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

netzpolitik.org

201–210 of 228 posts

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

#201

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Really? I don't think so, your example doesn't even seem particularly good, the importer is the one operating in two countries and that should know what he can legally buy in one and bring to the other, this is not a particularly new concept, in the same way I don't believe telegram itself would get in trouble if someone from another country entered Germany with the app installed in their phone.

Yes, this is really so. I can even confirm this is the case in Europe, as I once lived in the EU and paid import duties myself on something I imported from America. In the case of Project Gutenberg and Telegram, the German side is the consumer, so it's entirely comparable. If the app or website is illegal in Germany, Germans who use it are the ones breaking the law here. If I sell chocolates in America, and somebody…

You you didn't understand and I would like to try again, put bluntly: things don't teleport or cross borders by themselves, so someone is always operating in mutiple jurisdictions and can be prosecuted in more the one, traditionally for physical goods it's usually the importer who buys stuff in a place (and can be prosecuted for that if it's something illegal to buy in the origin country), and sell it in another (and can be prosecuted for that if it's something illegal to sell/own/eat/whatever in the destination country), off course the original seller in the origin country or the final buyer in the destination country can also be prosecuted in theirs respectively jurisdictions as well... Now for some online services like chat apps and whatnot there's no such middle man, people in Germany are only able to use telegram because telegram is directly providing the service for them, so if keeping some text online/acessible to people in Germany is illegal the government will go after the person/group responsible for that, in this case telegram to fine/whatever, they even usually provide guidance in cases like this (like "hey providing this kinda stuff over here is illegal, fix your service - delete the content, make it not available to people here/etc - before we have to go to court"), if writing such text is also illegal whoever did it is also in trouble.

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

#202

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, this is really so. I can even confirm this is the case in Europe, as I once lived in the EU and paid import duties myself on something I imported from America. In the case of Project Gutenberg and Telegram, the German side is the consumer, so it's entirely comparable. If the app or website is illegal in Germany, Germans who use it are the ones breaking the law here. If I sell chocolates in America, and somebody…

You you didn't understand and I would like to try again, put bluntly: things don't teleport or cross borders by themselves, so someone is always operating in mutiple jurisdictions and can be prosecuted in more the one, traditionally for physical goods it's usually the importer who buys stuff in a place (and can be prosecuted for that if it's something illegal to buy in the origin country), and sell it in another (and…

> Now for some online services like chat apps and whatnot there's no such middle man

There are plenty of middlemen. There are the hosting services. There are the ISPs. There are the CDNs. If you're going to make Telegram legally liable for these matters, then why not AWS, ISPs, and CDNs?

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

#203
post #186
post #178

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 ill…

If you do business in a country, laws of that country apply to you. Selling apps in that country would count I presume. Part of the threat from the german government was to have GPlay and Apple delete the app from german storefronts. I don't see how that is much of an issue.

The German government has a broader view than just this. See the Project Gutenberg case. PGLAF has zero presence in Germany, yet the German government claimed jurisdiction simply because the website had German-language content.

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

#204

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You you didn't understand and I would like to try again, put bluntly: things don't teleport or cross borders by themselves, so someone is always operating in mutiple jurisdictions and can be prosecuted in more the one, traditionally for physical goods it's usually the importer who buys stuff in a place (and can be prosecuted for that if it's something illegal to buy in the origin country), and sell it in another (and…

> Now for some online services like chat apps and whatnot there's no such middle man There are plenty of middlemen. There are the hosting services. There are the ISPs. There are the CDNs. If you're going to make Telegram legally liable for these matters, then why not AWS, ISPs, and CDNs?

The middle man I'm talking about is the one operating in mutiple jurisdictions, so that the "true" seller or buyer doesn't have to (like a importer usually works, buy stuff in a place and brings it to another), what you are talking about is like the shipping company, storage facility owner that rents it out to the importer and stuff like that and those people do get in trouble if they try to get in the middle of the investigation (it would be the same if eg aws did not comply with a judge order of providing the name of who is operating a site so they can get a notice about the illegal stuff they are hosting/providing to users in Germany).

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

#205

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Now for some online services like chat apps and whatnot there's no such middle man There are plenty of middlemen. There are the hosting services. There are the ISPs. There are the CDNs. If you're going to make Telegram legally liable for these matters, then why not AWS, ISPs, and CDNs?

The middle man I'm talking about is the one operating in mutiple jurisdictions, so that the "true" seller or buyer doesn't have to (like a importer usually works, buy stuff in a place and brings it to another), what you are talking about is like the shipping company, storage facility owner that rents it out to the importer and stuff like that and those people do get in trouble if they try to get in the middle of the…

I wasn't the middleman when I imported the product. I was the end user. I have also imported products into the US where I was the end user. Complying with American law and European law was my responsibility in both cases, not that of the seller.

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

#206

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You you didn't understand and I would like to try again, put bluntly: things don't teleport or cross borders by themselves, so someone is always operating in mutiple jurisdictions and can be prosecuted in more the one, traditionally for physical goods it's usually the importer who buys stuff in a place (and can be prosecuted for that if it's something illegal to buy in the origin country), and sell it in another (and…

> Now for some online services like chat apps and whatnot there's no such middle man There are plenty of middlemen. There are the hosting services. There are the ISPs. There are the CDNs. If you're going to make Telegram legally liable for these matters, then why not AWS, ISPs, and CDNs?

I can't reply the other one but you truly are grasping for straws, in your exemple you coud get convicted in the origin country if buying was illegal, for importing and for owing/using it in the destination country if those were offences. That's exactly what is going on here, there's no middle man providing the telegram service for people in Germany so if hosting/providing that service is illegal (because telegram allows pro-nazi stuff or whatever) who else but telegram will be held responsible? They are the ones operating in Germany providing the chat/group message thing, if there were a middleman (like it happens with games in some cases) the court would be talking to them, just like happens (traditionally) with importers.

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

#207

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Now for some online services like chat apps and whatnot there's no such middle man There are plenty of middlemen. There are the hosting services. There are the ISPs. There are the CDNs. If you're going to make Telegram legally liable for these matters, then why not AWS, ISPs, and CDNs?

I can't reply the other one but you truly are grasping for straws, in your exemple you coud get convicted in the origin country if buying was illegal, for importing and for owing/using it in the destination country if those were offences. That's exactly what is going on here, there's no middle man providing the telegram service for people in Germany so if hosting/providing that service is illegal (because telegram al…

If Telegram is illegal to use in Germany and it has no presence in Germany, its users in Germany are the ones breaking the law. To act as if Telegram faces criminal liability for simply not blocking Germany is as asinine as acting as if an exporter faces criminal liability in the destination country when they have zero presence there.

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

#208

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You you didn't understand and I would like to try again, put bluntly: things don't teleport or cross borders by themselves, so someone is always operating in mutiple jurisdictions and can be prosecuted in more the one, traditionally for physical goods it's usually the importer who buys stuff in a place (and can be prosecuted for that if it's something illegal to buy in the origin country), and sell it in another (and…

> Now for some online services like chat apps and whatnot there's no such middle man There are plenty of middlemen. There are the hosting services. There are the ISPs. There are the CDNs. If you're going to make Telegram legally liable for these matters, then why not AWS, ISPs, and CDNs?

And that's the thing by definition it is literally impossible to be an exporter to country X without operating there. In the same way it is literally impossible to claim that telegram is not providing a service for people in Germany if people in Germany a literally using the service as provided by telegram. You want to have our cake and eat it too, the world simply doesn't work like that.

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

#209

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Now for some online services like chat apps and whatnot there's no such middle man There are plenty of middlemen. There are the hosting services. There are the ISPs. There are the CDNs. If you're going to make Telegram legally liable for these matters, then why not AWS, ISPs, and CDNs?

And that's the thing by definition it is literally impossible to be an exporter to country X without operating there. In the same way it is literally impossible to claim that telegram is not providing a service for people in Germany if people in Germany a literally using the service as provided by telegram. You want to have our cake and eat it too, the world simply doesn't work like that.

The way import/export laws work, it's the onus of the importer to comply with the law. I don't understand why you expect a completely different set of rules to be reasonable just because the Internet is involved.

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

#210

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> That page is what I would definitely not characterize as a proper source Obfuscate the discussion with numbers when it entirely misses the point I was making. So I will spell it out for you. It is totally okay to bring into question the numbers and whether it happened when it comes to the crimes of the communist regimes. However if you deny the holocaust that is too much and must be criminalised. That is a double s…

"the very small amount of people that still think the Failed Austrian Artist with a Charlie Chaplin moustache might have had some good ideas." Small amount? He is still admired worldwide. Just not so much openly in most places. Just look, how many Hitler documentaries are still made and that you can still buy Mein Kampf worldwide. In either case, communist organisations do regulary face prosecution in the west, as we…

> Small amount?

Yes. There is a small amount of these people in the Western world. I would estimate it as less than 1% of the total population.

The state and the media want you to believe they are just waiting to crawl out of every crevice and take over the world again to justify taking your rights away.

> He is still admired worldwide. Just not so much openly in most places. Just look, how many Hitler documentaries are still made and that you can still buy Mein Kampf worldwide.

In the Islamic world maybe. Not in the Western world. You are delusion if you think that lots of people genuinely admire Hitler in the Western world.

Reading a book doesn't mean you support it. I have books from all sorts of people that were / are awful and it doesn't mean I believe it. I have a copy of Mein Kampf, I am not a nazi though (though I am sure some people would like to smear me as one).

Lots of people watch Hitler and WWII documentaries because quite frankly they are easy to make (lot of archive footage) and it was the first mechanised large war that encompassed the globe and Historically it had many iconic people involved in position of political and military power.

> In either case, communist organisations do regulary face prosecution in the west, as well as islamist groups.

Good. They are both evil. Many people have died because of both groups.

> But - the difference between communist and nazi ideology is, that communist want a better world for everyone. Nazis only for a certain race, while enslaving the "lower" races. This might be a reason, why che is more accepted (despite being a sociopath on closer look) and hitler is not.

This myth needs to die. Communists do not want a better world for everyone. Many of the communists that aren't students are the ones wishing they were the ones in power. All communism is, is theft justified by the thief.

Communism violates private property rights (which almost all other rights are obtained) and once they are eroded individual rights are next. They have no good intentions. In fact I think the Nazis were better, they are at least honest about their intentions.

> And I do not really feel like fighting for nazi freedom, despite being more tolerant in theory.

I would not expect you to. I would expect someone to fight for theirs. By protecting everyone's individual rights, you protect your own and other marginalised groups and unfortunately that includes odious people like Neo-nazis.

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