this post was submitted on 26 Aug 2024

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How Telegram's Founder Pavel Durov Became a Culture War Martyr [404] (www.404media.co)

submitted 2 weeks ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

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[–] [email protected] 21 points 2 weeks ago* (last edited 2 weeks ago) (1 children)

I heard that in USA Telegram is used mostly by conservatives, trans-haters and drug dealers. But in Russia where I was born and where I have been living until the war, Telegram was a single source of alternative news and the main tool for opposition to putin. I had a talk with an Iranian guy recently and he told me the same: in Iran Telegram is the only source of non-state-propaganda news.

I do not care that Durov is just a billionaire who makes money on the trend of privacy. But I remember how Telegram successfully fought against attempt of blocking in Russia in 2018 by providing regular updates and using different techniques to avoid blocking. An attack on Telegram for me is an attack on the latest opposition to putin, khamenei, lukashenko and others.

[–] [email protected] 9 points 2 weeks ago* (last edited 2 weeks ago) (1 children)

Telegram successfully fought against attempt of blocking in Russia in 2018 by providing regular updates and using different techniques to avoid blocking.

I too heard Russia claimed they could not block it. Could be deliberate theatre to bolster its reputation.

It seems Russia has a back door key into Telegram.

Edit: Russia is complaining about the arrest.

Pavel Durov has visited Russia more than 50 times since his "exile" in 2014

[–] [email protected] 4 points 2 weeks ago* (last edited 2 weeks ago) (1 children)

It may not be just the Kremlin. I've had several cases where I wrote about something in a Telegram chat, stuff I had never talked about before, and in a matter of seconds started seeing related ads on Facebook.

Alternatively, it could be the keyboard leaking all text, or I could have some other spyware, but I've only had that happen to me between Telegram and Facebook.

Then again, Telegram group chats are unencrypted, and personal chats are unencrypted by default.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 2 weeks ago* (last edited 2 weeks ago)

Telegram group chats are unencrypted

Not quite true. They are server-side encrypted, not end-to-end. Still bad and I had no idea until I looked it up just now (thanks to you).

I use Gboard keyboard on my phone which undermines my Signal privacy. I could use my laptop instance of Signal to prevent leakage.

[–] [email protected] 18 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

I don't understand how authoritarian leaning conservatives and free speech absolutists align most of the time.

[–] [email protected] 16 points 2 weeks ago

They are the same people most of the time. The freeze peach folks only believe in free speech for themselves

[–] [email protected] 5 points 2 weeks ago

Thanks for posting this context. I’ve been wondering about this aspect of this event

[–] [email protected] 4 points 2 weeks ago* (last edited 2 weeks ago)

and an attack on encrypted messaging

lmao. It's barely encrypted and what little of it that is (one-to-one DMs) have never been audited in a way where Telegram haven't just either ignored the results or moved the goalposts.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 2 weeks ago (3 children)

I have no idea what's going on with all of this but the news said that he was arrested for child pornography, so in my opinion if there was a hundred other things that he did right this one bad thing out does them all if that is what he did.

[–] [email protected] 37 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

The French government said that Telegram is being used to distribute illegal material like child pornography. He is not accused of distributing it himself.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 2 weeks ago

He's accused of tolerating such distribution even after being alerted of the fact so, yes, he's accused of distributing it. For an online platform "we didn't know about it because we don't moderate proactively" is a valid defence, "authorities told us about it but we didn't feel like doing anything about it because can't be bothered / frozen peaches" isn't.

[–] [email protected] 10 points 2 weeks ago

Maybe don’t blindly trust the news?

[–] [email protected] 8 points 2 weeks ago

Where I am, the news said:

"Telegram is a social network" (it isn't)
"that allows terrorism from Russia and Iran" (it's used by Russian and Iranian oppositors)
"drug trafficking" (because it's encrypted, I guess)
"fraud" (scams are also part of email and the web)
"money laundering" (...what?)
"piracy" (sigh...)
"and distribution of child pornography." (so does email)
"It doesn't honor removal requests from the film/music industry organizations" (that's piracy twice)

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Four_Horsemen_of_the_Infocalypse

Terrorists, pedophiles/child molesters, organized crime like drug dealers, intellectual property pirates, and money launderers are cited commonly

Do we have a BINGO?

[–] [email protected] 2 points 2 weeks ago

Great article to let people understand the problematic aspect of Telegram