Apple tells Telegram to take down protestor channels in Belarus

Post by angry_octet » Sat, Oct 10, 2020, 5:14 PM UTC

im3w1l wrote: post #312

DoingIsLearning wrote: post #276

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> There is no middle ground. Pause this slippery slope argument for a second. The current situation in Belarus: - Protestors are being imprisoned by unidentified agents in unidentified vehicles - Protestors are being _tortured_ throughout nightly interrogations - Protest _organizers_ have been kidnapped overnight and hanged from trees to get the OMON's point across. This isn't a US politics disinformation twitter pin…

The reason people want guns and freedom of speech is because they anticipate these kinds of situations. With actual dictatorships and everything. Similar to poker, it rarely goes all the way to showdown. But the possibility of showdown still shapes everything.

Post by hu3 » Sat, Oct 10, 2020, 5:24 PM UTC

zelon88 wrote: post #446

I don't get why American companies seem to regularly align themselves with authority like this. Apple has more yearly profits than the GDP of Belarus. Why does Apple play by the rules of Belarus. Honestly, if I had the power and influence of Apple I'd run my business in these third world sections of the world just like I run them in America. Arguably Apple has more weight on people in these regions than local governm…

Post by RangerScience » Sat, Oct 10, 2020, 5:29 PM UTC

dragonwriter wrote: post #462

RangerScience wrote: post #459

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> This HAS to apply equally No, it really doesn't. IMO it has to apply consistently . And it's easy to maintain cohesion / consistency here: If you have different rights, you get different rights. Police have additional rights, particularly when acting in the course of their jobs - specifically, they have the right of violence. Seems reasonable to give up the "right" of protection-from-griefing.

> Police have additional rights No, police exercise and are protected by powers of government, these are not the same kind of thing as rights, and do not belong to the individual the way rights do. Moreover, the legitimacy of such powers is exactly dependent on the legitimacy of the government and the extent to which it observes the rights of the people subject to it's powers.

Post by ALittleLight » Sat, Oct 10, 2020, 5:32 PM UTC

wussboy wrote: post #394

SpicyLemonZest wrote: post #369

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Even if that's true - and I'm not going to get into that debate here - surely that doesn't mean that every company has to allow their products to become tools of mass violence.

Violence may be seen as legitimate, but it shouldn’t be seen as effective. In a study of over 300 movements, non violent protests are twice as effective. https://www.belfercenter.org/sites/default/files/legacy/file...

Post by FireBeyond » Sat, Oct 10, 2020, 5:32 PM UTC

qPM9l3XJrF wrote: post #235

_RPL5_ wrote: post #102

Here is a source in Russian [0] saying that Apple is asking Telegram to remove messages that de-anonymize Belorussian police members, rather than blocking channels outright. I don't know whether their source is reliable, but here is the relevant snippet (google translate): > Apple says it didn’t require any channels to be removed. But they demanded to immediately remove any information that discloses someone's data o…

Yeah, I don't see how this is different from Twitter taking down a tweet which doxxes someone. Would people object if Apple told Telegram they had to remove a channel that was being used by white supremacists to coordinate terrorist attacks? The answer to that question matters, because if users in this thread succeed in making iPhones less of a walled garden, terrorists will be able to use their iPhones to coordinate…