" is only available poll option to make your vote if your phone number is not Balarusian. There is currently 736'000 votes with that option. Telegram poll https://t.me/s/tel…

To be fair though, Telegram users aren't exactly an unbiased sample.

Re: Telegram messaging app proves crucial to Belarus protests

#124

Post by voxic11 »

mauflows wrote: post #63
mbowcutt wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't know too much about Telegram but isn't it encrypted?

I'm pretty sure Signal at least doesn't encrypt at rest on your phone. So the drive would have to be encrypted as well, which is not default on Android

Signal does encrypt your messages locally. Also Android supports file encryption you don't need to use full disk encryption anymore. Also I think the policy has changed in Android 10.

> All compatible Android devices newly launching with Android Q are required to encrypt user data, with no exceptions.

Re: Telegram messaging app proves crucial to Belarus protests

#125

Post by robjan »

robertfw wrote: post #87
zanny wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Matrix has comprehensive encryption now and is decentralized.

Matrix really does seem like the ideal future platform to build on, I've started poking around it and really like what I see. Does anyone with more experience want to chime in on what they've found using it?

I don't think matrix can scale to hundreds of thousands of users in one channel at the moment.

Re: Telegram messaging app proves crucial to Belarus protests

#126

Post by newen »

ROARosen wrote: post #58
dmurray wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A different interpretation is that those social media platforms keep the dissent monitorable and under control, and the powers that be are quite happy with the status quo. If that was the case, as soon as a platform that was not US-controlled gained a foothold in the US, we'd see a crackdown from the establishment. It would be painted as a tool of a foreign power and shut down or forced to be turned over to a US-base…

> as soon as a platform that was not US-controlled gained a foothold in the US, we'd see a crackdown from the establishment Telegram is not US controlled. There is no crackdown from the "establishment". Except if you meant only in situations where there is widespread unrest? If it is not relevant to Facebook here in the US in the first place.

3.5 million monthly active users of Telegram in the US. 80 million MAU of TikTok in the US. Makes a difference. They didn't crack down on TikTok until very recently.

Re: Telegram messaging app proves crucial to Belarus protests

#127

Post by skyyler »

shawnz wrote: post #93
charia wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's literally what one of the protestors called it. > “Telegram channels and websites that don’t belong to our government are the main source of information today as we cannot at all rely on state media,” said Roman Semenov, who follows the NEXTA channels and joined a rally in central Minsk on Wednesday evening. “It’s a Telegram revolution.” On top of that this is article detailing how this particular technology, ha…

And the journalist who gets paid to write a nice article about Signal will surely get a quote from the protestor who happened to use Signal and not Telegram.

I'm not sure why you've brought up Signal, they're completely different platforms.

Signal focuses on secure communication, Telegram has a secure communication feature... But also a social network of group chats and channels that link to each other; and that's the focus of this article.

Re: Telegram messaging app proves crucial to Belarus protests

#128

Post by huhtenberg »

HPsquared wrote: post #123
diimdeep wrote: post #118

Telegram created Belarus language public channel. And posted poll to vote for new president with some clever restrictions. Anyone can vote, but you can't choose options with candidates if your phone number is not Balarusian. "I am not from Belarus" is only available poll option to make your vote if your phone number is not Balarusian. There is currently 736'000 votes with that option. Telegram poll https://t.me/s/tel…

To be fair though, Telegram users aren't exactly an unbiased sample.

2.3M voted in a poll, 59% from Belorussian phone numbers. That's 1.36 M or 17% of the eligible voter pool. 51% of these are for the secondary candidate.

This doesn't reconcile with the official numbers regardless of how you massage them.

Re: Telegram messaging app proves crucial to Belarus protests

#129

Post by stjohnswarts »

echelon wrote: post #35
ip26 wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are you similarly critical of discussions about how ubiquitous camera phones have changed the civil rights movement? Technology is only a tool, and is only as good as what people actually do with it. But it can be a crucial tool that changes everything.

I don't think so. Calling it "{arbitrary brand} revolution", when pretty much every messaging platform is indistinguishable feels crass and tacky. The brand isn't the one in the trenches making the sacrifices. It could be called a smart phone revolution instead. A revolution of the people.

Well telegram is what they're using, do you suggest that the name of the app be left out of the article? The statements are coming from excited & anxious activists. Of course they're going to be overstated. I hope they are successful in their peaceful coupe and get honest elections. Can't you just have hope for them as well?

Re: Telegram messaging app proves crucial to Belarus protests

#130

Post by iso8859-1 »

wintorez wrote: post #82
rectang wrote: post #44

Should the revolution fail, the digital trail left by these messages will give the government everything they need to hunt down every last activist. We saw it with the Green Revolution in Iran. We've seen it several times since. So long as messages are not encrypted, messaging apps are much more naturally suited as tools of oppression than tools of revolution.

Telegram has a feature that I really like. It allows you to delete your messages from other people devices as well.

But there is an open source client. So it should be trivial to not actually delete, but instead log every attempt to delete.
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