A lot of really terrible takes in this comment section. Telegram didn't have encrypted groups by default, and telegram possessed a lot of content on their servers that they had been made aware was illegal and didn't cooperate. Nothing more, nothing less. The comparisons to other providers is off base because either other providers are cooperating more when they possess actionable, unencrypted information and taking s…
Arrest of Pavel Durov, Telegram CEO, charges of terrorism, fraud, child porn
461–470 of 878 posts
Re: Arrest of Pavel Durov, Telegram CEO, charges of terrorism, fraud, child porn
#462Telegram is genuinely the best general communication platform I have ever used, by far. I really hope he has a good lawyer and this doesn't end up getting essentially murdered for creating it. When you create something that is objectively great, everyone will use it - including bad actors.
Re: Arrest of Pavel Durov, Telegram CEO, charges of terrorism, fraud, child porn
#463Earlier quoted context omitted.
Is it illegal to offer legal services to undesirables and/or criminals?
In most jurisdictions yes AFAIK, if those services directly help an illegal activity, and you knew about the illegal activity.
Re: Arrest of Pavel Durov, Telegram CEO, charges of terrorism, fraud, child porn
#464Earlier quoted context omitted.
But why don’t they arrest them for allowing it to happen? Phone calls should be actively moderated to block customers who speak about terrorist activity.
You really should Google Snowden and PRISM at some point.
Re: Arrest of Pavel Durov, Telegram CEO, charges of terrorism, fraud, child porn
#465This seems like the Kim Dotcom situation again. Why are these service providers being punished for what their users do? Specifically, these service providers? Because Google, Discord, Reddit, etc. all contain some amount of CSAM (and other illegal content), yet I don't see Pichai, Citron, or Huffman getting indicted for anything. Hell, then there's the actual infrastructure providers too. This seems like a slippery s…
Because they let their users do it and benefited from it. Try doing the same thing as a bank :) Or a newspaper :)
Internet cannot be anarchy forever. Every anarchy ends up as oligarchy. It needs regulation and fast.
Re: Arrest of Pavel Durov, Telegram CEO, charges of terrorism, fraud, child porn
#466Earlier quoted context omitted.
> One cannot legally run a hosted, unmoderated content platform in the developed world, one will always be required to remove illegal materials and turn over materials in cooperation with law enforcement. Just would like to clarify, Telegram does take down channels/bots in some cases including copyright infringement. The only bots I’ve dealt with were music downloaders so I don’t know much about other kinds of takedo…
They do it whenever the risk of Apple or Google kicking them out of their respective app stores becomes too great. That's presumably the only entities they take content moderation input from.
Re: Arrest of Pavel Durov, Telegram CEO, charges of terrorism, fraud, child porn
#467Earlier quoted context omitted.
Eliminating child pornography and organised crime is a societal rather than 'government' interest. And rightly.
>Eliminating child pornography and organised crime is a societal rather than 'government' interest. Empirically speaking, governments have had absolutely zero success at this, but their attempts to do so have gotten them the kind of legal power over your life that organised crime could only dream about.
You could certainly argue that RICO was too powerful and is often misapplied, but I've never before seen anyone argue that it has been ineffective.
Re: Arrest of Pavel Durov, Telegram CEO, charges of terrorism, fraud, child porn
#468Earlier quoted context omitted.
You like it better than Signal? The only thing I know Telegram for is several of my girlfriend’s relatives being exposed to crazy scams and right-wing conspiracy theories and misinformation on it.
This is exactly my experience as well. I have never actually used telegram as I was early a signal user and never needed it but my ex used it. All she ever used it for was conspiracy garbage she would follow. Anti covid vaccine doctors and groups mainly. The amount of misinformation she tried to show me and every time I would show her how it was fake she still would not believe me. Then she was even scammed out of $1…
Re: Arrest of Pavel Durov, Telegram CEO, charges of terrorism, fraud, child porn
#469This seems like the Kim Dotcom situation again. Why are these service providers being punished for what their users do? Specifically, these service providers? Because Google, Discord, Reddit, etc. all contain some amount of CSAM (and other illegal content), yet I don't see Pichai, Citron, or Huffman getting indicted for anything. Hell, then there's the actual infrastructure providers too. This seems like a slippery s…
Re: Arrest of Pavel Durov, Telegram CEO, charges of terrorism, fraud, child porn
#470This seems like the Kim Dotcom situation again. Why are these service providers being punished for what their users do? Specifically, these service providers? Because Google, Discord, Reddit, etc. all contain some amount of CSAM (and other illegal content), yet I don't see Pichai, Citron, or Huffman getting indicted for anything. Hell, then there's the actual infrastructure providers too. This seems like a slippery s…
I think this is simplified. Certainly yes, if "all" Telegram was doing was operating a neutral/unmoderated anonymized chat service, then it's hard to see criminal culpability for the reasons you list.
But as people are pointing out, that doesn't seem to be technically correct. Telegram isn't completely anonymous, does have access to important customer data, and is widely suspected of complying with third party requests for that data for law enforcement and regulatory reasons.
So... IF they are doing that, and they're doing it in a non-neutral/non-anonymized way, then they're very plausibly subject to prosectution. Say, if you get a report of terrorist activity and provide data on the terrorists, then a month later get notified that your service is being used to distribute CSAM, and you refuse to cooperate, then it's not that far a reach to label you an accessory to the crime.