A bunch of people in comments here seem to misunderstand what telegram is. It is not just a messaging app, it is essentially a platform like twitter, with channels, hundreds of thousands of subscribers to those.
While I fully support E2EE communication with no back-doors, I think it is perfectly fair for governments to have some control to take down large channels that are clearly against the law. I do not know the true cause for the arrest, but I hope it is because of the latter not the former.
The moment you put even the option of backdoors, some governments will abuse it heavily.
What might be essential right to human communication might suddenly become "illegal" according to the government.
So there should never ever be, under no circumstances, even the code and infra to be there to provide backdoor/censorships, otherwise it _will_ be abused by limiting people's communication in the moment they literally need the most.
Even in WhatsApp which has E2EE they have reporting mechanisms so if someone starts a broadcast channel with the explicit intention of promoting illegal behaviour, it can at least be taken down by reporting. Personal experience and second hand accounts tell us that Telegram was known to mismanage these things in ways that a company of its size and impact cannot ignore.
There’s a lot of false dichotomy in the ongoing discussions here which assumes there’s a binary “control to the gov” or “freedom for all” choice. It’s a spectrum where at the most basic level, a robust process to handle reports of illegal activity should be accepted.
"Illegal" according to who? Government? The same government which can decide something else that we would consider fundamental right is also "illegal" at any time?
Illegal things are going to happen mostly in physical world regardless of where they plan it. The government can catch them while they're at it or after. The governments are fear-mongering and creating a public narrative to support mass surveillance.
There are only very few illegal things that can happen within the telegram app like fraud, or minor abuse. Those must be reported by end users and individual actions can be taken against them.
What the government is asking is a massive backdoor for surveillance in the name of preventing crime, but they decide what they can monitor. It is a pandora box and if you open it there is no going back. Even if the current government is asking it with purest intentions and manage it well, the same can not be said for any next elected governments.
> I think it is perfectly fair for governments to have some control to take down large channels that are clearly against the law
How is a channel "against the law?"
Do you mean access to the channel is creating opportunities for lawlessness that simply wouldn't exist otherwise? I'm not sure the French justice system has demonstrated that it has exhausted all options other than to handcuff a CEO of one particular platform.
It will probably help if people take the time to read Article 8 in the European Declaration of Human Rights:
Article 8 – Right to respect for private and family life
1. Everyone has the right to respect for his private
and family life, his home and his correspondence.
2. There shall be no interference by a public authority
with the exercise of this right except such as is in
accordance with the law and is necessary in a
democratic society in the interests of national
security, public safety or the economic well-being
of the country, for the prevention of disorder or
crime, for the protection of health or morals, or
for the protection of the rights and freedoms of others.
Thus a channel where terror actions are planned /can be made/ "against the law", but it will not automatically be so, unless there is a specific french law that makes it so.
A channel that incites violence is against the law (in some countries). A channel selling drugs is against the law. These are few examples. I do not how the specific details of the French case to comment on the specifics. I could believe the arrest is poorly justified, but I have reasonably belief in their justice system.
A channel doesn’t do that though. People do that. If I take a megaphone to the street corner and start selling drugs, are you really going to arrest the megaphone I used?
Weird parallel. If you're on the street it's easier to arrest you.
Now if your megaphone is used exclusively to sell drugs and for some reason you cannot be arrested, then it makes sense to confiscate it?
You're in your house using a walkie talkie connected to a megaphone placed in the streets, and you're yelling that you sell drugs. Should the police leave the megaphone/walkie talkie untouched because "it's just an object, it's not the megaphone selling drugs?" Or should they remove it, and try to find you?
> How does an inanimate object incite violence or sell drugs?
Please stop being so (seemingly-intentionally) obtuse about this. Certainly the participants of the channel are the ones who incite violence or sell drugs. But some laws also make it illegal to "host" the people who do those sorts of things. A Telegram channel can host these people.
> If France can't access these channels, how do they know the violence or drugs are actually occurring _in_ France?
They can access those channels.
> And if they could know that, what does Telegram have to do with it?
Telegram is hosting the content, and apparently under French law, the host can also be liable.
> Wouldn't they just be able to go and arrest the violent person or the drug dealer?
Not if they don't know where the people are, because Telegram hides their real identities and locations.
I'm not being obtuse, I'm exceptionally uncomfortable with someone rather blithely saying a "channel is against the law." I'm probing the depths of that. I'm sorry if this is somehow inconvenient to you but I have no intention of altering my behavior and I find it rude that you would even ask in such a way.
> A Telegram channel can host these people.
Is this the majority of users? Is Telegram intentionally marketing it's services to these users? Does it do internal research to be more appealing to this use case?
> They can access those channels.
So Telegram is not intentionally hiding them from the government or preventing their discovery and infiltration by law enforcement? Then why arrest the CEO?
> and apparently under French law, the host can also be liable.
If you're comfortable saying "well, it's legal in France" then what do you hope to gain from further discussion with someone you believe is going to be intentionally obtuse?
> because Telegram hides their real identities and locations.
They are buying drugs? Doesn't this require two people to meet up and physically exchange goods and money? What good does outlawing the channel do?
It's not so much obtuseness as different assumptions about what is "normal" law: most young American computer-science trained programmers probably believe that ISPs or even Pirate Bay websites are not responsible for online crimes such as piracy, the authorities should go after the distributors of pirated material, and so this event does not fit the prior mental schema. It's a difference due to values, expectations, context having to do with how we reason about technology and in large part this depends on one's background technical culture, which varies depending on country as well as the type of university of study, exposure to Silicon Valley attitudes, etc.
Yes, and telephone operators are required to give law enforcement enough access in order to track down people who do crimes over the telephone.
Telegram does not do that, and does not shut down the illegal behavior. The problem isn't that illegal stuff happens on Telegram, the problem is that Telegram won't help law enforcement when that illegal behavior is found.
> are required to give law enforcement enough access in order to track down people who do crimes over the telephone.
They are not; however, required to prevent certain people on a prescribed government list or criteria from owning or using a telephone or from dialing certain numbers.
> won't help law enforcement
So it's not because a "channel is against the law."
"Probably" doesn't cut it. If law enforcement doesn't observe it (as would likely be the case on an E2EE-by-default platform), then there's nothing actionable they can do.
If they do observe it, and the platform owners are responsive to taking down illegal content and/or providing information on the participants, then likely law enforcement is satisfied with that.
you're right. Only they have probably have the fullest data on how much crime is moderated or unmoderated on what messenger, the rest is speculation. He probably just got cocky and overconfident, thinking he can beef with the EU on the same level like Musk or Gates.
So you endorse governments from the middle-east being in their right to delete anything they see as "illegal" because they are blasphemous for example?
I think that interpretation of GP's stance is pretty uncharitable.
If the thing they want to delete is run by an entity that has a physical presence in that country, then they -- unfortunately -- have the right to get that material deleted.
For better or worse, we are all bound by the laws of the place where we physically reside. If we want to do or allow things online that are legal where we are, but are illegal in other countries, then we shouldn't visit those countries.
It doesn't matter if anyone "endorses" repressive governments in doing their repressive things; they are legally able to do those things to people physically present within their borders. That's just the reality of the situation.
France claims Durov allowed stuff that's illegal in France. He went to France, so France has the ability to punish Durov for his alleged misdeeds. It doesn't matter if we think that's right or wrong; that's just how the world works.
National laws are largely based on the local morals; for instance in Europe breath is more or less indecent to show in public. A woman being topless on the beach, even in France, could be arrested, in theory (in practice it would just be "please put on some cloth, madam").
The laws are (usually) defined by the people of a country, based on their idea of morality, and are totally in their right to reject blasphemous stuff or whatever. It's their home, after all.
The only thing non-negotiable, to me, is that the Declaration of the Human Rights is universal and no law, anywhere, should go against them.
> in Europe breast is more or less indecent to show in public.
There is no single "Europe". I have seen many women sunbathing topless in Denmark - it seems to be totally acceptable there. Haven't seen that in France - but it has a very strong nudist culture dating back at least to the 60s. Some of these nudist beaches are actually famous e.g. Cape d'Agde.
And then we didn’t even talk about Spain, and all the German tourists in, say, Mallorca. If anything, this is a stark difference between the EU and the US, in general — the EU is much less afraid of a nipple being shown in public, both in arts and everything.
I once attended a local one man show where the actor's private parts were exposed for a second or two (by accident). There were a lot of kids in the audience (including mine). I was a bit uncomfortable for a second but we laughed it off with the friends.
No, there is no spectrum when it comes to Free Speech. Free Speech is an ideal that promotes total freedom to say whatever you want and is against all (state) censorship.
(And btw, I'm unaware of anything that exists that is a 'spectrum' apart from the electromagnetic spectrum. To have the quality of being a spectrum, the subject must continuously span a 1-dimensional space. It's a way overused metaphor, in my opinion, especially for political positions which are anything but 1-dimensional.)
So you correctly identify that modelling it as a one-dimensional spectrum is a gross over-simplification. Then conclude that as it's not a one-dimensonal spectrum, it must be a binary property? Rather than accepting that reality is more complex than is easily captured in common language?
> Then conclude that as it's not a one-dimensonal spectrum, it must be a binary property?
I can see how you made that interpretation but that's not what I was saying. Free Speech is an ideal (not a binary property). I doubt that that you will find any human society with a system of laws that puts absolutely no restrictions on speech. That still doesn't mean that you can talk about Free Speech as a 'spectrum'. It's an ideal that ppl strive for, to varying degrees and across different domains. (Perhaps similarly to how Truth is an ideal that ppl strive for; Truth is not a 'spectrum'.)
Hate speech is a nebulous term, extremely dependent on the speaker's values.
Plus, people aren't really obliged to love one another or their institutions. Why should I pretend, for example, that I respect some dead Iron Age prophet and people who follow him like sheep?
And yet anti-religious speech is usually perceived as hate speech by the religious folks on the receiving end.
'Hate speech' is a term deliberately coined to undermine the ideal of Free Speech.
There is no need for the label, other than to serve this purpose. We already have long existing words for what is lumped under so-called 'hate speech', such as bigotry, or invective or slander. But they don't contrast so neatly against Free Speech as the invented (subjective) label 'Hate Speech' does, which is why it was (only recently) coined.
My point on spectrum wasn't relating to free speech but rather free speech regulation.
Open discourse is universally recognized as a generally good thing for society.
So, we can try to embrace Free Speech ideals even as we grant our government right to censor some speech and draw (a somewhat arbitrary) line of what's allowed.
We've seen Russia, for example, abuse that power even though free speech is written into their constitution, they use that power to censor political speech and what they refer to as blasphemy, so we know this power can and has been abused but it's also possible, so, perhaps, you are right.
there is no solution to this. If you want to do business in EU (for example, to be available in EU's Apple Appstore), you have to comply, otherwise Apple will be forced to kick you out, and if they don't, they will be harassed by the authorities until they do. If you want to do business in Saudi Arabia or Turkey or any other country you agree or disagree with, it's the same thing. If Turkey says something is "blasphemous" you either comply or withdraw from Turkey entirely. By now every government that cares has figured out how this works, and it really doesn't matter whether you "endorse" this or not, this is how it works.
Ah very interesting. Thanks for making that distinction! To me, I’m wondering at what critical mass of people should you need to provide a back door to the government? Is it 2? 3? 100? 1000? Are the number of people the right indicator here? Genuinely curious of people’s thoughts. I haven’t though too deeply about this.
There is no need for backdoor anything, when there are public channels.
I do not know the specifics of French case though, so I don't know if their case is about those or some private chats.
You seem to assume there is a “need” to backdoor the people’s communication. Liberty of the people assumes there is not a need nor a right of the State to do so
I am long done with commenting on this platform, as most of Russian people, who cannot write here (and most of other western internet forums) what they think. I will make an exception in this case, however.
1. "I think it is perfectly fair for governments to take down large channels that are clearly against the law"
Telegram obviously acts upon such requests Here in Italy I cannot access the channels of RIA and Sputnik, obviously a request was made to Telegram on behalf of EU /Italy, and Telegram complied.
2. I think that you, in your US bubble, which you THINK guarantees free speech, misunderstand yourself what Telegram is. Right now, it is the ONLY wide audience platform in the world, where Russian people can freely (as opposed to, say, HN) write what they really think. And it is true as much for the people who are "pro", as for the people who are "against Putin", (I use these nonsense labels to adapt what I write to the general american level of "understanding" Russia).
> [...] your US bubble, which you THINK guarantees free speech [...]
That's a very common misunderstanding (even among Americans) of what the First Amendment actually guarantees: It protects you from government censorship of speech, but does absolutely nothing to compel private individuals or corporations to carry your speech. (In fact, compelled speech has been ruled to be a violation itself.)
That absence of such legal protections can definitely be seen as having a chilling effect on free speech in practice, but as I interpret it, currently the assumption seems to be that legal intervention is not necessary due to market forces achieving the same or a similar outcome implicitly. There's also strong resistance from a value perspective against the idea, since these provisions themselves might be incompatible with the FA for reasons mentioned above.
You can definitely have some discussions around whether additional "duty to contract" rules should apply, e.g. in the same way as there's a law in Europe that makes it illegal for banks to not give somebody a bank account in certain circumstances, but nothing like this exists at the moment.
> Right now, it is the ONLY wide audience platform in the world, where Russian people can freely (as opposed to, say, HN) write what they really think
Hackernews has always been very strictly moderated to maintain a specific type and culture of discussion. By necessity, that excludes certain types of comments. In that sense, it's always been very far away from a "free speech platform".
Most peoples homes would count. Most people don’t enforce their governments laws on each other. They have their own moral code and logic that takes precedence over whatever the politicians have actually penned on paper.
This is no different than a Tor server being shut down for sharing illegal content, like CSAM, which is what Telegram was doing. Pavel Durov not taking action to shut down CSAM is an illegal offense and should be punished.
North Korean meth is sold in bulk on Telegram channels in South Korea. Drug abuse is out of control and crypto currency is used by NK to sell drugs to SK and use funds for its regime.
Since it's NK responsible for manufacturing the meth, I'm sure they have established easy methods to get it into SK, China, and shipping out of ports in NK and into other countries.
