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Germany doesn't rule out closing Telegram – interior minister

reuters.com

71–80 of 189 posts

Re: Germany doesn't rule out closing Telegram – interior minister

#71
post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Tagesschau Can you give me a date to look for an example in? I haven't see that yet.

https://www.tagesschau.de/investigativ/funk/todesdrohungen-t... „In Germany, alleged individual cases of calls for killing from the lateral thinker scene have been discussed for days. Research now shows that there have been calls to kill every day since mid-November.“ https://www.tagesschau.de/inland/telegram-verfassungsschutz-... „Radicalized Corona Deniers What can the state do about Telegram? Corona deniers use th…

Oh yeah, that's very comprehensive. Thanks. Funny, it fits so well.

Re: Germany doesn't rule out closing Telegram – interior minister

#72
post #12

On an unrelated note - Telegram is already heavily censored on iPhones because of app store policies and the team refuses to put out an uncensored IPA file that we can sideload to our phones. If someone from the team reads this (I doubt it, since they are very disconnected from western media) please consider it. You already do it for Android!

Don't buy a phone where a single company can decide what software you are allowed to run.

Re: Germany doesn't rule out closing Telegram – interior minister

#73
post #45

"I want to ban the other guy's political speech" is business as usual for centuries even in the "free" west. Whats new is "I want to band all criticism of my religion", that aspect is new for the "free" west.

So leaking addresses of politicians you don't like and calling on your day by day getting more aggressive and extreme far right telegram group is okay for you?

Re: Germany doesn't rule out closing Telegram – interior minister

#74
post #9

The collective panic and Luddism about Telegram in Germany is really scary. I watch Tagesschau (probably most respected news show) every evening. Any time Telegram is mentioned it's always being attacked, as if it's only purpose was to enable crime and terrorism.

What scary about this idea to me, is that it opens the door to false flag operations.

A bad actor that wants to hobble free speech and communication could flood a system with illegal, antisemitic speech, and then turn around and use that speech that they are spreading as a justification to have the communication platform taken down.

Re: Germany doesn't rule out closing Telegram – interior minister

#76
post #49
post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't see the issue. People (should) have a right to meet other people with similar interests and organise.

So its okay for people to leak addresses of politicians and call on other to kill them? They match your interests and they can organize. Oh wait I know you yourself know nothing about this situation. Oh wait you yourself never got death threats to your personal mail and home? Oh wait its not like the article is saying that closing it would be the last resort...

How will banning Telegram limit these harmful activities? Won't bad actors just switch to a different communication channel?

Re: Germany doesn't rule out closing Telegram – interior minister

#77
post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Interesting I had no idea. So, there’s groups that would work on the web client presumably but not the app. What happens if you join that group using your browser and attempt to see it in the app?

When you tap on the group, instead of the contents, you see a message like this: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/2/2a/Telegram... The exact message you see is "Unfortunately, this channel couldn't be displayed on your device.". It doesn't say anything about the app store because apple policies don't allow apps to say that contents are censored because of apple guidelines.

Holy shit! This is crazy!

Re: Germany doesn't rule out closing Telegram – interior minister

#78
post #72
post #12

On an unrelated note - Telegram is already heavily censored on iPhones because of app store policies and the team refuses to put out an uncensored IPA file that we can sideload to our phones. If someone from the team reads this (I doubt it, since they are very disconnected from western media) please consider it. You already do it for Android!

Don't buy a phone where a single company can decide what software you are allowed to run.

I haven't. I can sideload apps just fine. But Telegram doesn't provide me with the app file to sideload.

As another comment says, I could compile it myself, but that is hard for someone with no expertise. Not to mention that I wouldn't trust an IPA that someone else put out. It's better if telegram themselves built and host that IPA file.

Re: Germany doesn't rule out closing Telegram – interior minister

#79
post #9

The collective panic and Luddism about Telegram in Germany is really scary. I watch Tagesschau (probably most respected news show) every evening. Any time Telegram is mentioned it's always being attacked, as if it's only purpose was to enable crime and terrorism.

say what you want there are stickers all over Hamburg asking you to join telegram channels if you need drugs, if you are racist or a so called "querdenker". It may not be the main use of telegram but if you are a member of the public only seeing these kind of stickers everywhere would make me worry as well.

I’m willing to bet that for every drug deal facilitated on Telegram, there are 2x+ being facilitated on the WhatsApp and SMS networks of Germany.

Re: Germany doesn't rule out closing Telegram – interior minister

#80
post #58

Ok, a lot of the points raised here come up all the time; maybe it helps if I summarize some more of them: - Argument: States cannot ban/close platforms - sure they can, as soon as you kick an app off the app store it's over for most of the users. That's a severe step though, and could be legally contested; my personal opinion is that it's realistic a court could deem a complete shutdown unconstitutional. - Argument:…

>This is censorship - not really, censorship in the German legal context [...] Censorship, and the legal concept of censorship, are such very different things that using one as the response to the other is silly! The local lawmaker's definition of censorship in a legal context, when transposed in a non-legal discussion, is just one country's opinion, not an authoritative answer to whether something is censorship.

What is the authoritative answer then?
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