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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

#591

Post by nobody9999 »

dane-pgp wrote: post #580
nobody9999 wrote: post #575

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Have you thought about what that would mean in practice? Given that the APK could be hosted on multiple (TLS-enabled) foreign sites, a government would need a team of people to be constantly monitoring the web for sites containing the APK, who would then send orders to domestic ISPs demanding that they prevent their customers from accessing those foreign sites. You mean like the MAFIAA[0] has been doing for decades…

My understanding is that the legal and technical process for getting ISPs to block access to a foreign website is one that takes weeks or months. Also, even with this power, I'm not sure how effective the MAFIAA have been at stopping people from downloading copyrighted media: https://www.mobiles24.co/downloads/s/96965-m1769-speak_softl...

I believe you're absolutely correct.

My point was that any similar attempt would likely be just as unsuccessful.

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

#592

Post by bmarquez »

ghostwriter wrote: post #587
efitz wrote: post #561

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think this is probably the best argument against platforms with locked app stores- civil liberties. The only reason that Belarus can ask Apple to ask (force) Telegram to do this, is because there is no reasonable alternative for most people to get an application onto their phone. If I could easily install other app stores onto my phone, then government requests like this would not be effective.

I'm pretty sure that the most people are able to navigate to web.telegram.org and create a bookmark in their browser of choice. Overall it's an even simpler set of steps than any app store can provide you with, and you don't need to regularly download new updates for it.

And Apple continues to cripple progressive web apps in iOS (example: push notifications), unfortunately making this idea not as useful as on Android.

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

#593

Post by Zenbit_UX »

Causality1 wrote: post #542
djhn wrote: post #511

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

User numbers don't matter if you're not making money off them. Telegram is privately funded by Pavel Durov. Twitter's yearly revenue is equal to Durov's entire net work. Twitter's market cap is 250 times higher than Telegram's.

> Twitter's yearly revenue is equal to Durov's entire net work. Twitter's market cap is 250 times higher than Telegram's.

Contrary to your goal you actually made Durov sound much more impressive.

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

#594

Post by Causality1 »

Zenbit_UX wrote: post #593
Causality1 wrote: post #542

Earlier quoted context omitted.

User numbers don't matter if you're not making money off them. Telegram is privately funded by Pavel Durov. Twitter's yearly revenue is equal to Durov's entire net work. Twitter's market cap is 250 times higher than Telegram's.

> Twitter's yearly revenue is equal to Durov's entire net work. Twitter's market cap is 250 times higher than Telegram's. Contrary to your goal you actually made Durov sound much more impressive.

Durov's an extremely impressive individual. It doesn't change the fact that kicking Twitter off the app store could put a dent in Apple's iPhone sales and would almost certainly generate a lot of negative Western press. Telegram getting the boot wouldn't.

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

#595

Post by SpelingBeeChamp »

elmo2you wrote: post #508
WilTimSon wrote: post #468

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Even more, Apple has assigned itself powers that in most (sane) countries are a strict monopoly of governments (and preferably only after going through a legal system/process and strictly regulated). Especially Apple's attempt/request/demand to remove things silently goes way beyond what any company (or citizen) should ever be allowed to do to speech of others. Whether this doxxing is justified or not, that's up to c…

By telling Apple they can’t control others’ speech on their platform, you are in effect controlling Apple’s speech, forcing them to host or be associated with material they don’t want.

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

#596

Post by sjwright »

mswtk wrote: post #537
stefan_ wrote: post #285

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 mov…

Sure, but for Apple to change its policies specifically in this case is for Apple to take sides in a political conflict/civil war. I don't think that's a viable outcome either.

Apple doesn't have any good options here; I think their strategy of a toothless demand with no follow through might well be the least worst option for Apple, and for Telegram.

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

#597

Post by sjwright »

dane-pgp wrote: post #566
zepto wrote: post #347

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It would also allow governments to force people to install tracking apps, as they do in parts of China. It’s not simple.

Apple could still retain the capability to delete malicious apps from phones (even apps that weren't installed via the App Store). Presumably Belarus would then make a demand that Apple delete Telegram from people's phones as it is "malicious", but I'd hope that forcing a company to delete things from someone's phone is legally harder than forcing them to hide things on their own servers.

And that capability would be trivial for Belarus to side-step.

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

#598

Post by angry_octet »

aembleton wrote: post #492
angry_octet wrote: post #475

Astounded that Apple is choosing to flush their privacy / human rights cred globally down the shitter over the slight possibility of losing market share in the tiny economy of Belarus...

Maybe they risk losing access to the Russian Market too

The Russian market is still small. And the Russians would be unlikely to cut themselves off from the best tech when people can just use it on Android anyway. It's an extremely hollow threat. As Russians might say "назло бабушке отморожу уши" -- spiting my grandmother by getting frostbitten ears (from not wearing your hat).

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

#599

Post by cageface »

zepto wrote: post #347
boudin wrote: post #113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This seems to match this post, where apple is asking to remove telegram groups used to de-anonymize law enforcement members. Apple could do something really simple if they wanted to not interfeer with how people organize their fight: allow to install apps outside of the app store. This would force law enforcement to deal with Telegram directly rather than being able to take advantage of apple's own authoritarian way…

It would also allow governments to force people to install tracking apps, as they do in parts of China. It’s not simple.

Unnecessary because they can already force you to pass all monetary transactions through an app like WeChat and can track you all they want there.

And let's not pretend that Apple has shown any willingness to stand up to the Chinese government.

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

#600

Post by jobigoud »

qPM9l3XJrF wrote: post #382
throw0101a wrote: post #288

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> […] terrorists will be able to use their iPhones to coordinate terror repeatedly on a large scale, and there won't be anything Apple can do about it. And? If they're using (say) Signal or even Messages, it's already end-to-end encrypted and there's nothing Apple can do about it. > Is that really the world you want to live in? You mean like they're able to use GPG/PGP, Tor browser, and Tails Linux distribution to po…

Moore’s Law of Mad Science: “Every eighteen months, the minimum IQ necessary to destroy the world drops by one point.” I'm happy that GPG/PGP etc. are a bit difficult to use, because it makes the IQ threshold necessary to coordinate nastiness secretly a bit higher. Remember how great the blogosphere was prior to the advent of social media? Social media made "blogging" a little more accessible and it became a cesspool…

> Moore’s Law of Mad Science: “Every eighteen months, the minimum IQ necessary to destroy the world drops by one point.”

There is research on this in the field of existential risk. I don't remember where exactly but it's formulated as the number of people one person can kill with easily accessible products. In particular biotech is becoming more and more accessible, which great, but has a big impact on that index. There is a great defcon talk by a doctor working at Intel I think.

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