reuters.com
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  • Skasi@lemmy.worldEnglish
    0·
    2 months ago

    I don’t really know much about this topic even after reading the article. It does bother me however that there’s so many channels/server on Telegram full of spammers that seem to offer drugs and prostitution. It’s almost like those were the only things that exist in this world. Which is such a huge waste of a chat program.

    Also who the hell listens to any of the nonsense influencers/politicians write in their heavily biased channels, seriously, I can’t find a sane reason to join those, yet strangely that seems to be the only reason the masses use this tool. It’s all just confusing.

  • General_Effort@lemmy.worldEnglish
    0·
    2 months ago

    [French media] said the investigation was focused on a lack of moderators on Telegram, and that police considered that this situation allowed criminal activity to go on undeterred on the messaging app.

    Europe defending its citizens against the tech giants, I’m sure.

    • chiisana@lemmy.chiisana.netEnglish
      0·
      2 months ago

      Safe harbour equivalent rules should apply, no? That is, the platforms should not be held liable as long as the platform does not permit for illegal activities on the platform, offer proper reporting mechanism, and documented workflows to investigate + act against reported activity.

      It feels like a slippery slope to arrest people on grounds of suspicion (until proven otherwise) of lack of moderation.

      • rottingleaf@lemmy.worldEnglish
        0·
        2 months ago

        Telegram does moderation of political content they don’t like.

        Also Telegram does have means to control whatever they want.

        And sometimes they also hide certain content from select regions.

        Thus - if they make such decisions, then apparently CP and such are in their interest. Maybe to collect information for blackmail by some special services (Durov went to France from Baku, and Azerbaijan is friendly with Israel, and Mossad is even suspected of being connected to Epstein operation), maybe just for profit.

        • chiisana@lemmy.chiisana.netEnglish
          0·
          2 months ago

          I don’t know how they manage their platform — I don’t use it, so it’s irrelevant for me personally — was this proven anywhere in a court of law?

  • Bigoldmustard@lemmy.zipEnglish
    0·
    2 months ago

    Telegram is for schizophrenics and nazis who aren’t ready to do it in public. If you think you need telegram, you actually probably need a friend.

    • smiletolerantly@awful.systemsEnglish
      0·
      2 months ago

      No.

      I’ve been using it for 10 years. Back then, it just started out as a chat app with group support - just like Wahstapp, but free (yes, WA used to cost money) and way better than SMS.

      My entire social circle switched to it, and has been using it ever since. Why? Because to this day, it’s easily the best chat app, feature wise. Literally every time WhatsApp or Signal or Threema add a shiny new feature, Telegram has already had it for a while.

      Since Covid however, there is a huge stigma attached to it, and I do get why. It’s sad, really. I wish there was a 1:1 clone of Telegram’s chat features, minus the Channels (or whatever they are called).

    • cheddar@programming.devEnglish
      0·
      2 months ago

      With your analytical skills you should probably solve world problems and find cures for incurable diseases, don’t waste your time on us!

  • ikidd@lemmy.worldEnglish
    0·
    2 months ago

    I don’t use Telegram because I don’t think it’s secure, but this is still bullshit.

  • Noxious@fedia.io
    0·
    2 months ago

    Hell yeah. I always hated Telegram, because of its countless false promises, misleading claims, bad encryption (which isn’t even enabled by default) and shady background.

  • tal@lemmy.todayEnglish
    0·
    2 months ago

    TF1 and BFM both said the investigation was focused on a lack of moderators on Telegram

    I would vaguely imagine that they aren’t going to be very happy about the Threadiverse when they discover us. There’s no global moderator team to make moderate things.

          • Kusimulkku@lemm.eeEnglish
            0·
            2 months ago

            I don’t mind when they genuinely do go after child porn. But I suppose I’m not as principled about freedom of speech as some others

            • skibidi@lemmy.worldEnglish
              0·
              2 months ago

              There is always a tension between security, privacy, and convenience. With how the Internet works, there isn’t really a way - with current technology - of reliably catching content like that without violating everyone’s privacy.

              Of course, there is also a lack of trust here (and there should be given the leaks about mass surveillance) that the ‘stop child porn powers’ would only be used for that and not simply used for whatever the powers that be wish to do with them.

              • Kusimulkku@lemm.eeEnglish
                0·
                2 months ago

                If we let Fediverse become unmoderared and rife with child porn then I’d be fine with them coming after it, is all I’m saying.

    • Deebster@programming.devEnglish
      0·
      2 months ago

      There’s moderation per community and per server. There’s no “fediverse moderator”, of course, but I think you’re vaguely worrying for nothing.

    • General_Effort@lemmy.worldEnglish
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      2 months ago

      It certainly is against the GDPR to federate with US instances. US law enforcement could get their hands on our data!

      • tal@lemmy.todayEnglish
        0·
        2 months ago

        It certainly is against the GDPR to federate with US instances.

        considers

        I don’t think that it is, even for EU instances, in that the GDPR regulates businesses, so it’s out-of-scope for the GDPR.

        In theory, I suppose that GDPR implications might come up if someone starts selling commercial Threadiverse access at some point, though.

        There might be some interesting questions providing Usenet or maybe XMPP, though, as there are commercial providers of those services, and they are federated and transfer data all over the world.

        kagis

        Hmm. This has some people talking about it for XMPP. At least this guy’s first pass is that it might apply:

        https://mail.jabber.org/hyperkitty/list/operators@xmpp.org/thread/F5EGKYVPD42PPHOW72VBOS5E6OZTA22M/

        Under UK GDPR (not sure about the EU one) the only grounds for exemption is “Residential use” (other than police and national security, which are also exempt), quoting from the ICO:

        “Domestic purposes – personal data processed in the course of a purely personal or household activity, with no connection to a professional or commercial activity, is outside the UK GDPR’s scope. This means that if you only use personal data for such things as writing to friends and family or taking pictures for your own enjoyment, you are not subject to the UK GDPR.” [1]

        (For those who don’t know who the ICO is, they are the British data protection authority, see [2])

        At first, at least in my case, this seems pretty easy. The data is stored domestically, it is used with me and my friends for communication, there shouldn’t be any more to it… right?

        But there is. I regularly connect and talk in many MUCs for open source projects, such as Ignite Realtime (which this was initially discussed until Guus suggested moving it to operators, thanks Guus :) ).

        IP addresses, are considered identifiable information, logs will store said information, this therefore means my server is storing identifiable information on other servers, in this case, servers which could be considered for commercial purposes.

        It needs to be noticed commercial purposes doesn’t necessarily mean paid services, charities and non-profits are included within the definition. Open source projects COULD be considered commercial purposes because, although contributions are provided free of charge, it is still a “donation” of sorts in the way of code.

        The definition of “professional” does not seem to be clarified anywhere on the ICO page, nor in their legal definitions [3]. It doesn’t seem to be within the UK GDPR legislation [4] (I will admit I did not read all of this, I tried searching for keywords and found nothing, if someone read it all and knows where this exception is clarified, please let me know). Professional could mean a lot, but I will assume it is to do with some sort of “work”, which therefore would include open source contributions.

        This therefore could break the “no connection to professional or commercial activity”, to be honest the easiest thing to draw from this is if it involves someone who is not family or friend (or yourself), you are very likely to not be exempt.

        For those who will suggest a zero storage solution, where the XMPP server doesn’t store any data, it still comes under GDPR due to PROCESSING of data, simply processing it, even if you don’t store it, will have GDPR requirements.

        Failure to pay when you are required to results in fines.

        This is really cracking open a huge can of worms, it isn’t so much of “ah £45/yr is no big deal”, once you are exempt you must follow all the legal requirements of GDPR, and for a hobby? Is it worth it?

        I am 100% sure, an XMPP server which does not federate, which is used to communicate with friends would be exempt. But I have my doubts whether a federated server can still use the same exemption clause.

        • General_Effort@lemmy.worldEnglish
          0·
          2 months ago

          I’m not joking. It’s legally very questionable. It matters little if all the data is public.

          Have you heard about that $1.3 billion fine that Meta got under the GDPR? That was for sending data to US servers where the US government can get to it. It was the highest fine ever under the GDPR and it happened because Meta complies with US law. For that matter, the option to embed images into posts is a violation, as well.

  • Bigoldmustard@lemmy.zipEnglish
    0·
    2 months ago

    They should let him go free if he can convince 5 telegram users it’s safe to rsvp to Thanksgiving over sms.