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Comment by ralfn | Hacker News Reader

>To me it's pretty clear reason why they've gone after Telegram is the Channels and Groups. Seen from a certain perspective Telegram channels are an alternative to Reddit, and have been popular medium during COVID and the Ukraine war for "alternative news". By now Reddit is properly controlled and subdued but Telegram isn't.

This is full on speculation. Right now the reality is you can buy underage people, drugs and weapons on telegram. ISIS recruitment channels, etc.

Playing the "free speech" card is disingenuous.

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And somehow everyone noticed these issues a few weeks after Russia banned Signal, and not until then.

Telegram regularly bans channels that promote hate-speech or do illegal activities.

The only issue is, their team is way too small for moderation, which is why so many weird communities keep popping up.

I’ve been on Telegram for 5 years and I’ve yet to see anything of what you mentioned in your comment.

It’s a fear mongering tactic against a perfectly good and arguably the best messenger application in existence right now.

I have seen it constantly. IDK why, but so sometimes I got just invited into such groups.

When I activated the function to find people around me, most of the time I was spending in Telegram was leaving and reporting such groups.

Some of the channels, even discoverable by simple search, were years old.

"Arguably" Element is way better than Telegram, it actually properly encrypts private chats AND allows sync between devices

Would it be bad for AI to start moderating / flagging speech? Seems like it could vastly extend the range of human moderators and also spare humans from directly scrutinizing harmful graphic content. Big Robot Brother reminds me of the anime Psycho-Pass.

> This is full on speculation.

Speculation is a crucial part of decision-making, especially in geopolitics, where hard data is often scarce. Governments frequently act on leading indicators to preempt potential threats, whether it's about national security or information control. Dismissing this as "pure speculation" overlooks how critical decisions are made in complex, rapidly evolving situations.

> Playing the "free speech" card is disingenuous.

This isn't about free speech; it's about narrative control, especially with the upcoming U.S. election. Controlling platforms like Telegram and TikTok is crucial for influencing public discourse. Recent U.S. regulations targeting TikTok further highlight how critical it is for governments to manage the flow of information as elections approach.

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