Telegram repeatedly refuses to join child protection schemes

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cy54905nv0go

by polar • 2 years ago

23 26 2 years ago

Backdooring a social media platform to undermine encryption "in the name of children"... It's for child safety alone. Sure. ::insert eye roll::

SXX2• 2 years ago

Telegram is not really encrypted. No one blame Signal that you can send whatever on it.

Yeul2• 2 years ago

It's Telegram's "groups" channels that make it popular.

I'm not sure if Signal has that feature?

notinmykernel2• 2 years ago

I think a more valid comparison is WhatsApp, where Zuckerberg allows many governments ability to "peek" into user metadata at-will.

rKarpinski• 2 years ago

Another norm that Telegram does not conform to in the usual way

Seems beyond a "norm" if your CEO is jailed for not "conforming"

sixhobbits• 2 years ago

"He was jailed for not following norms and we know he was not following norms because he was jailed" is maybe slightly circular

lostemptations5• 2 years ago

It seems he was jailed for being in France, really.

Yeul2• 2 years ago

Good thing they have judges in France no?

But let's face it many on HN deny the norm and couldn't care less if Telegram is used for criminal content. It's undeniable that the app has a certain reputation.

codedokode• 2 years ago

Note that only US-companies are required by (US, I guess) law to join these programs.

Also note this part:

IWF said that the company did remove CSAM once material was confirmed but said it was slower and less responsive to day-to-day requests.

So in the end Telegram removed the content.

I think it would be better if Telegram used the hash lists, however I think that they should use manual review and not remove content automatically, because this is an US platform that theoretically can be misused to remove legal content that US govt doesn't like.

LorenPechtel• 2 years ago

Hash lists aren't that hard to defeat. They'll stop the amateurs tossing stuff around endlessly but the real problem--the creators--will know to keep changing it up a little bit.

And the capability to remove anything means they have to respond to secret orders from the government to remove something.

southernplaces73• 2 years ago

I guess when you label your mendacious, snooping, encryption-breaking, backdoor sneak schemes created for the sake of easier mass surveillance as "child protection measures", moral alchemy turns them into wholesome good programs that only monsters would object to.

SXX2• 2 years ago

Yeah it's all true except 99% of Telegram is not encrypted by design and majority of content is publicly accessible to anyone with account

I would agree with you if Telegram actually had e2ee like Signal. But it isn't. No encryption breaking required to moderate public content.

7jjjjjjj• 2 years ago

The state shouldn't be allowed to censor chat services no matter how much encryption is used. E2EE might make the censorship less practical but it doesn't make it OK.

southernplaces73• 2 years ago

So wider encryption should be a requirement of resisting mass surveillance facilitation pushed in the name of "protecting children"? It's amazing how far so many people have gone towards normalizing the idea that the state, or some supranational organization in the case of the EU, deserves the right to simply be able to monitor and access reams of private communications and their media at its whim.

Bad and criminal behaviors always existed. I see no evidence of them having been made any lesser or infrequent by virtue of giving massively powerful legally empowered organizations the right to monitor whatever they like at their self-righteously couched discretion.

squarefoot• 2 years ago

Here's a cartoon I found years ago that says it better than a thousand words. I posted it like a half dozen times, and it keeps being spot on.

https://starecat.com/content/wp-content/uploads/control-of-i...

MichaelRo• 2 years ago

Easiest thing is to say that you are protecting children. End to end encryption is that technology which ensures that when your wife sends you the shopping list on WhatsApp, tavarish militsiyan cannot eavesdrop and see that you ran out of toilet paper and liquid soap. But they must see! What if you accidentally dropped some pedoporno on that list? It's for kids protection!

So with this attack on Telegram encryption, definitely EU didn't wanna see what political opponents are doing or who's organizing what protest so they undermine it before it happens. We're just hunting pedophiles, what's your problem?

akomtu• 2 years ago

From the french gov's perspective, telegram is a worldwide web of underground tunnels that are inaccessible to the gov. And the gov, being a paranoidal control-freak, gets really upset when you're hiding something from it.

amy-petrik-214• 2 years ago

Hot take: the way to end CSAM (childhoods sexual abusing MPEGs (motion picture expert group) ) aka CP (childhood predator images) for those whom don't know the acronyms -- it is to legalize (((AI generatrated))) CSAM. No child harmed. As we see the internet is already full of AI slop, there can be no question that an infinite amount of CSAMslop may be generated. The reason why this is good, is because anyone looking to profit or market REAL such material, now there is no longer a market to sell it, nor is there a market for giving it for free to get some sort of fucked up pedo kudos. For people who are actual victims and their data shared, their data is but a drop in a vast ocean.

cowboylowrez• 2 years ago

whats the three parentheses mean? I've seen the two in bash, but rarely more than one in regular online chat.

Telegram repeatedly refuses to join child protection schemes

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