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Apple tells Telegram to take down protestor channels in Belarus

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Re: Apple tells Telegram to take down protestor channels in Belarus

#121

Through what right or means can Apple demand this, though? Telegram is a platform for user-generated content and it seems odd for Apple to single-out those 3 channels/groups specifically - what about the hundreds of thousands of other objectionable groups on Telegram? And why Telegram in particular? Why doesn't Apple give the same ultimatum to Facebook to pressure them to block access to militant ethnonationalist gro…

To be fair, Telegram is a total nightmare. It's like bitcoin or Tor and dark web, it may facilitate anonymous free speech, but in doing so, it facilitates a helluva lot of crime.

There has to be limits on freedom, you can't just be allowed to post bomb making plans on the internet or yelling fire in a crowded theatre

Re: Apple tells Telegram to take down protestor channels in Belarus

#123
post #78

Apple reps told Russian media outlet TJournal that they did not demand channel takedown, they requested to take down only specific posts containing personal information of police officers. https://tjournal.ru/tech/221326-apple-zayavila-chto-ne-trebo...

In a situation like this, the only option is to block the channels because a single user post (even if it is taken down quickly) could result the app's removal and being blocked.

Re: Apple tells Telegram to take down protestor channels in Belarus

#124
post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No. Apple just doesn't give away free stuff for the bad guys. When producers enquiry apple if they can get devices without cost, apple only gives them for the good guys. If the bad ones should be seen on camera with iphones, the production has to buy them.

Phones are ridiculously cheap compared to shows and movies. That can't be it.

Maybe Apple pays for showing good guys with iphones, but not bad guys.

Re: Apple tells Telegram to take down protestor channels in Belarus

#125
post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are those shows likely to incite violence which may result in people being killed ? Because in Hong Kong similar channels were used to kill police. This isn't a simple question of censorship.

Indeed there's the nuance that it's a war of the people against an oppressive regime - and Apple is ignoring this nuance and taking sides.

I don't think this is accurate if Apple are purely objecting to posts that try and identify individuals, opening them up to violence.

I don't know if that is the case, but if it is then they aren't taking sides.

Re: Apple tells Telegram to take down protestor channels in Belarus

#126
post #83

https://t.me/durov/136 > Previously, when removing posts at Apple’s request, Telegram replaced those posts with a notice that cited the exact rule limiting such content for iOS users. However, Apple reached out to us a while ago and said our app is not allowed to show users such notices because they were “irrelevant”. Fucking hell, Apple. ---- cough https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nineteen_Eighty-Four#Ministry_...

But those notices really are irrelevant, right? I mean, there is nothing I can do to bypass them. It's bad UX, like showing a disabled button that I can't enable by any means. Having said this, you can still use Telegram Web on Safari to bypass these restrictions.

First, I do not think they are irrelevant, but it's probably subjective.

Second, them being irrelevant is certainly not a good reason to forbid those notices.

Third, that they are forbidden makes them all the more relevant.

Re: Apple tells Telegram to take down protestor channels in Belarus

#127
post #86

The 1984 metaphor is frequently cited as a great irony here. It’s a well-known theme however, consider Game of Thrones: a dragon queen frees the oppressed of the world with a movement to make all the societies a better place, until it is revealed that she’s actually just power-hungry and wants to control it all, even if it means destroying it all. Sometimes you have to wait to the end to put the beginning motivations…

Also it's a company, not a single person, and companies change staff and leadership. Thinking that they're a person is a common fallacy. Almost as common as thinking of the state as one's eternal parent.

Re: Apple tells Telegram to take down protestor channels in Belarus

#128
post #86

The 1984 metaphor is frequently cited as a great irony here. It’s a well-known theme however, consider Game of Thrones: a dragon queen frees the oppressed of the world with a movement to make all the societies a better place, until it is revealed that she’s actually just power-hungry and wants to control it all, even if it means destroying it all. Sometimes you have to wait to the end to put the beginning motivations…

Consider also that we get only two points of view on Oceania: Goldstein and Smith. Goldstein's analytic exposition seems to indicate a sound head on his shoulders, and to double check his claims[1], we may verify that nearly everything he writes is, with minor adjustments, applicable to our world as well as to his. Smith[2], on the other hand, shows signs of paranoid delusions[3] and narcissism[4] up through chapter 9 of the fast-forward. Is he an entirely reliable narrator from chapter 10 onward? Is he even awake[5]?

Part IV, Chapter 1: Winston could hear the birds through the open window. Julia already had the kettle on, bubbling quietly, and she spoke as she rummaged for the tea tin. "Sleepyhead, you shouldn't fall asleep while reading. Not only did I have to replace your book in the bookshelf this morning, but you woke me up twice, whimpering during the night. Did you have a bad dream, darling?" ...

[1] Compare ancient Theban warnings about regurgitating a media line without double checking its claims: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24737221

[2] One of the drones from Sector 7G of MiniTru. They all went to Nottingham, York, etc., so they're certainly not given any important tasks which could be screwed up, but since they do have degrees they still must be given some kind of make work, and (as someone in the work assignment ministry had only skimmed Smith's dossier, putting it down immediately the tea lady came by, and so hadn't realised the effect the nature of this position might have on his innate shaky grip on reality) they are charged with correcting errors in automatically generated transcripts (given the awful state of their cigarette machines is it any wonder the translation machine is so off base so frequently?), which somehow Smith has managed to Mitty up into a fantasy of rewriting, in the grand manner, truth.

[3] Of course Syme isn't listed in the rota on the office bulletin board any longer. He hasn't been disappeared. He's been promoted and now works at MiniPlen, so his name now appears on their office rotas.

[4] What kind of adult male would run to a woman to whom he hasn't been introduced, whose notion of flirting and courtship reduces entirely to exploiting an (alleged) injury in making a drop, as if she were not a lover but a dealer? One would have to be both immature and pretty full of oneself to not run away from that one, double time.

[5] Goldstein does leave us with the question of "why should human equality be averted?" and so Freud might say that Smith's dreams correspond to his subconscious attempting to answer that question. In this case, Smith's id dreams up an insidious totalitarian grand conspiracy theory (paralleling Smith's waking fantasies about his job) in which the Inner Party (which he failed to join entirely due to his poor A-level marks) is motivated exactly like the bullying teenage (they are from the cream of society: both rich and thick) schoolboys of his author's own experience, as a swotter on scholarship at a second-rate boarding school. This motive really consists...

Re: Apple tells Telegram to take down protestor channels in Belarus

#129

Through what right or means can Apple demand this, though? Telegram is a platform for user-generated content and it seems odd for Apple to single-out those 3 channels/groups specifically - what about the hundreds of thousands of other objectionable groups on Telegram? And why Telegram in particular? Why doesn't Apple give the same ultimatum to Facebook to pressure them to block access to militant ethnonationalist gro…

To be fair, Telegram is a total nightmare. It's like bitcoin or Tor and dark web, it may facilitate anonymous free speech, but in doing so, it facilitates a helluva lot of crime. There has to be limits on freedom, you can't just be allowed to post bomb making plans on the internet or yelling fire in a crowded theatre

You may not know this but the fire in a crowded theater case was about criminalizing opposition to the draft during WWI. Criminalizing speech always ends with the powers that be using it to stop people saying things inconvenient to them. One year it’s Obama prosecuting whistleblowers, the next it’s Trump. Any power the government has will be used and “abused” almost immediately.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shouting_fire_in_a_crowded_the...

> Holmes, writing for a unanimous Court, ruled that it was a violation of the Espionage Act of 1917 (amended by the Sedition Act of 1918), to distribute flyers opposing the draft during World War I. Holmes argued this abridgment of free speech was permissible because it presented a "clear and present danger" to the government's recruitment efforts for the war. Holmes wrote:

>> The most stringent protection of free speech would not protect a man falsely shouting fire in a theatre and causing a panic. [...] The question in every case is whether the words used are used in such circumstances and are of such a nature as to create a clear and present danger that they will bring about the substantive evils that Congress has a right to prevent.

Re: Apple tells Telegram to take down protestor channels in Belarus

#130
post #83

https://t.me/durov/136 > Previously, when removing posts at Apple’s request, Telegram replaced those posts with a notice that cited the exact rule limiting such content for iOS users. However, Apple reached out to us a while ago and said our app is not allowed to show users such notices because they were “irrelevant”. Fucking hell, Apple. ---- cough https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nineteen_Eighty-Four#Ministry_...

But those notices really are irrelevant, right? I mean, there is nothing I can do to bypass them. It's bad UX, like showing a disabled button that I can't enable by any means. Having said this, you can still use Telegram Web on Safari to bypass these restrictions.

Spoken like a problematic ux-er ;-)

Visible but disabled items can be important for discoverability.

Knowing when and where to apply which ux rules is probably more important than knowing all the rules.

FTR: I'm happy to work with what I think are good ux-ers so they certainly do exist.

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