Apple tells Telegram to take down protestor channels in Belarus • Hacker News Board

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

#531

Post by mswtk » Sat, Oct 10, 2020, 7:34 PM UTC

qPM9l3XJrF wrote: post #436

esperent wrote: post #428

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When one side is an illegitimate government who stole an election, and the other side is millions of people fighting for democracy and freedom, possibly, just possibly, it's time to pick a side. Even if you're a huge amoral profit driven company who's fear of losing 0.1% of your profit precludes you from taking sides... Well, maybe just sit this one out?

So Apple is now in charge of deciding whether elections are legitimate? It's weird how people in this thread are zigzagging between saying Apple has too much corporate power and Apple needs much more. Does every country in the world really have to be a democracy? Remember how the Arab Spring turned out?

> Does every country in the world really have to be a democracy?

They don't.

Does every country in the world really need to have racial equality and an even-handed police force? They don't either.

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

#532

Post by tinus_hn » Sat, Oct 10, 2020, 7:40 PM UTC

vbezhenar wrote: post #151

tinus_hn wrote: post #140

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The app makes sure only the people it thinks are in the channel get the keys. If you turn on the security notifications you can see how it works, you get a message when someone gets a new phone, that indicates they got a new key. You can even check if it matches up if you meet in person or if you communicated using another medium.

Those are not some private groups of 5 guys. Those group are available to millions of users.

You can still tell but of course there shouldn’t be an expectation of privacy with that many users.

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

#533

Post by andrepd » Sat, Oct 10, 2020, 7:41 PM UTC

vorpalhex wrote: post #517

extropy wrote: post #395

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Violence is sometimes the only way forward, though. It should be the way of last resort, but a way nevertheless. That's why we have democracy: so we can remove the people in power by ballot instead of by guillotine. When the former avenue is blocked, violence is all that remains...

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

#534

Post by 188201 » Sat, Oct 10, 2020, 7:42 PM UTC

powerapple wrote: post #265

dan-robertson wrote: post #234

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

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).

Let's be realistic here. Why Liang would fund a site like that. Either one of the reason: CCP ordered that, or he wants to show loyalty and earn credit to CCP. Either case, it was as good as funding by CCP because CCP liked that to happened and didn't ban it.

And Liang is vice-chairman of the National Committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference. What it means is he is not officially CCP but a very trusted person to be included as decision maker of CCP.

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

#535

Post by judge2020 » Sat, Oct 10, 2020, 7:47 PM UTC

throw0101a wrote: post #488

judge2020 wrote: post #293

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> We've been through this before in the 1990s, and the techies (who tend to often lean libertarian) have generally sided with opening things up even if that meant the baddies also got the same capabilities: Going in a different direction, you could also look at the state of Windows malware (and adware, eg toolbars) as a potential outcome to the un-walled garden approach: you end up with malware and thus the existence…

Yes, I think this is one advantage of iOS that allows people who use it with confidence and not worry too much about clicking the wrong thing. It's why I like(d) Linux and Mac OS X (macOS) as well: I can set up my parents with a non-admin default account on their system and not worry too much about them hosing things too greatly (especially with off-machine backups). Windows caught up with that paradigm eventually. I…

That would be best, but then you have the current situation with Epic saying that Android's warnings cause consumers to be frightened when trying to install their third-party app store, so I'm not sure what solution there is that both protects consumers from malware and allows trusted third-parties to have their own apps or app stores. I guess you could have notarization for iOS apps, but then you'd still have that Apple dependence that Epic is against.

But yes, the safeguards that prevent sideloading today make me confident in recommending an iOS device even to someone that downloads malware anytime an ad shows up promising free gift cards.

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

#536

Post by ethbr0 » Sat, Oct 10, 2020, 7:47 PM UTC

thatjamesdude wrote: post #498

ethbr0 wrote: post #457

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I don't agree that you should be allowed to post people's private, identifying data to a public forum without consent. The problem with that belief is enforcement. Because illegal numbers [0] are trivially shared, the only viable enforcement to prevent their sharing must have incredibly broad reach. This ultimately collapses down into "users cannot be allowed to own and operate their own general purpose computer."…

That feels like a false equivalency, because what I'm talking about is the right to be forgotten. Which is only a fallacy because data is a commodity, not because it's technically impossible. And yes you can't really be forgotten, copies can always exist but it shouldn't be hosted readily if you don't want it to be. Unless I'm missing something?

How would you propose to enforce that goal?

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

#537

Post by mswtk » Sat, Oct 10, 2020, 7:49 PM UTC

stefan_ wrote: post #285

_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…

In what particular hellhole have I even landed that we are now using the terms of a Twitter fight to discuss brutal, indiscriminate suppression of protests? Applying "doxxing" rules to police on the job in public must be the most absurd perversion of the term ever. Why on earth would we grant privacy to public servants entrusted with the force monopoly?

It really is one of the most egregious examples of a cultural echo chamber I've seen on HN.

We're talking about a brutal police force serving a corrupt and delegitimized regime, that is involved in extrajudicial detention, torture, and murder of peaceful protesters. This unit, the OMON, was specifically established to serve as Lukashenko's beatstick against the opposition. Now, the overwhelmingly peaceful protest movement in Belarus has turned towards intimidation (no actual violence has been reported, afaik) against these people specifically, as a way of fighting back.

And then you see people on HN referring to this as "doxxing", as if this was some kind of pithy Twitter fight. I understand that Twitter fights are what people around here can more easily relate to their own life experience than what is currently going on in Belarus, but for Christ's sake, let's try and put things in perspective here.

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

#538

Post by powerapple » Sat, Oct 10, 2020, 7:52 PM UTC

188201 wrote: post #534

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).

Let's be realistic here. Why Liang would fund a site like that. Either one of the reason: CCP ordered that, or he wants to show loyalty and earn credit to CCP. Either case, it was as good as funding by CCP because CCP liked that to happened and didn't ban it. And Liang is vice-chairman of the National Committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference. What it means is he is not officially CCP but a…

I don't think I like the argument of "it was as good as funding by CCP because CCP liked that to happened". CCP is a party with 90 million members, so if you argue Liang act as a member of CCP, I think I am okay with that.

I don't know should we be 'realistic' or should we be 'accurate' when we make a point. This is a strange time.

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

#539

Post by golemiprague » Sat, Oct 10, 2020, 7:53 PM UTC

I think the solution should be to make a web interface to the app and let apple users use it instead of the app itself, something similiar to discord. This way what apple are going to do? ban Safari?

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

#540

Post by 188201 » Sat, Oct 10, 2020, 7:54 PM UTC

SpicyLemonZest wrote: post #351

tripzilch wrote: post #345

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Apple is completely out of place meddling in Belarus' politics. Not only that, the stance they are taking is with a dictator who stole the election ...

Apple absolutely shouldn't meddle in Belarus's politics. But if Belarusian users are using their platform to incite violence, as Apple says they are, don't they have a moral responsibility to try and do something about it?

If there are violence, it is a civil war. Does apple like to meddle their hand in blood? Especially they are standing for the dictatorship, which does not put Apple in a good position even if they are going to get into the issue.