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Germany doesn't rule out closing Telegram – interior minister

reuters.com

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

#121

Post by dathinab »

sveme wrote: post #35
uniqueuid wrote: post #5

This will be interesting. Some background for the discussion: - Germany has a different take on freedom of speech from the US. There are things that you cannot say (holocaust denial, inciting racial violence). We can argue about this, but it's deeply ingrained in the legal system and unrealistic to change - Germany has a special law regulating responsibilities and content moderation in social media (NetzDG, think sec…

Thank you for providing a balanced argument containing facts and further descriptions, in the best spirit of HN. Sadly, it will not keep this thread from becoming dominated by single liners and cheap shots. For evidence, see below. It all boils down to the question of whether Telegram is a public forum or a messenger service.

For me the answer is it's both.

A 1000+ group isn't really a messenger service anymore.

A 20 people family group clearly is a messenger service.

So IMHO the question is where is the limit? And is the limit based on other factors then just the number of involved people?

Also pushing this IMHO this doesn't change any of the problems they want to change. It likely even makes them worse.

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

#122

Post by Thiez »

Applejinx wrote: post #59
lima wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, but there's limits - like similar interests in extremism, calls to violence, assassination plots...

And this is in Germany. They have seen extremism and calls to violence. I can't think of any nation with more of a right—even a duty—to manage its society and prevent society-level mass crimes.

That's a strange thing to say. Are you suggesting that the German people are especially vulnerable to committing society-level mass crimes (compared to other nationalities) and thus have a duty (to who?) to be extra vigilant and tough on themselves?

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

#123

Post by mantas »

martin_a wrote: post #54
progx wrote: post #21

Quoted post unavailable.

Readers beware: Don't get fooled by this comment. These "Spaziergänge" are an unholy mixture of racists, anti-democratic groups, anti-vaxxers and lots more. The far right has found "new friends" in the people critizing the Covid rules of the government. They are now marching side by side, obviously trying to make their far right positions look "not that bad" by blending in with the others. Yesterday they were marchin…

The main thing that makes „far right“ look not that bad is downplaying the term. Now it's super easy to become neonazi/far right/fascist/antivax and whatnot. But once you get called names once and the world doesn't stop... Stigma is gone and then good luck trying to establish that this position is just a little bit wrong, but THAT is truly bad.

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

#124

Post by bostik »

lampe3 wrote: post #49
iqanq wrote: 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...

> So its okay for people to leak addresses of politicians and call on other to kill them?

To leak their addresses? Yes. To call on killing them? No.

Knowing where your elected (and/or unelected) officials live is very useful for civic purposes. It helps to identify various forms of corruption.

Case in point: when I lived in Finland, our local municipality had 6 snowploughs. Only five of them were ever really in used for clearing out roads. During the long winters, the last one was essentially parked, with a person inside, next to a particular neighbourhood. It only cleared out the roads in that neighbourhood, and the roads directly connecting to it. That neighbourhood housed the chair and two other members of the town council.

Being able to associate uneven allocation of public funds and the home addresses of those deciding how the allocation is done is useful, and I claim, even necessary.

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

#126

Post by BurningPenguin »

polski-g wrote: post #119
lima wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But that's the point - Telegram refuses to honor these laws. There are court rulings demanding Telegram to remove content, which Telegram ignores, hence the threats of banning the entire platform.

Does telegram have employees in Germany? Why would the German government have control over any corporation on the planet?

Usually when you offer services in other countries, you have to obey their laws as well.

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

#127

Post by rvz »

323 wrote: post #68

Not just Germany, a lot of very respectable publications are worried about Telegram: > White supremacists openly organize racist violence on Telegram, report finds https://edition.cnn.com/2020/06/26/tech/white-supremacists-t... > Are Private Messaging Apps the Next Misinformation Hot Spot? Telegram and Signal, the encrypted services that keep conversations confidential, are increasingly popular. Our tech columnists d…

So we should ban anything that these 'white supremacists', 'right-wing extremists' or 'conspiracy movements' are using, even if it is end-to-end encryption which can be used by anybody? Does that mean we should we ban encryption in general because the same so-called 'Nazis' can also use something like Signal for secure communications?

No. Why? Simply because not only it is free to use, but the roads to hell are paved with good intentions. This is what these 'journalists' from these publications fail to highlight each time privacy or free software supporters build tools that can also be used by terrorists and extremists.

Like one of the comments, the links provided make no argument against Telegram or similar tools like Telegram itself. The responses of these editors in those links towards mentioning a tool used for good now being abused by malicious users is highly predictable, repetitive and at most unsurprising.

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

#128

Post by ce4 »

YXNjaGVyZWdlbgo wrote: post #23
odiroot wrote: 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.

and also: recently I get dragged into "free-thinking" circles, the same mechanism as with crypto and other spam applies. Apparently bots harvest accounts from big public groups, and once you join them the querdenker-spam appears.

It also doesn't help when Telegram doesnt act on laws being broken on their platform as well as being out of reach and effectively evading jurisdiction.

Also: My guess is that moderation is worse for non-english content. Just search via the "users and groups nearby" feature and you'll find drugs, prostitution, racist groups, vaccination certificate "services", covid denial groups and so on. It's a cesspool of shady stuff you won't find that easily on other messengers. Addendum: the 1.5gb-per-file file-sharing feature is also frequently used for piracy. There's PDF bots for serving NYT paywalled content and so on.

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

#129

Post by Brian_K_White »

lampe3 wrote: post #110
Jimmc414 wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

It is about Telegram ignoring German Law and not answering any letters which by EU Law they have to do.

What law? And why isn't it just as much about the validity of such law?

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

#130

Post by Arnt »

thathndude wrote: post #74
odiroot wrote: 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.

Well, almost, but the difference is significant.

Only one Telegram feature is mentioned in the source documents I've read, namely public searchable groups. I've heard that people in the ministries and agencies worry that nazis can recruit e.g. by searching for groups where people worry about this or that threat to nature, then joining and gradually trying to turn conversation towards threats to the Homeland. That kind of thing.

A communication platform doesn't have to have that. Signal has groups, but you can't search for and join a group except by knowing a person in the group. Facebok has groups too, and some of those are (rumour has it) used/mentioned like the Telegram ones.

I don't understand why the general media talk about "encrypted messenger service" when the source documents focus on a single feature that is essentially unencrypted, because public and searchable.

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