• einkorn@feddit.org
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      2 months ago

      The issue I see with Telegram is that they retain a certain control over the content on their platform, as they have blocked channels in the past. That’s unlike for example Signal, which only acts as a carrier for the encrypted data.

      If they have control over what people are able to share via their platform, the relevant laws should apply, imho.

    • XNX@slrpnk.net
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      2 months ago

      I agree but its not even an encrypted messenger. Almost no one uses the weak encryption and im pretty sure they offer decryption to governments considering they were threatened to be banned in russia and avoided it

    • sugartits@lemmy.world
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      2 months ago

      What has encryption got to do with it?

      Most of telegram is not encrypted. There are unencrypted channels on telegram right now hosting child pornography. Telegram never removes them.

      • HelixDab2@lemm.ee
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        2 months ago

        Good. They shouldn’t.

        Unencrypted channels are the ones that are easiest to trace, and the easiest ones to successfully base a prosecution on.

        The most correct response is to report them to law enforcement. Unencrypted channels make amazingly effective honeypots. It’s fairly easy to bust people using unencrypted channels, esp. because people think they’re anonymous and safe. It’s much, much harder to bust people once they move to .onion sites and the real dark net away from their phone. When you shut down all the easy channels, you push people into areas where it’s much harder, almost impossible, to root them out.

        • Todd Bonzalez@lemm.ee
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          2 months ago

          Look, if you’re going to knowingly host child porn, and not take it down even after you have been made aware, you get what’s coming to you.

          The idea that Telegram would somehow better serve their customers by staging law enforcement stings in unencrypted channels is completely divorced from Telegram’s core mission.

          This has nothing to do with freedom of speech or the right to encrypt. Child Pornography is a criminal matter. Failure to cooperate with law enforcement while providing comms and distribution to child pornographers is going to land you in deep shit eventually.

        • whereisk@lemmy.world
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          2 months ago

          What if telegram refuses to cooperate with law enforcement in a timely fashion to provide details of the people sharing that material? What should law enforcement do then?

          • prettybunnys@sh.itjust.works
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            2 months ago

            At that point they’re willingly hosting it for no reason other than to host it for their customers and they’re complicit, no?

          • HelixDab2@lemm.ee
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            2 months ago

            I think that holding the executives and BoD in criminal contempt of court is a good place to start.

            EDIT: AFAIK Telegram doesn’t use warrant canaries.

      • Todd Bonzalez@lemm.ee
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        2 months ago

        Telegram and VK are both CSAM cesspits. Most of Russian social media has this problem, but VK and Telegram are where you’ll end up exposed to shit just by browsing.

        • flying_sheep@lemmy.ml
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          2 months ago

          No. You can say that about so many laws being made, but telegram simply hosts the most vile shit.

          • ravhall@discuss.online
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            2 months ago

            So you’re saying we should shut down any service that allows encrypted communication? Because any service that offers encrypted communication is going to be enticing to someone who commits crimes.

            • Todd Bonzalez@lemm.ee
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              2 months ago

              No, we should shut down any service that refuses to take action against its users when presented with proof that they are distributing child porn.

              Encryption only offers so much plausible deniability. Once law enforcement gains access to one of these channels, they have proof of what’s going on, and the content is all hosted by Telegram. When Telegram refuses to cooperate and remove this content, they become complicit in distributing it.

              Encryption isn’t an excuse to violate the law. If Telegram’s policy is not to remove CSAM, then they are a criminal organization.

              • ravhall@discuss.online
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                2 months ago

                We should shut down any organization that doesn’t cooperate with police when people are breaking laws or just the laws you want them to help enforce?

                • flying_sheep@lemmy.ml
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                  2 months ago

                  No, that’s not what the person is saying in the slightest. Just read their comment again, it’s actually very clear.

                  • ravhall@discuss.online
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                    2 months ago

                    Creating a Telegram Channel to help underage victims of rape in Idaho get abortions out of state without their parent’s consent is also a crime. Would you want to shut them down for allowing those groups?

                    If Telegram is indeed knowledgeable of specific groups distributing CSAM, goes into that group and views the material to confirm, and still does nothing about it, then yes… that’s pretty terrible. However, it’s law enforcement’s responsibility to find those people and arrest them. If Telegram is shut down, there will always be another method. TOR, popup forums, file sharing sites like MEGA.

                    What I’m saying is focusing on the communication method is like trying to kill a hydra.

      • conciselyverbose@sh.itjust.works
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        2 months ago

        It doesn’t matter in the slightest.

        Making a tool that provides a private communication service literally everyone should have unrestricted access to does not make you an accomplice to anything.

        • lennybird@lemmy.world
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          2 months ago

          The ISP will absolutely cooperate with law enforcement though, unlike telegram. That seems the nature of the issue in that there is a lack of moderation and oversight, which anonymity is not mutually-exclusive from flagging nefarious activities, ideally. I REALLY am not too keen on giving safe harbor to the likes of pedos and traffickers and what have you.

          • Rivalarrival@lemmy.today
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            2 months ago

            I REALLY am not too keen on giving safe harbor to the likes of pedos and traffickers and what have you.

            Secure communication between individuals is a fundamental right. That nefarious activities can be conducted over secure channels can never be justification for suspending that right.

            • lennybird@lemmy.world
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              2 months ago

              I’m not sure I yet agree with that. People can have secure communications; that’s called meeting in person and in a private room. That line gets blurred with intercontinental mass-communication that ultimately is beyond the use of the average citizen and is more frequently utilized to nefarious ends. If the damage outweighs the benefits to society, then clearly a rational limit perhaps should be considered.

              Ultimately, what matters is respecting the house rules; and if the house rules of France were broken, why in the world would he travel there?

              • Rivalarrival@lemmy.today
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                2 months ago

                That line gets blurred with intercontinental mass-communication that ultimately is beyond the use of the average citizen and is more frequently utilized to nefarious ends.

                I reject the premise of your argument: secure communication is not more frequently used for nefarious purposes than non-nefarious purposes.

                But even if I accepted that premise, I would still reject your argument. The underlying principle of your argument is misanthropy: humans are inherently evil. They will always choose evil, and therefore, they must never have an ability to effectively dissent from totalitarian control.

                The dangers posed just by the French government greatly exceed the dangers posed by every single person who ever has or ever will “nefariously communicate” over every communications platform that has ever been or ever will be invented.

                • lennybird@lemmy.world
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                  2 months ago

                  Yeah I haven’t committed to one side or the other yet. For me it’s less about misanthropy and more about transparency and accountability. The nature of the French democratic government means it is by extension held accountable to some albeit imperfect extent by the people. After all, the laws are by Transitive Property an extension of the people. But who holds accountable the sex trafficker that cannot be tracked? Conversely we can always say, “if you’re doing nothing wrong, then why do you need to hide it?” An age-old dilemma. There probably should be a reasonable middle-ground between privacy and accountability.

                  • gaael@lemmy.world
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                    2 months ago

                    The sex trafficker can absolutely be tracked by doing old-fashioned police work: you spend time, money and energy to infiltrate the network, gain their trust and eventually take them down. But this requires police funding and training.

                    “if you’re doing nothing wrong, then why do you need to hide it?” An age-old dilemma.

                    It’s not a dilemma, the answer has been given multiple times: under the rule of law, law enforcement has to prove (or at least demonstrate a strong suspiscion) that you’re involved in illegal activities before they can intrude in your privacy.
                    But with the advent of mass data gathering and the exemple given by the NSA, all law enforcement agencies dream to change this paradigm.

                  • Rivalarrival@lemmy.today
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                    2 months ago

                    accountability.

                    Accountability is something a government owes to the people. It is not something the individual owes to the government or the public. It is not and should not be easy for the government to invade individual privacy.

                    What “accountability” do you owe when I falsely declare you to be a kiddy diddler? What “accountability” do you owe when the government is the one making the false accusation against you? I ask, and I answer: you owe nothing at all.

        • stupidcasey@lemmy.world
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          2 months ago

          Why? They happily hand all your data over to whoever asks and so does everyone else that’s why they can single them out because you’re already bought and paid for.

      • webghost0101@sopuli.xyz
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        2 months ago

        It is but so are phones and computers in general. Same with cars, many crimes require transportation.

      • fine_sandy_bottom@lemmy.federate.cc
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        2 months ago

        As always, there’s a lot of nuance which is lost on Lemmy users.

        It’s a question of exactly what telegram is being used for, what telegram the company can reasonably be aware of, what they’ve been asked to do, and what they’ve done.