Hacker News Reader

Comment by traspler | Hacker News Reader

Is there anything special going on in Germany atm to prompt this? I‘m slighlty confused why they would do such a poll…

Germany repeatedly threanened to ban or remove Telegram from app stores if they ignore requests to delete channels or to provide some data. https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.wired.com/story/germany-tel...

If I were in telegrams position, I would move this power to 'moderators' rather like Reddit. Then tell the government that if they want to use a court order to remove content, they need to request that the independent moderators of the channel do it.

Why would any court or government care about Telegram/Reddit saying that?

Well they would redesign systems so that they don't have any visibility into message or channel contents, and if they are notified of a channel with bad content, they would just say 'contact the moderator of the channel'.

Rather like ISP's today aren't responsible for the web pages they deliver - the HTTPS encryption means they couldn't scan or block them even if they wanted to.

But then they will make it illegal to provide these services and jail the telegram team instead.

> Rather like ISP's today aren't responsible for the web pages they deliver - the HTTPS encryption means they couldn't scan or block them even if they wanted to.

ISP's can be required to in fact not deliver certain webpages, usually for copyright reasons. If Telegram redesigns its system like you suggested the courts may just shift to:

Do not broadcast, transmit or make available the channel with the ID XYZ. The channel might not be deleted of course, but if it's no longer accessible that would be essentially the same.

Yes, see the German article: Gouvernment and Developer conflict about free speech, cyber bullying,, ... .

https://www.golem.de/news/an-die-polizei-telegram-bittet-nut...

Thanks a lot! This is what I was looking for.

Telegram is considered a platform for people, which do not respect the basic values of democracy like groups far right expressing xenophobia and groups which think (and express loudly) of the COVID measures as repression by some elite against the common citizen. Most of them whish for a autoritarian government. Groups which act against the constitution are observed by the Verfassungsschutz, an authority to protect the democracy and constitution in Germany. On telegram those extreme thoughts can be shared whithin their bubble which catalysts them. I don't know if this is the majority of users of Telegram (probably not), but it is strongly associated with them.

Those are the things I gathered by lightly consuming news. Maybe this is some kind of preparation for winter, where COVID cases are expected to rise in combination with very high energy prices.

The „funny“ thing is that they discuss anti-democratic topics in public, open groups and channels. They are for the vast majority completely technologically illiterate and somehow associate Telegram with secrecy. But they are in fact publicly broadcasting their wishes to reverse authorities. Any investigators can just join a group and see almost everything they are planning out loud.

On the surface you are correct, this is especially the painted picture by the mass media and at least partially by the government (who also sought banning Telegram entirely in Germany). If you go deeper, you get to see that also a lot of human rights activists and NGOs are using it. Have been using Telegram since 2015, and in the meantime, most of my IT buddies use it and/or Signal.

With the invasion of Ukraine it seems like 95 % of the information out of Ukraine flows through Telegram (I'm not a user myself but the watermark and screenshots of the app are everywhere).

Telegram also has some ~700 million monthly active users - it seems unlikely to me that there are even 700 million alt-right people in the entire world.

It’s not and everyone knows it, including those arguing against it. The really painful thing is, Germany still has a right problem. They can be found everywhere, including in police, military, political system, media etc. Multiple scandals offer evidence, but the daily life also shows stuff not covered by this. But this situation and widespread knowledge of this is also used in order to intimidate the others, that are not on the right at all. And this is not only a reality in Germany, unfortunately.

Ukrainian here. Almost 100% of war videos goes through Telegram, possibly because Youtube does not like videos with blood and murders, and 0% goes from something like torrents or self-hosted.

Yes, I agree that the reports on Telegram are mostly focused on right wing groups. I think that it's in ins very own nature that if there is a space for non conforming right wing ideas, there is also a space for other ideas that do not fit particularly well into the mainstream opinion. I would consider human rights activism and some work of NGOs as at least unpleasant for the government which would be a good reason to pay attention on where the communication happens.

We should ban IRC next because all the swastikas floating around.

In Spain telegram is mainly used by people who self identify as far left ...

In Italy it is mostly far left anarchists that use Telegram to organise, but there are far right Italians that use it, surely.

People who think that the COVID measures were repressive wish for an authoritarian government? Get your propaganda right.

Not all of course, is difficult to translate the word "Queerdenker" to English. I think we can agree that those have a significant overlap with "Reichsbürger", right politics, etc. They are not considered the core of society.

Yes Telegram is being smeared pretty badly in the German press, but to even consider people who have a disagreement with _huge_ cuts into personal liberty as a threat to basic democracy means that nobody should take them seriously.

"basic values of democracy" was redefined by Nancy Fraeser, Home Secretary. According to her only those people who align with the values of government are democrats.

https://www.cicero.de/innenpolitik/nancy-faeser-und-kommende...

So she's basically considering every upcoming protest against government due to exorbitant high energy price being anti-constitutional and undermined by violent right-wing extremists.

This is not somy dystopian future, this is Germany 2022.

"Telegram: An important opposition tool abroad, a radicalising cesspit at home."

https://twitter.com/argonerd/status/1296552428620451842?lang...

Well, Telegram is my main messenger and I don't associate myself with any of the mentioned groups. I think most of your impressions are bit bit over the top. That's not your fault as the media likes to paint Telegram in that light. Sure, there are these channels and yes Telegram tries to be light on censoring them, focusing only on the public and dangerous ones but still, claiming "Telegram is considered a platform for people, which do not respect the basic values of democracy" is a bit much as you could replace Telegram with the name of any social media/messenger platform.

This was no accusation to anybody using telegram, I use it myself. I just wanted to paint a picture of the sentiment towards Telegram in Germany and give some insight why they could act this way

I am a telegram user, I use it download my native language telenovelas for watching over weekend. Friday evening is the only time I open telegram.

Yes, a lot of pressure from the leftist government. Many channels opposing the German Covid policy (one of a kind in Europe, very strict) are to be found in Telegram. As always, there is also some German right in Telegram. The government is officially after them, but the media/government has been painting all those opposing the Covid measures as right, so… it’s tricky.

> (one of a kind in Europe, very strict)

This is wrong. The German COVID policy is not strict at all. There is a 5 day isolation if you test positive, and you usually have to wear a mask on public transport. That's literally it.

Compare it for the whole of 2022. Also still in Germany, some people can/will lose their job if they don’t take the jab. Now I’m not affected by this, but my sister was. She decided to move country instead of getting vaccinated again.

> Compare it for the whole of 2022

Why should I do that?

> but the media/government has been painting all those opposing the Covid measures as right

Idk about you, but waving flags of the German Reich, following known Neo-Nazis and attending events of far-right organizations, while spreading lies and slogans that originate from right-wing conspiracy theorists, seems kinda right-wingy to me.

Never claim there are no such people. But to try to paint a picture as e.g. most of mainstream media did and some still do, that only such kind of people protest the measures etc. is not correct.

I remember lots of documentations on TV and interviews with social scientists that emphasize that the Covid protests in Germany are weirdly originating from a very broad spectrum, with lots of alternative and esoteric groups, which aren't right wing at all. The Verfassungsschutz even had to invent a new category: https://www.tagesschau.de/inland/verfassungsschutz-querdenke...

Some examples of mainstream media that emphasize the heterogeneous nature of these protests:

https://www.tagesschau.de/faktenfinder/esoterik-impfgegner-c...

https://www.spiegel.de/wissenschaft/mensch/corona-demonstrat...

https://www.sueddeutsche.de/politik/corona-demos-zwischen-hi...

https://www.rnd.de/panorama/esoteriker-auf-corona-demos-tanz...

https://www.faz.net/aktuell/politik/inland/corona-proteste-q...

So I don't think your assessment is fair.

I also remember analysis that this broad spectrum was circumvented, and heavily influenced by the far right.

Well, then post some sources.

I actually grew up with esoterics due to my mom. The major problem is, that they don't accept facts that are verifiable by scientific means. They think everything is subjective and therefore everything you can think of is somehow true. This makes them especially perceptible to propaganda efforts, which is why there is a distinct brown flavor to many esoteric practices and theories.

They may not be considered right-wing, but they are falling quite easily for those rat catchers.

Just take the "Truther" movement. Those guys were readily spreading antisemtic bullshit in the last 20 years. They were quite successful in the esoteric scene.

I would argue nowadays it’s very difficult to discern what is the true science and what is just preached as being the science. Even giving the best intent, things are murky if you’re not biased. Let’s take this tweet for example:

https://twitter.com/martinkulldorff/status/15645903371375493... The look at Great Barrington Declaration. Then look at what the vaccines were promised to do by the authorities and politicians in power, and what the outcome truly was.

You do know that the "leftist" government came to power last year? And that the Merkel-CDU-conservative led government that put those "harsh" measures in place? And that the oeftist government coalition includes the FDP, liberals whose economic positions are almost GOP like?

Reply on news.ycombinator.com