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Comment by cnst | Hacker News Reader

A very objective article, actually, and goes well to explain how this request to block the "voting app" isn't at all as controversial as portrayed in the Western MSM:

> Second, this particular demand of the Russian authorities wasn't obviously unconstitutional, as they referred to a law that restricts campaigning after people start casting their votes. Laws against political campaigning while voting is underway exist in many countries and the Russian counterpart had been introduced a long time ago. Had we received a similar demand from any European country, we would have complied with it. On the contrary, had Russia or any other country demanded something that is in clear violation of human rights, we would rather face an outright ban of Telegram in that country than compromise our values.

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Except that law does not apply for these elections that last several days https://www.kommersant.ru/doc/4800223 The law allowing campaigning was passed in May 2021.

Yes, and this is the most puzzling lie in Durov’s post.

He knows he’s lying. Personally I think he’s found a common ground with Kremlin behind the scenes.

I kinda doubt that part. If he was in their good graces again I think we'd hear more about it But I think Russia is a much bigger market for Telegram than Iran was. It's where they started after all.

I'm pretty sure that'll play a part in it too. Easy thing to throw away 0.5% of your marketshare, another when it's 20%. Ps I made those numbers up :)

When Russia wanted some kind of encryption keys he could not hand over because they dont exist, Telegram was banned in Russia but people found ways to use it anyway. So I dont think Russia has anything to "force" Durov other than via Apple/Google. He doesn't live there or owns anything there and according to past posts of him and there are no Telegram servers there either. + The proxy stuff to circumvent Russia's ban is already implemented if they would block the IPs again.

It seems very likely that Apple/Google is actually the problem here. I encourage everyone to download the app from the website or F-Droid not form Google.

Family

There is a sideloaded version of Telegram for Android which can be installed from it's website and even is able to auto-update itself. It allows access to content blocked on iOS. But it was unable to access voting bot.

I dont think bots have the flags for blocking only in some apps like channels and groups have.

The bot runs on someone else machine and telegram most likely just temporary disabled the token to disable the bot from communicating with the telegram bot API. This then ofc affects all front ends/apps.

Client was showing something like "this content is illegal" instead of bot answers. It is now showing the original answers instead of these placeholders, which means the data was always there, it was just replaced on the fly for accounts with Russian registration.

Then they apparently did not turn off the bot itself.

As I understand the article, it used to be that campaigning has been disallowed as early as one day before the voting day.

Now it's disallowed starting from the voting day.

Is that not so?

tangential and not against your point, but isn't this proof that relying on applications provided by private companies for politics and public sensitive matters, is the best way to end like this?

especially when the only way to get the app is through a bunch of privately held "stores"

A directly downloaded versions of the app for Android and Windows are much more relaxed on the censorship. For example, they are able to access adult content blocked on iOS version. But they were unable to access voting bot.

Your link contradicts what you're saying, no?

>Согласно закону, предвыборная агитация должна быть завершена в 00:00 по местному времени первого дня голосования.

I think you are right. I was incorrect. Indeed that implies that campaining was prohibited from Friday on.

actively asking a bot to provide information upon initiated request is not campaigning.

I agree. But it's debatable. And since it's the law none is to blame for accepting the requests from law enforcement agencies

But Telegram doesn't distribute apps, they blocked a "user" related to the app from using their network.

The article does seem very reasonable, but I'd disagree that it's objective, since the author, Durov, runs Telegram and is writing to justify their actions.

Not the OP but I would say it's "objective" from telegrams perspective.

They shared their decision making process which I agreed with, not too sure what would have been a better choice in that situation.

> it's "objective" from telegrams perspective.

that's another way to say subjective if you aren't willing to admit it. the whole point of objective/subjective is that its supposed to be POV neutral.

How's it not objective, though?

What if the request came from the EU or the US, to ban an account that was campaigning in local elections in violation of local election finance laws?

Note that the ban is not even permanent! It's only for the last 2 days of the 3-day voting window. Campaigning was supposed to have been illegal throughout the whole 3-day period.

Because it is from his point of view.

It doesn't make the content false just colored by the authors point of view.

I am the greatest ever, it is an objective fact.

The greatest ever what, though?

Yeah, true, the problem is basically becoming

Whether an app should block a bot/user when the app store blocks the bot app?

=> Whether an app / telegram with third party extension/bot ability would be considered as similar to an app store? => Whether a bot built on a private application ecosystem should be considered as an independent app?

But why do you think any justification is needed in the first place?

It's basically the same law as in many other countries. The only difference is that citizens of most other countries don't dare to do these tricks, because there are severe consequences for playing with election integrity in the Western world. For example, look at what happened with Dinesh D'Souza when he tried donating to a campaign of a friend more than what the law allowed, using another friend as a lame duck to make the donation to avoid personal limits.

How does the author running telegram make the argument not objective? Would the same argument made by someone else be objective?

I agree.

And I love that Durov carefully says

> Telegram gives its users more freedom of speech than any other popular mobile application.

(emphasis added by me)

That's just to stop the Well Ackshually's of the world presenting their 500 peak user end-to-end encrypted chat platforms.

It doesn't count when you're too small for anyone to bother taking you to court.

The specific law application and that article are both bullshit.

Let's start with the law application. If you want to apply it like that, you'd have to remove every single positive post about every single candidate from the entire Internet.

In case of Telegram it is even more bullshit because unlike web browsers which (in a common folk sense) show what is available to public and therefore could be compared to public advertisement like a billboard, Telegram bot will only respond to a direct question (yes, I know technically there's no difference).

> On the contrary, had Russia or any other country demanded something that is in clear violation of human rights

Isn't voting right a human right? If people don't have right to fair elections then any other rights they might have aren't guaranteed either.

The specific case that is described in this post is the law to stop campaigning during an ongoing vote, which seems like a reasonable request. Why is Telegram getting held responsible for everything else that is wrong in this world, is not clear.

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