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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

#511

Post by djhn »

Causality1 wrote: post #494
rzwitserloot wrote: post #229

This keeps being posted and keeps disappearing, so I'm going to not link to it, but when you search around, a post on telegram by Pavel Durov explains that apple has in fact made 2 demands: Take down the private information __and__ in addition to that, do so silently: Do not replace it with a notice explaining which part of apple's guidelines were breached, because that would be 'irrelevant' info. Apparently, whilst…

Telegram is small enough for Apple to bully. Imagine if Apple tried to force Twitter to censor every "cancel crusade" or be removed from the App Store.

Telegram has more monthly active users than Twitter (400 million vs 360 million, according to Statista)

Even going by metrics like cultural significance, there are large regional differences. It's a little unfair to call them smaller, even if they don't quite have the same level of political and social clout in the US.

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

#512

Post by nvrspyx »

thatjamesdude wrote: post #495
toyg wrote: post #397

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is just beef with Telegram. That’s where the content is hosted. Apple as a distributor should have NO relevance to this. Apple is like a landlord who legally rented his shop to people who run it as a bar in which some people might meet to discuss protests. Should the police even call the landlord? Should the landlord act on this info?

Let's not twist the argument. Those channels exist to spread private, identifiable data and this breaks the law. A better version of your argument is Apple is the landlord where people are planning lynchings. Again, I side with the Belarusians. But pretending this is different to China's doxxing of Uighurs is naive

An even better version of your argument is that Apple is the landlord, Telegram is the one renting the space to run a bar, and a few people are in the back corner planning lynchings. Should it be Apple's responsibility to tell their tenant to kick those people out? Or should the authorities be going straight to the tenant?

The worst part is that this isn't even accurate. What this is really like is Apple sells a bunch of residences, the users are buying their homes, but for some reason all utilities/cable/internet/etc. has to go through the real estate company that the house was purchased from as they dictate what you can and cannot do in that house. Even stranger, it is now somehow the real estate company's place and responsibility to tell a telephone company that the real estate company allows to drop conference calls that mention the private information of some third party, whether the phone calls are coming from the houses purchased from them or not.

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

#513

Post by dang »

rzwitserloot wrote: post #229

This keeps being posted and keeps disappearing, so I'm going to not link to it, but when you search around, a post on telegram by Pavel Durov explains that apple has in fact made 2 demands: Take down the private information __and__ in addition to that, do so silently: Do not replace it with a notice explaining which part of apple's guidelines were breached, because that would be 'irrelevant' info. Apparently, whilst…

> This keeps being posted and keeps disappearing

Fwiw, t.me is banned on HN because the vast majority of submissions don't show anything unless you install their app. It seems some posts are also display actual content, but they're rare, and it would require writing some special-case code to whitelist them.

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

#514

Post by newbie578 »

booleandilemma wrote: post #342
newbie578 wrote: post #309

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I love when hypocrisy like this is exposed, and I would love it even more for Tim Apple to answer that question. Can we start a GoFundMe to have Tim answer it?

You want to pay Tim Cook for explaining why he’s a hypocrite?

Well for one, I would love to hear him explain how does commiting perjury benefit the good of others?

I am point to the fact that he lied under oath when he said that no one receives special treatment in the App Store, yet it came out Amazon got special treatment in a "quid pro quo" deal.

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

#516

Post by anoncareer0212 »

antris wrote: post #290
powerapple wrote: post #265

Earlier quoted context omitted.

the site you are referring to in your last sentence is not funded by Chinese government, but by a previous governor of Hong Kong (Liang I believe).

But isn't the former governor pretty much a puppet of the Chinese Communist Party though?

nah they're still a person, the conversion to puppet proved more difficult than expected

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

#517

Post by vorpalhex »

extropy wrote: post #395
BurningFrog wrote: post #261

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Griefing? Belarus is on the brink of civil war. Doxxing regime supporters can easily end up as a "murder todo list" if things heat up. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Griefing

Maybe the guys should have thought about that before they started attacking peaceful protesters. This is just one tool, and there will be killing with or without it.

I'm sure a bit of murdering will totally cool things down and peacefully resolve things, with no innocent deaths or casualties. As we all know, vigilantes never make mistakes.

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

#518

Post by metiscus »

baybal2 wrote: post #348
BurningFrog wrote: post #261

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Griefing? Belarus is on the brink of civil war. Doxxing regime supporters can easily end up as a "murder todo list" if things heat up. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Griefing

> Doxxing regime supporters can easily end up as a "murder todo list" if things heat up. Do you give an innuendo that this is somehow wrong?

Yes. Murdering people that you disagree politically with is wrong. Even the actual nazis were allowed to surrender and stand trial. Vigilantism is nearly always a bad thing.

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

#519

Post by sudosysgen »

dan-robertson wrote: post #234
_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…

One issue is that public attitudes to doxxing vary between places. What is unacceptable in America may be considered more normal elsewhere. In this specific situation there’s a pretty obvious power imbalance where the public do not wear masks and the authorities would be able to track them down and oppress them later (or just do what they currently do and grab them from the streets at the time). The threat of unmaski…

Is doxxing a police officer even unacceptable in America? There is very different standard of privacy between an average Joe and an agent of the state performing their duties.

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

#520

Post by asddubs »

WilTimSon wrote: post #468
class4behavior wrote: post #280

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Here's Durov's response: ``` Apple released a statement saying they didn't want us to take down the 3 channels run by the Belarusian protestors, but just specific posts "disclosing personal information." This sly wording ignores the fact that channels like @karatelibelarusi and @belarusassholes consist entirely of personal information of violent oppressors and those who helped rig the elections – because that is why…

I take no issue with wanting to remove content that doxxes people, even if those people are doing bad things. I do, however, take issue with Apple pushing this idea that they can decide what information you can and cannot give users. Barring people from saying "Hey, we didn't delete this because we wanted to, Apple asked us to" is a bit suspect as it leads to people associating the act with the app by default. It tak…

it's pretty convenient if you can just force another company to take the PR hit for your unpopular decision, because you own the microphone
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