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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

#91

Post by uniqueuid »

tux3 wrote: post #58
uniqueuid wrote: post #22

Ok, a lot of the points raised here come up all the time; maybe it helps if I summarize some more of them: - Argument: States cannot ban/close platforms - sure they can, as soon as you kick an app off the app store it's over for most of the users. That's a severe step though, and could be legally contested; my personal opinion is that it's realistic a court could deem a complete shutdown unconstitutional. - Argument:…

>This is censorship - not really, censorship in the German legal context [...] Censorship, and the legal concept of censorship, are such very different things that using one as the response to the other is silly! The local lawmaker's definition of censorship in a legal context, when transposed in a non-legal discussion, is just one country's opinion, not an authoritative answer to whether something is censorship.

I'm not sure I follow - the definition of censorship is in some way the most important question here.

It's absolutely vital to understand that prohibiting some speech has been a core feature of Germany's democracy since 1945. At the same time, the public use of the word "censorship" has diluted so much (especially online) that it's hardly useful.

So I'd argue that it totally makes sense to try and define what we're talking about, and how and why the state intervenes.

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

#92

Post by larryflint »

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…

No post body was provided.

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

#93

Post by dafoex »

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…

I'm glad you've explained it. Maybe I'm being dumb, but I can't see where the article actually says what laws are being violated.

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

#94

Post by lelandfe »

theshrike79 wrote: post #55
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.

What if I distributed stickers with a phone number where to call to get drugs? Would Germany ban phones? If I did it with an email address, would they ban email? :)

Not a popular statement on HN, nor one I relish making, but both of those can usually be intercepted by the state and reviewed. So less ban and more investigate.

I think we can all admit that end to end encrypted messaging is a thorny problem as far as police work is concerned.

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

#95

Post by sebow »

Good luck to Germany in this futile approach.Also, what happened to WhatsApp,Wickr, or even Facebook?Those have been aswell used in terrorist attacks years ago when the crisis hit Germany, UK, and France more than the rest of the continent.Suddenly they're not a problem at all, we only need to ban something when it's going against the current narrative.

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

#96

Post by odiroot »

bijant wrote: post #27
guerrilla wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Tagesschau Can you give me a date to look for an example in? I haven't see that yet.

https://www.tagesschau.de/investigativ/funk/todesdrohungen-t... „In Germany, alleged individual cases of calls for killing from the lateral thinker scene have been discussed for days. Research now shows that there have been calls to kill every day since mid-November.“ https://www.tagesschau.de/inland/telegram-verfassungsschutz-... „Radicalized Corona Deniers What can the state do about Telegram? Corona deniers use th…

Thank you bijant, you did better job than me :)

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

#97

Post by Applejinx »

emteycz wrote: post #7
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…

The notion of a government watching over group conversations is scary .

The notion of a platform watching over group conversations, with its only purpose being engagement, is scarier.

There is nothing more engaging than existential threat. As long as anybody anywhere stands to benefit from fomenting the idea of existential threat and using the terror thus inspired to get a social group to exterminate a selected other social group… which is then itself under existential threat and can respond in kind… the only refuge to this is something like a government or legal system watching over this.

Otherwise competitive pressure will ensure that the platform fomenting the most fear of existential threat will have the most engagement and will prosper. YouTube seems to have already recognized this and is grappling with it in its own way. I doubt Telegram has any wish to moderate its real purpose for existence and undermine the engagement it must have to survive.

And there is nobody who cannot be turned monstrous through invoking existential threat: all the better if it's a realistic fear, it will persist long after the tables are turned and the victim has become the monster in turn. History has shown this really clearly.

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

#98

Post by ChuckNorris89 »

taubek wrote: post #83

You shutdown one app, people move to another one. I don't see how could this work.

This is how it works: The Government will shut down the apps that refuse to cooperate with the state until either they start to cooperate, or people migrate to the ones who already do cooperate with the state. Simple.

Either way, the state wins, since not all chat apps are self-righteous enough to say no to a lucrative market on principle of refusing to cooperate with a nation state. They learned that from watching companies bend over backwards for the Chinese market.

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

#100

Post by lima »

iqanq wrote: post #41
lima wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Everybody wants to be the one who decides what is extreme and what is mainstream so they can silence and ostracise those who don't think the way they do.

It's a fine line, and it's why a functioning democracy and judicial system is so important in finding the right balance (and ensuring there's public oversight[2]).

One of the most important values in German politics is the concept of "wehrhafte Demokratie"[1], essentially, the idea that Germany can't ever again let the democratic system be defeated by populists, even a majority.

[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Defensive_democracy#Germany

[2]: Personally, I'm not a fan of having underpaid teams of "content moderators" in charge of deciding what constitutes acceptable public discourse precisely because there's insufficient democratic oversight. It's also a horrible, psychologically taxing job. It's a hard problem that won't be solved by ignoring it.

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