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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

#131

Post by tut-urut-utut »

EGreg wrote: post #102
bijant wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not like you need Telegram to buy Drugs in Hamburg. There are places like the U-Bahn Sternschanze or the Hafentreppe where Dealers have been continuously offering light and hard drugs for over a decade with an uptime that puts FAANG SLAs to shame. They occasionally get raided whenever the police wants to have their pictures in the local papers but it's not like there is anything you could get via Telegram that y…

I have seen this argument over and over but there is a power law and authorities just need to cut off the head off the probability distribution. Centralized messengers are no hydra.

Just wait until German police discovers a thing called SMS. Right now, we are lucky that Fax is still a thing in Germany, and the whole internet thing is just a "Neuland" (new land), as ex-chancellor Merkel admitted.

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

#132

Post by MagnumOpus »

EGreg wrote: post #116
lampe3 wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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...

Perhaps the problem is in CENTRALIZED (or federated) addressing systems like the postal mail or DNS? Think about it … you wouldn’t get SPAM emails and calls or DDOS atacks if you only gave out capabilities to contact you to your existing contacts, and gave close contacts the ability to refer people to you, and if one friend abused their capability of handing out such invites, then you invalidate all their future invi…

People need to join forces to battle corrupt tax policy or corrupt laws that benefit one politician or businessman at the expense of a whole county's or even country's worth of taxpayers.

People need to join forces to organise labour unions to have any equal negotiating power against their employer.

People not being allowed to organise is the wet dream of corrupt autocratic politicians and business owners around the world (which is also why China or Russia have such tight controls and surveillance over their respective messaging app ecosystems).

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

#133

Post by mschuster91 »

German here.

While I do agree with her that something must be done about Telegram given that criminal activity including Holocaust denial and plotting murder of governors [1] can go on there without any moderation while requests for providing IP addresses and other user data are being routinely ignored by the service, she is falling into the same trap as many interior politicians do and thinks that the solution is primarily to put pressure on Telegram.

It would be better to put police pressure on the ringleaders and participators of such Telegram channels. They are often enough known by clear name and march on the streets so they can be arrested there, but that requires actual effort from a police force that is already under suspicion of far-right infiltration.

[1]: https://www.tagesschau.de/inland/kretschmer-drohung-razzia-1...

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

#134

Post by tut-urut-utut »

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...

Is all organization you can think about organizing to kill someone?

People have the right to organize themselves, regardless of their political views, whether it is a telegram group about organizing a school festival, or demonstration about a topic you agree or not agree about.

You can also ask to ban phones because people can use them to organize a murder. Or ban a postal service, since postal mail can also be used for bad purpose.

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

#135

Post by Arnt »

iqanq wrote: post #32
YXNjaGVyZWdlbgo wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Some right or every right?

There's a difference between the right for you and a few others to set up a group when you already know each other, and the right for you to search for those others by interest.

Technically: Private groups are different from groups that are publicly searchable by or or more of name/blurb/message content.

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

#136

Post by beardedman »

You've had censorship in Germany for a very long time now, but I don't think people like to think of it as censorship. You (literally) can land up in jail for verbalising certain things. IMO, the scary part is how positively people view this, like it's a feature (and then proceed to talk about the CCP or Russia like they are stuck in the mid 1500's).

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

#137

Post by EGreg »

MagnumOpus wrote: post #132
EGreg wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Perhaps the problem is in CENTRALIZED (or federated) addressing systems like the postal mail or DNS? Think about it … you wouldn’t get SPAM emails and calls or DDOS atacks if you only gave out capabilities to contact you to your existing contacts, and gave close contacts the ability to refer people to you, and if one friend abused their capability of handing out such invites, then you invalidate all their future invi…

People need to join forces to battle corrupt tax policy or corrupt laws that benefit one politician or businessman at the expense of a whole county's or even country's worth of taxpayers. People need to join forces to organise labour unions to have any equal negotiating power against their employer. People not being allowed to organise is the wet dream of corrupt autocratic politicians and business owners around the…

Everything you mentioned can be described as “people need to join forces to battle other people who have previously joined forces”.

Do you see the issue here? It just escalates further.

“Russia” and “China” are entire countries with massively centralized governments and decision making. At that point your best bet is to decentralize decision making to “democracy” — good luck w that.

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

#138

Post by EGreg »

tut-urut-utut wrote: post #131
EGreg wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have seen this argument over and over but there is a power law and authorities just need to cut off the head off the probability distribution. Centralized messengers are no hydra.

Just wait until German police discovers a thing called SMS. Right now, we are lucky that Fax is still a thing in Germany, and the whole internet thing is just a "Neuland" (new land), as ex-chancellor Merkel admitted.

Oh yes, because local telecommunication companies delivering SMS using archaic, non-end-to-end encrypted protocols are TOTALLY more resilient to government censorship than Telegram :-P

Look, when it comes to SMS and craigslist-style things etc. I bet they will want to just keep them up so they can act as a dragnet for the fools who use them to organize criminal activity.

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

#139

Post by vetinari »

iqanq wrote: 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!

It is not possible to do what you are asking for on iOS. They do it for Android because it is possible to sideload apks, but they cannot do the same for iOS.

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

#140

Post by fileeditview »

orbifold wrote: post #82
wongarsu wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You mean people who organize protests without permit (because they don't like the mandates for masks and minimum separation that would come with the permit), and when confronted with police claim they are just a couple hundred people who happen to be on a walk at the same time by pure coincidence.

I wouldn’t have a problem with it if it was just that. Police here deserve to be stress tested and in principle you can spontaneously declare something to be an assembly by naming someone the assembly leader. The issue is their message and the right wing / nazis that they are walking among them.

It's not a problem who is walking among them or what their message is. Anyone has the right to express his opinion. I am getting really sick of hearing this argument. No there is nothing in the constitution that would forbid you to protest peacefully alongside whoever. Also the message you are allowed to voice is not defined by you or some politician.

If you have a problem with some of the protestants you can voice your concerns. But stop judging everybody participating.

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