Facebook is a CP paradise because of the way private groups are set up. Been a problem for years. Even with all the moderation. What do you expect the moderation will do in this instance?
Facebook should be better at moderation. I'm not familiar with the Child Porn myself, but I think this is a problem with moderation that relies on reporting versus somewhat more proactive moderation, such as automatically scanning content (with human review).
I expect the moderation to frustrate the efforts of scammers, extremists, and terrorists so that scams are no longer profitable and so that they can no longer spread hate and terror as effectively.
Scams will always be profitable. The difference between scamming someone in real life and scamming them via the internet isn’t all the much different.
Scammers use phone calls to scam people too. Are you suggesting we tap and monitor everyone’s phones for keywords?
The thing about privacy is that you seem to be willing to let people or organisations (that we can’t prove have our best interest at heart) violate people’s privacy in order to get the result you want. And there’s no proof that you will get that result.
Meanwhile someone who’s human has to make the determination that something is criminal or something is CP and that means we have to pay people to comb through all that data.
That’s very taxing on the individuals involved. It does harm to them.
Now I’m sure you’ll say something about expectation of privacy when submitting anything to the web. But people do have the expectation of privacy online. Take a look at people who are deliberately de-googling or up in arms about web sites collecting their data to target them with ads.
Scams will always be profitable. The difference between scamming someone in real life and scamming them via the internet isn’t all the much different.
It is! People are wary of scams, it's not worth wasting an hour trying to scam one random person anymore. Spending a few hours trying to spam millions of people is a worthwhile use of a scammer's time, especially when there's no risk of being banned or caught.
Scammers use phone calls to scan people too. Are you suggesting we tap and monitor everyone’s phones for keywords?
That's not a solution I would pose for that problem, no, but there are laws in place intended to reduce spam calling, and many, many tech companies are proposing many, many solutions for that, and nobody is saying "oh no, what if you accidentally classify an innocent telemarketing-spammer as a scammer?" Good riddance.
The thing about privacy is that you seem to be willing to let people or organisations (that we can’t prove have our best interest at heart) violate people’s privacy in order to get the result you want. And there’s no proof that you will get that result.
I think people should use e2ee-enabled chat services if they expect privacy. Telegram users don't bother turning on secret chats because they lack all of the features that make people want to use telegram. I think Whatsapp users have a much more reasonable expectation of privacy, and Whatsapp still goes through efforts to reduce spam and misinformation on its platform. I think Matrix users have a more reasonable expectation of privacy (since encryption is on by default, and can be used in group chats and spaces and on calls and with every other matrix feature), but Matrix servers still do not federate with Al Qaeda rocket.chat servers, because they know better.
Meanwhile someone who’s human has to make the determination that something is criminal or something is CP and that means we have to pay people to comb through all that data.
Telegram has to. It can afford to. I'll remind you that I did not set criminality as the bar.
That’s very taxing on the individuals involved. It does harm to them.
Now think of what it does to the rest of the people who have to see it. If you can pay one person to willingly review content for child porn that couldn't be identified in advance so a million others don't have to see it, is that really the worst thing?
Now I’m sure you’ll say something about expectation of privacy when submitting anything to the web. But people do have the expectation of privacy online. Take a look at people who are deliberately de-googling or up in arms about web sites collecting their data to target them with ads.
Data collection feels very different to me, but you're specifically sending your messages to Telegram. Like, Google scanning my emails is something I have trouble objecting to (although I object to the use of that information for ad-related purposes, of course).
By "de-googling," do you mean the whole "right to be forgotten" thing? I think that's nonsense, clearly at odds with the right to remember, and largely used by wealthy assholes to deflect attention from shitty things they did.
I'm a mixed bag of agree and disagree on these points but I'm only going to point out that the "De-Googling" trend doesn't really have anything to do with the right to be forgotten. It has more to do with enshittification - Google shutting down services, making their current services harder to use, charging money for what used to be free services, charging more money for already paid services, adding ads, etc etc. Basically people finding alternative software to Google because Google's practices have become increasingly volatile and their services less and less reliable.
but I'm only going to point out that the "De-Googling" trend doesn't really have anything to do with the right to be forgotten. It has more to do with enshittification - Google shutting down services, making their current services harder to use, charging money for what used to be free services, charging more money for already paid services, adding ads, etc etc. Basically people finding alternative software to Google because Google's practices have become increasingly volatile and their services less and less reliable.
Ohhhhh that de-Googling. Yeah, I've done a bit of that, disabled the Google app on my phone entirely since Firefox does its job better, but I'm on Android and doing all that setup every time I get a new phone is just a headache.
To hear people on the privacy subreddits and even the privacy Lemmy communities tell it, it’s absolutely about the data these companies are collecting. I’ll grant you it’s about what the companies are perceived to be doing with the data the collect (serving ads), but I don’t think I personally ever made the point that op did (that it was about right to be forgotten).
Either way, I think op may have missed my point. As technology evolves people will find new ways to abuse it. And there’s a level of privacy people should have the expectation of, and our privacy laws don’t do enough as it is. Op is really suggesting that we further violate everyone’s privacy in the name of protecting them and they don’t want to hear that it’s a bad idea or one where we would have to put our trust in a company or companies to apply this monitoring.
They also don’t seem to want to hear about the burn out rate of people tasked with moderating content and validating that that content is against TOS or breaks the law. Having humans trawl communities or even just messaging app text data for CP and scams is bound to have a detrimental effect.
To hear people on the privacy subreddits and even the privacy Lemmy communities tell it, it’s absolutely about the data these companies are collecting.
Sure. But I can't blame them for collecting data that I literally decide to send them for no reason but my own, I can only blame them for using that data in a shitty way.
If I post something on Instagram, I know that they're collecting the photo I post, that's how posting works, that's not the issue. The issue comes if they try scanning peoples' faces to invade their privacy, or build an advertising profile about me. Sending unencrypted chat messages is not that different.
If I download Whatsapp, and I enable the contacts permission, and it uploads all of the Contacts data on my phone, that's super not okay, because I never wanted to give them that data in the first place, they just jacked it.(I disable contacts permission for whatsapp on my phone, but most users would never know that data gets uploaded to begin with.
Users are responsible for the conduct and permissions they give to companies. Absolving them of that responsibility doesn’t make sense ethically or legally. We can’t just say “they didn’t know because WhatsApp didn’t tell them”. That’s not really an accurate statement. They more than likely agreed to use the app and in exchange they would receive free use and WhatsApp would receive that data. But they more than likely didn’t read the agreement before agreeing. That’s on them.
You can make a private group on Facebook where you can exchange messages without anyone who lacks system access being able to view them. That’s how CP rings hide what they’re doing. And Facebook allows it until someone reports it or the cops subpoena that data. Which is basically the same as every other messaging platform or social media site that allows such functionality. So what was it you wanted them (Facebook, or WhatsApp, or signal or telegram) to do? Delete the accounts or known terrorists whether they are or aren’t using the platform for terrorist activities? Because I don’t really understand what you’re advocating for. You appear to very much be advocating for people’s private messages to be scanned and possibly read by a human being if they trip the algorithm. So yes. You are advocating for an invasion of privacy.
You can make a private group on Facebook where you can exchange messages without anyone who lacks system access being able to view them. That’s how CP rings hide what they’re doing. And Facebook allows it until someone reports it or the cops subpoena that data.
My point here was that people would be stupid to expect that their information is private from facebook.
I also have to imagine that you're wrong, I'm sure they have proactive means to scan for CP and ban it whenever they become aware of it, and just don't have the means to always ban CP groups immediately. Like, knowing your company controls child porn and allowing it to remain in control is a great way to end up in prison, most corporate douchebags prefer to avoid prison if they can. Like, Zuckerberg does not want to go to jail just so he can get a few more ad bucks from pedos.
I feel very weird defending Facebook, they're quite evil, but your conspiracy theory is silly.
So what was it you wanted them (Facebook, or WhatsApp, or signal or telegram) to do?
You seem like you're focused on private groups, which I think are still problematic on Telegram as they are on Facebook, but you're really neglecting the issue of the fully public broadcast groups Hamas is known for, and known for engaging in terrorist activity on, including the al-Qassam Brigades! Why can't Telegram ban the fucking public channel for the al-Qassam Brigades? Doesn't that just make the issue so obvious?
Delete the accounts or known terrorists whether they are or aren’t using the platform for terrorist activities?
That would be good, but also, if you know somebody is a terrorist, isn't that at least enough cause to look through their non-encrypted chats to see if they really are or are not using the platform for terrorist activities?
You appear to very much be advocating for people’s private messages to be scanned and possibly read by a human being if they trip the algorithm. So yes. You are advocating for an invasion of privacy.
Meh. If your public messages and stories and large group messages (which are really not private in any meaningful sense) trip an algorithm with high confidence, then scanning your unencrypted kinda-private-ish messages after that doesn't seem like a big problem, and human review after a high-confidence trip there doesn't seem too bad either.
You object to the business model of the free service you subscribe to? That’s what you basically said. You want to use Google’s free email service. You agreed to allow them to collect your data and target you with ads as is their business model. But you object to them collecting your data to target you with ads. That doesn’t make any sense.
Spear phishing and so on are still a thing. Scams via regular SMS messages? Still a thing. It absolutely is profitable to target one person depending on how you target them and what you get in return. These scams and the businesses and companies that fight them are constantly playing whack a mole. They wouldn’t bother to continue trying to scam via email and SMS if it wasn’t profitable still.
Saying Telegram has to monitor their users and the content sent via the service and suggesting that they should (as an extension of that) violate the privacy of the users to monitor them all for illegal activity because they have “no reasonable expectation of privacy” is an interesting take. Even the police are supposed to subpoena your texts if they can show reasonable cause.
You’re throwing reasonable cause out the window. If it’s an app for private messaging the people who use it have the expectation that their messages are private. This isn’t a forum we’re talking about. It’s not twitch. They are sending messages to a specific recipient. They aren’t making a public post on Facebook.
And if Hamas is violating their TOS while using the service, then they should do something about it. In the same way that Google blocks what scammers it can find who are using google voice numbers to scam people. But what you are suggesting isn’t that they take action against people or organisations that are violating the TOS or using the service to break the law.
You are suggesting they essentially listen in on every conversation or message sent on the service to find people breaking the law or violating the TOS. That’s not the same thing.
You are suggesting they essentially listen in on every conversation or message sent on the service
I'm not suggesting that!
They don't need to listen to private chats to see what Hamas is doing, it's open, it's public, they're not being subtle, and Pavel Durov himself has publicly commented on it. He just doesn't give a fuck.
So I did read the article. But telegram as a service allows users (some of whom are just civilians with no ties to Hamas) to warn people of imminent attack. That’s in the article. They (that channel admins) still have to add subscribers.
The thing is though, for telegram and messaging apps like it this is basically playing whack a mole. I know I said that before, but what I meant by it is that it’s better for the purposes of building intelligence and or sending their geolocation data to relevant authorities. If they close one channel more will pop up. IP bans and even device bans will not stop this from happening. You can create a telegram bot in like 10 minutes.
But deleting certain channels will detrimentally affect the civilians caught in the cross fire.
"Telegram CEO Pavel Durov wrote that he was hesitant to shut down Hamas-used channels in a post on October 13th, saying that “tackling war-related coverage is seldom obvious” and writing that Hamas had used Telegram a few days prior to warn civilians to evacuate an area before the attacked it " < from your article.
It’s the same thing with scammers. Most telegram scammers are using private messages that have encryption. So you absolutely are suggesting the telegram snoop through private messages.
So can we stop pretending that this is simply an easy fix?
So I did read the article. But telegram as a service allows users (some of whom are just civilians with no ties to Hamas) to warn people of imminent attack. That’s in the article. They (that channel admins) still have to add subscribers.
It's a Hamas channel! They're not warnings, they're threats! And they're recruiting! And they know those users are sharing video of their attrocities in other Hamas groups! And the al-Qassam Brigades have a public channel too!
The thing is though, for telegram and messaging apps like it this is basically playing whack a mole. I know I said that before, but what I meant by it is that it’s better for the purposes of building intelligence and or sending their geolocation data to relevant authorities. If they close one channel more will pop up. IP bans and even device bans will not stop this from happening. You can create a telegram bot in like 10 minutes.
The mole is out in the open, sticking its fingers in its ears, and laughing at us, and Durov is saying "yeah, that's a fine mole, no idea why I'd whack it." It's gaining steam! They're openly using the names of terrorist organizations and recruiting new members constantly and telegram isn't even considering a response.
But deleting certain channels will detrimentally affect the civilians caught in the cross fire.
No, it absolutely will not.
"Telegram CEO Pavel Durov wrote that he was hesitant to shut down Hamas-used channels in a post on October 13th, saying that “tackling war-related coverage is seldom obvious” and writing that Hamas had used Telegram a few days prior to warn civilians to evacuate an area before the attacked it " < from your article.
He referenced Ashkelon. There are zero Israelis in Ashkelon following Hamas on Telegram. Israel knows when to evacuate its citizens, and unlike Hamas, actually does so when necessary. Hamas is a terrorist organization. Hamas is threatening Israeli civilians before targeting those civilians. THE THREAT IS THE FIRST CAUSE OF THE TERROR. This is what terrorism is! They threaten violence on civilians, they do the violence they threatened, and then they celebrate it by sharing videos! They threaten, plan, and celebrate on telegram, out in the open!
It’s the same thing with scammers. Most telegram scammers are using private messages that have encryption. So you absolutely are suggesting the telegram snoop through private messages.
There's a funnel. They start on twitter, just kind of innocently saying "follow me on Telegram." Then they say "alright, this broadcast channel will tell you exactly what token to buy, and when! Do exactly that!" It's a pump and dump scheme, some people fall for it. And then the real rubes get into those 1-on-1 secret chats with the scammers where they go ahead and give out their private info.
A tech company like Telegram could, in theory follow this funnel through the unencrypted channels. It's obvious enough from the information you and I have.
These channels are all operating openly. You know they're all pump and dump scams, right? They're not in secret chats, they're huge channels with hundreds of thousands of subscribers.
So can we stop pretending that this is simply an easy fix?
Can we stop pretending that ignoring the problem is a better solution?
Look. I don’t support Hamas in the same way that I don’t support the Israeli government. They’re both basically terrorist organisations at this point. Shelling Gaza with no regard for civilians and children is just as bad as targeting children and civilians for the purposes of a terrorist attack. Your own article disputes what you’ve said. But if you’ve made up your mind that one group is worse than the other and therefore one group deserves to be punished (as it would appear based on your comment), then I don’t see the point in this discussion.
This thread has quickly become less about scammers (as you first claimed) and more about giving a voice to terrorist organisations, which I don’t necessarily agree is a good thing but is something that won’t be stopped by deleting a channel. More will pop up. Disenfranchised people who have been hurt repeatedly will act out. Relieving them of an avenue to voice their opinions doesn’t stop them and it often makes things worse.
Nobody is forcing you or anyone to use telegram. You’ve gotten increasingly more upset (it would seem based on your replies) that I am not automatically condemning Hamas or Telegram’s CEO and you go out of your way to ignore my questions about privacy when it concerns private messages. Additionally you are hyper focused on the Hamas channels angle as if it’s the only thing in your original post.
Israeli’s aren’t the only civilians dying in the crossfire between Hamas and the Israeli government.
Ah, well, at least my article wasn't behind a paywall. I could have used write.as, but I felt like more people would see it on medium, and it didn't seem like a big difference.
Well, presumably the people who control all of the servers and encryption keys and directly profit from the app's users. But whatever, as long as we see fewer scams and fewer terrorists, I'm not picky about who is shutting them up.
Totally agree that huge social media systems need to be understood as disproportionately affecting misinformation. I don't know anything about Telegram, though.
Are the pushback people fReEzE PeAChErs or something? Is Telegram just lovely? Dunno.
I'm part of a few Telegram channels full of highly progressive IRL friends and colleagues. I also know Telegram is full of channels dedicated to crypto shilling, liveleak-esque video and imagery, piracy chats, privacy chats, QAnon forums, etc etc. I used it to communicate with family when I was out of the country and didn't want to pay for roaming charges.
Telegram itself is just a piece of software. Telegram's community is wide and varied. Does it need moderation? Yeah probably. Who should be doing the moderating, not just of individual channels but of all the channels? Eh, I don't have a good answer to that.
Telegram itself is just a piece of software. Telegram's community is wide and varied. Does it need moderation? Yeah probably. Who should be doing the moderating, not just of individual channels but of all the channels? Eh, I don't have a good answer to that.
As long as you agree it should be happening, I appreciate that. I think Telegram should probably worry about it, and keep looking for solutions, but also that people should report the problematic groups and channels they come across, and be aware of the issue just to put a little more PR pressure on them to come up with a solution.
No, my private messages are well-encrypted. But people voluntarily send their private messages to Telegram without e2ee and avail themselves of Telegram's moderation, which they know it does. They just know that their crypto scams are profitable enough given how little of a fuck Telegram gives that they're willing to put up with it. They know that sharing unlimited videos on private servers would cost money, and that money would mean less money to buy weapons with, so why not enjoy unlimited uploads and share them with half a billion people who think "yeah, that's fine."
Why don't you start with the messages people have already voluntarily given you?
Anybody who has received the messages I've voluntarily sent them is free to do with those messages as they see fit. I certainly haven't asked any of them to store large videos for me for free without input.
My position is one I am quite proud of. Again, instead of being a dick, you could try responding to me, as though I were a person. There's nothing hypocritical about my position, I expect all unencrypted services I use to be moderated as well.
Why can’t we just better educate people on how to avoid online scams. Oh wait that wouldn’t give the government an excuse to legislate another part of our lives into oblivion.
And it’s funny how suddenly we are having all these terrorist problems it’s like something else is causing it, but once again solving it probably doesn’t benefit the government.
I'm all for better education, but there will always be people who don't understand the technology, and scammers and extremists will always look for new ways to trick people and radicalize people.
Most of these regulators are just asking the platforms what they're doing to combat extremism, not actively regulating the platforms. Regulators are, by and large, afraid of technology, and afraid that they'll regulate it incorrectly. But by questioning the companies, they can apply pressure to make sure the companies take moderation seriously. The fear of hypothetical regulation and strong negative PR is usually enough to get the companies to at least try to do better. That's a good thing.
And it’s funny how suddenly we are having all these terrorist problems it’s like something else is causing it, but once again solving it probably doesn’t benefit the government.
I have no fucking idea what you're trying to say here.
And it’s funny how suddenly we are having all these terrorist problems it’s like something else is causing it, but once again solving it probably doesn’t benefit the government.
I have no fucking idea what you’re trying to say here.
That the government is making up the terrorist problems so while people are scared they can come to our rescue, legislate, and thus have more control.
If terrorists are forced to pay a sysadmin to host a slow, makeshift matrix server in their moms' basement, rather than having free access and unlimited uploads to a global network of 550 million rubes stupid enough to fall for crypto scams, I consider that a win for the world.
If crypto scammers move to some platform nobody's ever heard of, and nobody uses, because it's nothing but crypto scams, I consider that a win for the world.
It's not incoherent to want to make the lives of extremists less convenient. I'm not saying we can or should bother trying to eradicate their access to messaging altogether. I'm saying we should recognize it as a problem and try to address it instead of saying "oh, wow, terrorists use our platform? Cool. Fun. Neat."
If you find a pattern of serial killers using a particular set of public restrooms, you might, in fact, want to consider security of some kind at those public restrooms. Maybe cameras near the entrance and a security guard situated in the damn mall would help.
But that is kind of the issue here isn’t it? Bad elements are not inconveniented at all by any of that, it’s normal people who suffer from getting censored.
I personally am not willing to give up any online freedoms I have, just on the off chance that it might be inconvenient for criminals.
Bad elements are not inconveniented at all by any of that,
... how the fuck are they not inconvenienced by that? Can you not agree that telegram is convenient for them? The unlimited fucking video uploads and built-in audience?
it’s normal people who suffer from getting censored.
Eh. I'm not sure what the real risk is there, IDK how Telegram is going to hear "let's censor terrorists" and end up censoring normal people. And I'm also not sure having a post or channel shut down on Telegram would really lead to suffering, I've never seen or heard of a decent telegram channel... The best ones mostly still seem to be charlatans, maybe a couple for, like, companies or reporters that are just present everywhere, but nothing that actually serves a valuable role in society... But yeah, I don't think there's any huge risk of those charlatans being banned, if they're who you're worried about.
I personally am not willing to give up any online freedoms I have, just on the off chance that it might be inconvenient for criminals.
Like, it is objectively convenient and useful and helpful to "criminals" who celebrate after burning children alive by calling their parents and asking them if they're proud, like, kind of goes beyond "criminal," but yeah, they're going to send the videos they took to other terrorists and spread them to checks notesspread terror, which is the whole fucking thing they do.
But also, you're not willing to give up your "freedom" to share videos of people you beheaded on telegram? Is that an important freedom to you?
First off, let me just say that I am not quite sure how telegram works. So far I know it’s just a far saver WhatsApp that guarantees that your info isn’t being sold.
Second, most of my issues with your ideas of censoring content is meant in a more general sense.
[… how the fuck are they not inconvenienced by that?]
You mean apart from the fact they can just hop over to some other platform?
Also I am not quite sure how you imagine telegram to actually do something against terrorists while also guaranteeing the privacy aspect of the service they are providing. That’s literally their whole thing, privacy.
[But also, you’re not willing to give up your “freedom” to share videos of people you beheaded on telegram? Is that an important freedom to you?]
I am not even going to bother with all these other straw man fallacies. If you can’t have a civil discussion without putting words in my mouth and twisting the meaning of them we are done here.
First off, let me just say that I am not quite sure how telegram works. So far I know it’s just a far saver WhatsApp that guarantees that your info isn’t being sold.
None of that is true. Telegram is Open Source, but is not safer than WhatsApp in any way. Telegram messages are not e2ee by default, and group chats can not be e2ee, unlike Whatsapp which encrypts all messages end-to-end, always.
There's no real safeguard in place to prevent telegram from selling your data. It probably isn't doing it for now, it claims that it doesn't sell your data, but so does facebook. Their privacy policies aren't that different. Telegram does have your data, it could sell your data, it just doesn't. Note that telegram is not a nonprofit.
Second, most of my issues with your ideas of censoring content is meant in a more general sense.
I'm not calling for "more general" censorship, I've been quite specific.
You mean apart from the fact they can just hop over to some other platform?
How is that not an inconvenience? Moving your entire. organization, finding a platform that won't ban you, finding a platform that will host unlimited beheading videos at high resolution, finding a platform with the same broadcast feature so they can spread propaganda to hundreds of millions of people, finding that all for free... What part of that is just as convenient as continuing to do what they're doing?
Also I am not quite sure how you imagine telegram to actually do something against terrorists while also guaranteeing the privacy aspect of the service they are providing.
Telegram is literally already aware of which accounts belong to Hamas, Pavel Durov has publicly commented on why he doesn't feel like Hamas is a problem, this is not a question of discovering terrorism on the platform, this is a question of figuring out what to do about it.
That’s literally their whole thing, privacy.
Privacy is aggressively not a thing Telegram is about. You seem to have fallen for some of their weird marketing. The only things about Telegram that might preserve your privacy are the option to sign up anonymously (a lot of messaging apps have this, and it's not necessarily a good thing), and the fact that it isn't owned by facebook (most messaging apps aren't).
This is especially true of broadcast channels, which any schmuck can view without installing the app or having an account at all.
I am not even going to bother with all these other straw man fallacies. If you can’t have a civil discussion without putting words in my mouth and twisting the meaning of them we are done here.
But that's what I'm talking about. I said Telegram shouldn't provide terrorists with a means to share videos of beheadings, and you have a problem with the freedom-related implications of that, I'm really not sure what your point was.
Rationalization for silencing people that OP disagrees with. Just call them “terrorists” and now it’s moral.
I'm sorry, is there another title you would like to use for mass murderers who engage in mass murder for the purpose of causing terror? Is there somebody here who agrees with ISIS, with their position that people who don't love ISIS shouldn't have heads?
I don't think I need to rationalize my position that scammers and killers are bad and should not be given a free platform upon which to reach hundreds of millions of people with unlimited video uploads. I think that's a perfectly rational position as is.
I don't think opposing neo-Nazi conspiracies makes me a Nazi. I do think you said that in a weak attempt to shut down all rational discussion here.
According to wikipedia, worldwide servers, HQ in Dubai.
Honestly I doubt even delisting from the play/app stores will stop people from using it, at least on Android.
It would make it much more difficult for scammers to reach victims, and dramatically stem its growth, but that's not really what I'm calling for. I'm mostly just hoping that the world includes these messaging services when thinking about how to address and regulate social media and extremism, rather than excluding them because they misclassify them as not being social networks.
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