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Comment by tripzilch | Hacker News Reader

> So what do you do if you are Apple?

Nothing because Apple has ZERO, no place meddling in this business.

Just hear yourself, "it's against the TOS" versus people on the streets trying to save their own country from a stolen election and a dictator??

OF COURSE the TOS of a tech company is completely irrelevant in this situation.

TOS aren't even laws, they were just created by a profit driven corporation for legal protection. Of course they aren't relevant here.

Just because Apple can say this, and can pressure Telegram, doesn't mean they aren't absolutely in the wrong here.

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Whilst I agree with the specifics here, the problem is the general case.

I don't agree that you should be allowed to post people's private, identifying data to a public forum without consent.

This HAS to apply equally, because the idea that there is a universal set of right and wrong is incredibly naive.

A better argument here is how the laws aren't applied equally.

TrueCaller was used by the Chinese to harass and attack human rights activists, and it is essentially an index of everyone's contact list.

Yet, somehow, this doesn't bother Apple. 100% financially motivated.

But my point stands. These telegram channels that exist to distribute public data of people merely accused of being involved with the regime should be shutdown. The term here is witch hunt and I'll take a lot of convincing that innocent people haven't already been falsely accused

This is just beef with Telegram. That’s where the content is hosted.

Apple as a distributor should have NO relevance to this. Apple is like a landlord who legally rented his shop to people who run it as a bar in which some people might meet to discuss protests. Should the police even call the landlord? Should the landlord act on this info?

But in this case Apple have a key to the front door of the bar and no one can enter the bar unless Apple let them. So should Apple lock the door if the police tell them to?

The only reason Apple has (the only) key to the front door is because they refused to give those keys to anyone else (including their property leasees) for "their own protection."

Depends on the rent contract.

If, as you say Apple is like a landlord, Apple can demand specific things in the contract (ie no pets) and the person renting needs to comply.

Not getting into the moral side of the argument of Apple Vs Telegram but want to point out that the landlord example isn't applicable in my opinion.

I don’t think there is anything about impeding political protesters in the Apple EULA. Even if there were something, certain things are typically protected in law; in most western countries, for example, a landlord cannot forbid a shop from serving members of a specific religion or of a specific ethnicity.

I am not saying anything about political protesters, only commenting on the example you used (landlord one) to say it's not applicable in this case.

> Even if there were something, certain things are typically protected in law; in most western countries, for example, a landlord cannot forbid a shop from serving members of a specific religion or of a specific ethnicity

Of course, but the landlord can forbid a shop from having any animals inside the shop for example, except the service animals ofc or to say that only specific type of shop can operate on the ground (prior to signing the contract). This is a more complex issue than "landlord example"

No it really isn’t. As you say, clauses can be added before it is signed. Once it is, and the shop is operating, the landlord cannot just rewrite conditions on a whim. What you are really showing is that Apple is worse than a landlord. QED.

Let's not twist the argument.

Those channels exist to spread private, identifiable data and this breaks the law.

A better version of your argument is Apple is the landlord where people are planning lynchings.

Again, I side with the Belarusians. But pretending this is different to China's doxxing of Uighurs is naive

An even better version of your argument is that Apple is the landlord, Telegram is the one renting the space to run a bar, and a few people are in the back corner planning lynchings. Should it be Apple's responsibility to tell their tenant to kick those people out? Or should the authorities be going straight to the tenant?

The worst part is that this isn't even accurate. What this is really like is Apple sells a bunch of residences, the users are buying their homes, but for some reason all utilities/cable/internet/etc. has to go through the real estate company that the house was purchased from as they dictate what you can and cannot do in that house. Even stranger, it is now somehow the real estate company's place and responsibility to tell a telephone company that the real estate company allows to drop conference calls that mention the private information of some third party, whether the phone calls are coming from the houses purchased from them or not.

>Those channels exist to spread private, identifiable data and this breaks the law.

Out of curiosity, to which law are you referring?

I'm not being snarky here, I'm just not clear about which law(s) are being broken.

According to the Wikipedia page for Telegram[0], Telegram's team is based in Dubai, and the company is registered in the UK and the US.

IANAL, nor am I any sort of expert on US, UK or Dubai law. If you could expand on this, I'd really appreciate it. Thanks!

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Telegram_(software)#History

When I was a kid the phone book came every year. It had the telephone numbers and addresses of just about everyone.

I’m pretty sure people were consenting to have their number listed there in their agreement with their Telco.

You actually had to pay for an unlisted number, IIRC

Yeah! I remember that too. Mmmm also caller id enabled lines also. Yum.

The specific issue here is that the shared information is targeted at a specific group and seems likely to be used with dangerous intent

That doesn't characterize a general record of numbers/addresses, which more or less ensures some basic anonymity as connecting names to numbers doesn't do much outside some other qualifier, like, these people are the police who are suppressing our cause

Are you referring to the opt in database of details you were expected to update yourself?

There is no general case. The idea of the general case is fundamentally a tool of oppression. Human moral encounters and decisions are personal.

> I don't agree that you should be allowed to post people's private, identifying data to a public forum without consent.

The problem with that belief is enforcement.

Because illegal numbers [0] are trivially shared, the only viable enforcement to prevent their sharing must have incredibly broad reach.

This ultimately collapses down into "users cannot be allowed to own and operate their own general purpose computer."

And while I'm open to arguments as to why the above is a straw man (I disagree), if you believe the above enforcement scheme is for the greater good then we have very different ideas about individual freedom and the relative value thereof.

[0] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Illegal_number

I disagree that the only viable enforcement is preemptive blocking. Plenty of offenses in the physical world only have after-the-fact punishments. There aren't spike strips physically preventing you from parking in the red zone.

Preemptive blocking or omnipresent monitoring.

Both of which are contingent on end users not being allowed to possess strong encryption.

That feels like a false equivalency, because what I'm talking about is the right to be forgotten.

Which is only a fallacy because data is a commodity, not because it's technically impossible.

And yes you can't really be forgotten, copies can always exist but it shouldn't be hosted readily if you don't want it to be.

Unless I'm missing something?

How would you propose to enforce that goal?

It might not be enforceable, while still coming under "shouldn't".

It's not always possible to make people do the right thing. But when it's not possible, it doesn't cease to be the right thing to demand, continuously, hoping to use the power of pressure or persuasion.

> This HAS to apply equally

No, it really doesn't. IMO it has to apply consistently. And it's easy to maintain cohesion / consistency here: If you have different rights, you get different rights.

Police have additional rights, particularly when acting in the course of their jobs - specifically, they have the right of violence. Seems reasonable to give up the "right" of protection-from-griefing.

> Police have additional rights

No, police exercise and are protected by powers of government, these are not the same kind of thing as rights, and do not belong to the individual the way rights do. Moreover, the legitimacy of such powers is exactly dependent on the legitimacy of the government and the extent to which it observes the rights of the people subject to it's powers.

Duck-typing, to my eyes; particularly when looking at doxxing, TOS, and overall morality/ethics. Sure. Not "rights" in a legal sense, but...

Is there a difference between equal and consistent application? I agree, but it seems we're saying the same thing?

The problem is somehow we have engineered a global society where Apple is the ultimate law enforcement authority in scenarios like this.

Is Tim Cook really qualified to be the ultimate authority of what speech is allowed or not allowed on a global basis, at least for all the billions of people who use their devices?

Similarly for Facebook, Twitter, Google, etc. We cannot allow a very small number of corporate CEOs to make unilateral decisions about how to police speech across the globe.

Either we remedy that, or we need to enforce a form of due process.

Tim Cook is not qualified. No single person is.

That suggests either:

Apple stay out and the discussion moves to Telegram

, or

Apple and others need a formalized process, just like we use for other conflicts.

A case needs to be made, rules of order, etc... and a decision comes from all of that, not what makes more money, or what might cost money.

Just hear yourself, "it's against the TOS" versus people on the streets trying to save their own country from a stolen election and a dictator??

This is literally the "just comply with the police and you'll be fine" argument.

Yes, we KNOW everyone clicked through the ToS, but it _completely_ misses the point of the discussion.

>Nothing because Apple has ZERO, no place meddling in this business.

Not meddling means enforcing its TOS in an evenhanded way. Otherwise it's playing favorites.

When one side is an illegitimate government who stole an election, and the other side is millions of people fighting for democracy and freedom, possibly, just possibly, it's time to pick a side. Even if you're a huge amoral profit driven company who's fear of losing 0.1% of your profit precludes you from taking sides... Well, maybe just sit this one out?

So Apple is now in charge of deciding whether elections are legitimate?

It's weird how people in this thread are zigzagging between saying Apple has too much corporate power and Apple needs much more.

Does every country in the world really have to be a democracy? Remember how the Arab Spring turned out?

> So Apple is now in charge of deciding whether elections are legitimate?

Don't worry, Apple doesn't have to decide anything here. The US government already did.

I'm not sure why this is being downvoted, but perhaps people don't believe the claim that the US government has formally taken a side on the legitimacy of the elections:

https://www.axios.com/us-lukashenko-president-belarus-353ed2...

It seems to me that this offers a clever way out for Apple: If Lukashenko isn't the legitimate president of Belarus, then the "police" following his orders to attack protesters are not police at all, but terrorists; and Telegram is helping to bring them to the attention of the legitimate authorities of the president in exile.

> Does every country in the world really have to be a democracy?

They don't.

Does every country in the world really need to have racial equality and an even-handed police force? They don't either.

How do you know the opposition would have won the election if not for the alleged cheating?

It seems very easy from the outside looking in to conclude that an organization should play judge and jury for external conflicts. But having run a small internet forum and occasionally being asked to resolve disputes, even trivial he-said she-said spats can be incredibly difficult to investigate and untangle.

I won't pretend I know what Apple should do here. But I certainly don't agree with the cavalier assertion that unrelated organizations need to confidently pick sides in moral and political battles. Just because you're so certain what the answer should be doesn't mean that you're right. And your lack of visibility and accountability means you risk much less when you quickly come to strong moral conclusions than do large organizations.

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