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Telegram now censoring channels in Germany for “violating local laws”

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Re: Telegram now censoring channels in Germany for “violating local laws”

#171

Post by zaarn »

mannerheim wrote: post #170
zaarn wrote: post #164

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well you don't. Telegram blocked the channel in germany. So I don't get what your anger is all about then. Telegram Operators were given the choice of leaving germany entirely and blocking users there, be blocked by germany or remove the channel. They choose their favorite option.

Germany forced Project Gutenberg to block them for a time as well. This should not be the responsibility of the website owner to comply with the laws of a country they don't have a presence in, presumably under threat of either extradition or arrest if they one day happen to enter the borders of the country. If the website doesn't comply with the laws of the country, that country should block it, and that should be t…

So you also think that website owners should not be allowed to block content if they think a particular country is worth their business? Because that is what is actually happening, not made up fantasies about "forcing them". Either you block or they block, and it's not a crime for one side to do it first (what should I bet that if Germany blocked Telegram it would be a similar outrage in the comment section???)

Re: Telegram now censoring channels in Germany for “violating local laws”

#172

Post by mannerheim »

zaarn wrote: post #171
mannerheim wrote: post #170

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Germany forced Project Gutenberg to block them for a time as well. This should not be the responsibility of the website owner to comply with the laws of a country they don't have a presence in, presumably under threat of either extradition or arrest if they one day happen to enter the borders of the country. If the website doesn't comply with the laws of the country, that country should block it, and that should be t…

So you also think that website owners should not be allowed to block content if they think a particular country is worth their business? Because that is what is actually happening, not made up fantasies about "forcing them". Either you block or they block, and it's not a crime for one side to do it first (what should I bet that if Germany blocked Telegram it would be a similar outrage in the comment section???)

No, I think countries should not be allowed to bully people who have no presence in their country under threat of extradition or arrest if they ever happen to step foot in their country.

Project Gutenberg ended up complying with German copyright law even though they have zero presence in Germany precisely because they were bullied in this fashion.

Re: Telegram now censoring channels in Germany for “violating local laws”

#173

Post by zaarn »

mannerheim wrote: post #172
zaarn wrote: post #171

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So you also think that website owners should not be allowed to block content if they think a particular country is worth their business? Because that is what is actually happening, not made up fantasies about "forcing them". Either you block or they block, and it's not a crime for one side to do it first (what should I bet that if Germany blocked Telegram it would be a similar outrage in the comment section???)

No, I think countries should not be allowed to bully people who have no presence in their country under threat of extradition or arrest if they ever happen to step foot in their country. Project Gutenberg ended up complying with German copyright law even though they have zero presence in Germany precisely because they were bullied in this fashion.

They complied to german copyright law in germany. They didn't block anything in outside countries so I wouldn't call that bullying. The other option is being blocked in or blocking germany.

Re: Telegram now censoring channels in Germany for “violating local laws”

#174

Post by irtigor »

mannerheim wrote: post #156
irtigor wrote: post #155

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Liking it or not you do have legal or economic presence when you accept people in Germany to visit your site (e.g at first more than a few American websites simply blocked all EU traffic after GDPR was approved), and if you keep violating the local law after being requested to cooperate, they will fine, emit arrest requests and sure enough if deemed necessary also block your website temporarily/permanently, in other…

Then block the website. It's not my responsibility to bring my website into compliance with the laws of all 200 countries in the world and the laws of the jurisdictions within them. Because of VPNs, it's impossible to tell which users belong to which countries (and even without it, geo IP isn't that reliable). > e.g at first more than a few American websites simply blocked all EU traffic after GDPR was approved Those…

Or they didn't have a parent company with even more economic presence than just them (serving American-centric news with ads), but they would like to have that path still easily open in the future, after all its a big market and... that's the point. Off course you can literally ignore all legal requests for compliance from all foregein countries until they do the worst that they can legally do to you which isn't much if you truly have no particularly strong personal or business related interest in them (lose users that you didn't care to have in the first place, cut a travel destination off your list because if you show up you can be held in prison for not paying a fine... Or whatever), but telegram is not you and apparently they care about being able to continue do business there (allowing people in Germany to use the chat app), so not complying is not a option.

Re: Telegram now censoring channels in Germany for “violating local laws”

#175

Post by zaarn »

stjohnswarts wrote: post #169
zaarn wrote: post #167

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Then Germans will have to prosecute those going to the website and using it or remove it from German DNS servers. Germany has no right to try and limit the rights of US citizens by extension of limiting those of Germans. And? That's exactly what happened. The Telegram Operators were given a choice and they picked. If a US operator is given the same choice, they can pick no business with German users or remove the co…

I'm not sure if you're a US citizen or not but if you are then you know regardless of your opinion then there is nothing you can do about Naziism as long as they stay within parameters of the law. From a legal standpoint you're wrong, they absolutely can and do operate in the USA up and until the point they break the law. That's why there is a 1st amendment to protect our opinions from government intervention as long…

I think the USA Standpoint on allowing Nazis is wrong. Plain and simple. It should be illegal to have publicly expressed opinions like "the holocaust never happened" and "jews ought to be exterminated".

I would also point out that Nazis didn't "collude to overthrow the government" until they were well in control of the police, the courts and the military. So don't think your 1st amendment rights or any rights protect you from them.

Re: Telegram now censoring channels in Germany for “violating local laws”

#176

Post by mannerheim »

zaarn wrote: post #173
mannerheim wrote: post #172

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, I think countries should not be allowed to bully people who have no presence in their country under threat of extradition or arrest if they ever happen to step foot in their country. Project Gutenberg ended up complying with German copyright law even though they have zero presence in Germany precisely because they were bullied in this fashion.

They complied to german copyright law in germany. They didn't block anything in outside countries so I wouldn't call that bullying. The other option is being blocked in or blocking germany.

PG initially blocked Germany in order to appease the court (defying a court order may have affected their case). They repeatedly asserted, however, that the German courts did not have jurisdiction over them since they had zero presence in Germany, and only fought the case because of the various punishments the German government could have meted out otherwise. Germany blocking PG was not something the court had presented as in the cards, and obviously PG would have found that acceptable since they blocked Germany themselves.

The onus should have entirely been on Germany to block PG if they didn't comply with German laws, not on PG to block Germany so that users in Germany couldn't violate German law.

Re: Telegram now censoring channels in Germany for “violating local laws”

#177

Post by mannerheim »

irtigor wrote: post #174
mannerheim wrote: post #156

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Then block the website. It's not my responsibility to bring my website into compliance with the laws of all 200 countries in the world and the laws of the jurisdictions within them. Because of VPNs, it's impossible to tell which users belong to which countries (and even without it, geo IP isn't that reliable). > e.g at first more than a few American websites simply blocked all EU traffic after GDPR was approved Those…

Or they didn't have a parent company with even more economic presence than just them (serving American-centric news with ads), but they would like to have that path still easily open in the future, after all its a big market and... that's the point. Off course you can literally ignore all legal requests for compliance from all foregein countries until they do the worst that they can legally do to you which isn't much…

Should Belarus be allowed to arrest a blogger who enters their airspace because somebody else made a critical comment about Lukashenko on their blog?

Re: Telegram now censoring channels in Germany for “violating local laws”

#178

Post by Zak »

zaarn wrote: post #106
frankfrankfrank wrote: post #98

This is clearly a bait and switch. If illegal actions are being perpetrated (e.g., death threats) then prosecute them. What this is all about is incremental conditioning towards normalizing censorship for "local law" violations … the same kinds of wanton "laws" conjured up by all the dictatorial regimes that all the western societies are quickly drifting towards. The German government has even tried attacking Gab, an…

>This is clearly a bait and switch. If illegal actions are being perpetrated (e.g., death threats) then prosecute them. They are. The operators of the channel have an open arrest warrant for inciting hatred, denying the holocaust and death threats against public and private persons. > wholly based in the USA because it does not like things on the website that are no only legal in the USA, protected by the fundamental…

It seems to me there are three possible ways law on the internet can work, to include ill-defined hybrids between them. Please let me know if I've missed any:

1. The law where a service is hosted applies. Entities in other legal jurisdictions may not be allowed to do business with the service (e.g. run ads on it) if it doesn't follow the law where they're located. Cost: people may be able to access content that's illegal where they live.

2. The law where the user is located applies. Anyone putting up a website must familiarize themselves with the laws of 195 countries where users could be and comply with all of them, or at least the ones that have a friendly relationship to the host's country. Service operators must block users from jurisdictions with laws they can't obey. Cost: this is a nightmarish compliance landscape only large companies can deal with; the internet becomes much less global.

3. Countries put up a Great Firewall of X. Cost: the hacker community has traditionally considered censorship bad; the internet becomes much less global.

Re: Telegram now censoring channels in Germany for “violating local laws”

#179

Post by ls15 »

Arnt wrote: post #148
ls15 wrote: post #132

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think threaded discussions are planned, but so far it is only for linear discussions.

That's very different from the relevant Telegram groups. Those function more like a blog on the web — non-subscribers can search for them, only the group's owner(s) can post, and everyone else can just read. And they work for very large audiences, 100k readers is no problem.

I see. With matrix rooms it is possible to set permissions in a way that only the owner can send messages in that room. There are also large(-ish) rooms, such as #/room/#matrix:matrix.org with > 30k users, but I think threaded discussions would allow for a functionality that resembles a blog where subscribers can comment on articles. And there is a preview functionality that technically allows users to read public rooms without being subscribed.

Of course Telegram is quite a bit more polished and fun to use than element or other matrix clients so far.

Re: Telegram now censoring channels in Germany for “violating local laws”

#180

Post by sascha_sl »

hutzlibu wrote: post #63
sascha_sl wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

While it is not the constitution, but the criminal code, being a nazi without at least a basic veil of decency will get you jailed for publicly voicing your beliefs: Whosoever, in a manner capable of disturbing the public peace: incites hatred against a national, racial, religious group or a group defined by their ethnic origins, against segments of the population or individuals because of their belonging to one of t…

Well, in theory you can also go to jail, for saying you think the catholic church is a organisation of criminal pedophiles. (blasphemie paragraph) Does not happen in reality, though. There are Nazis in jail though for denying the holocaust (Horst Mahler) and for trying to incite violence (Landser). Not for expressing their nazi ideology, but for direct calls for murder.

Plenty of NDP functionaries (and some AfD too) were fined or are on parole for Volksverhetzung. Just because it doesn't usually escalate into jail time doesn't mean the law is not being applied.[1]

[1]: https://dejure.org/dienste/lex/StGB/130/1.html

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