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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

#511

Post by notSupplied »

phs318u wrote: post #448
crondung wrote: post #373

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's cool and all, except everyone in that country had 2 sim cards with 2 numbers. They don't have free long distance over there, nor are plans for cheap text+data the same plans as cheap calls. So I take this information to mean this poll was useless. Everyone who voted could vote twice, and felons and kids voted too.

Unless you’ve got some info to show that the distribution of people with 2 sims, or with kids, isn’t the same across different voting populations across the country, what you’re pointing out is irrelevant to the ratio of votes between the candidates, and only pertinent to the absolute numbers.

You raise an interesting point here:

Who has the burden of proof here? Should disparity in SIM card ownership be proven? Or the fact that they are evenly distributed be proven? Few things in life are evenly distributed, disparity is the norm!

Re: Telegram messaging app proves crucial to Belarus protests

#512

Post by baby »

conception wrote: post #115
baby wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Signal is a non-profit though no?

Non-profits can and should make money. That’s a common misconception and a big problem for charities are people think they are being greedy if they are making money regardless of the impact of that money. A non-profit just means profit isn’t their goal.

I don't think that's what it means, I think it means they have to re-invest benefits in the company no? Signal does get money from donations

Re: Telegram messaging app proves crucial to Belarus protests

#513

Post by jariel »

sam_lowry_ wrote: post #288
jariel wrote: post #251

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your numbers don't match Wikipedia [1] which indicates that there was 85% turnout, Tikhanovskaya got 10% ~600K votes. But maybe I missed something. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2020_Belarusian_presidential_e...

The turnout was high indeed. As for the rest of the Wikipedia article, it is woefully incorrect. I will add up-to-date information to the "Voice" section and I hope others will fix factual errors in the Death section and other parts of that article. Bear in mind that Wikipedia's policy is use "official" sources when in doubt. According to Wikipedia, Assange is a criminal. Snowden is a traitor.

"Bear in mind that Wikipedia's policy is use "official" sources when in doubt. According to Wikipedia, Assange is a criminal. Snowden is a traitor."

Not really.

They use credible sources as far as they can find them, their numbers on Belarus look like what the international press is reporting.

Wikipedia doesn't 'think' that Assange or Snowden are anything. They have long articles detailing their history, and possibly what some others might think.

Re: Telegram messaging app proves crucial to Belarus protests

#514

Post by jariel »

dtech wrote: post #247
jariel wrote: post #233

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Teenagers don't have phones? Did all the eligible voters who phone-polled actually vote? Did they poll the way they actually voted? Some people don't have two phones? Can we trust that telegram doesn't have a flaw in the means by which it is measured? (i.e. register again with the same SIM, or something like that?) It's nice that there is a phone number as validation, but this doesn't 'prove' anything. Edit: I should…

With these numbers, there would need to be significant effort to fraud the Telegram poll. For no real benefit other than maybe propaganda. Whom exactly benefits from that? It would have to be a nation-state, and they weren't exactly doing much about the situation before the "election". What is more likely: that the existing dictator and his supporters made defrauded the election to keep power or that some unknown ent…

"For no real benefit other than maybe propaganda."

Propaganda and narrative is the whole name of the game here.

It's Telegram poll, there are any number of ways it could be messed up, including very easily someone sympathetic at Telegram (though I doubt this), it has no material credibility.

It's a data point, not 'proof'.

Re: Telegram messaging app proves crucial to Belarus protests

#515

Post by ryan_j_naughton »

atoav wrote: post #409
schmorptron wrote: post #395

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wait, how is felons voting a bad thing?

Probably from the US, they didn't sign the human rights treaty and are a bit.. underdeveloped at that front.

> are a bit.. underdeveloped at that front

Nice euphemism. Yes, it is one the areas where America is truly a backward nation. Here's hoping we can finally correct the systemic issues undermining our representative democracy and can thus have a more progressive government come 2021.

Re: Telegram messaging app proves crucial to Belarus protests

#516

Post by d0mine »

ardy42 wrote: post #341
d0mine wrote: post #204

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sample size is not everything "Literary Digest poll was also one of the largest and most expensive polls ever conducted, with a sample size of around 2.4 million people" The large size by itself does not guarantee correctness https://www.math.upenn.edu/~deturck/m170/wk4/lecture/case1.h...

> Sample size is not everything "Literary Digest poll was also one of the largest and most expensive polls ever conducted, with a sample size of around 2.4 million people" The large size by itself does not guarantee correctness https://www.math.upenn.edu/~deturck/m170/wk4/lecture/case1.h... But isn't that really only the case when you're trying to use statistical inference to generalize from a sample? It seems like t…

People who can vote officially and telegram accounts are not the same thing. I'm sure we even teenagers could have found multiple phone numbers to vote in the telegram poll.

We can't exclude the possibility that If I were a foreign power with a military budget measured in trillions then the telegram poll would say exactly what I wanted it to say.

Re: Telegram messaging app proves crucial to Belarus protests

#517

Post by chromedev »

literallycancer wrote: post #166
chromedev wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can find the releases here, and if there is a delay it is only a few days at most: https://github.com/Telegram-FOSS-Team/Telegram-FOSS/releases Only the clients are open source, but anyone could use the source code to create their own network.

Without server source? Might as well start from scratch and use something like matrix.

Matrix doesn't compare at all and Element is their client to promote their SaaS solution.

Re: Telegram messaging app proves crucial to Belarus protests

#518

Post by loxs »

moltar wrote: post #362
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…

The problem with that approach is that it’s clearly biased towards the younger generations who are tech savvy. But it’s mostly the older people who would’ve voted for Luk. Note, I don’t support Luk in anyway, just pointing out the bias. Altho it does uncover the fact that the results are fabricated. But it’s not like anyone was doubting that anyways.

Come on... I don't believe this. My whole extended family below 90 is using actively some varying portion of these: Viber (most used), WhatsApp, Facebook messenger. They are mostly spread in Turkey, Bulgaria and (to a lesser extend) the rest of Europe and some in the US. Grandmas use Viber regularly to share pics of their great-grandchildren with their first cousins (other grandmas). They send holiday wishes, news etc. And my people are not better educated compared to the rest of our part of the world. Everyone is very engaged with politics (mostly for or against Erdogan).

I don't believe Belarus is any different. Yeah, younger people are probably more likely to vote in such a thing, still, I don't think the bias is huge.

Re: Telegram messaging app proves crucial to Belarus protests

#519

Post by atoav »

ryan_j_naughton wrote: post #515
atoav wrote: post #409

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Probably from the US, they didn't sign the human rights treaty and are a bit.. underdeveloped at that front.

> are a bit.. underdeveloped at that front Nice euphemism. Yes, it is one the areas where America is truly a backward nation. Here's hoping we can finally correct the systemic issues undermining our representative democracy and can thus have a more progressive government come 2021.

I hope for that as well, it is quite hard to watch for everybody with a heart. In fact this empathy/pain might be the only reason I'd even bother to formulate my response..

Re: Telegram messaging app proves crucial to Belarus protests

#520

Post by ClumsyPilot »

maqp wrote: post #455
ClumsyPilot wrote: post #239

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because it's down along with the rest of the internet. Because connection resilience is more important than encryption.

Connection resilience. You mean when Telegram's EU server had an issue last time, it was down from Ireland to Egypt to Israel to Finland :D That resilience?

I am talking about it's ability to resist attempts to block it's connection by the ISP. Why do you conflate it with reliability of their servers?
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