Yet more glaring hypocricy with Telegram

@Elessar I'm conflicted as well my friend but no one, or especially, no government, should decide what speech should be allowed. That being said, malfeasance is always going to happen across most forms of media and it must addressed when and where it can. This however in my opinion does NOT negate the importance of being able to freely express an opinion for fear of being oppressed by authority, be it of the one, or of the collective. According to a recent report by the University of Gothenburg in Sweden, the world is becoming increasingly more authoritarian, Something close to 72% of the governments in the world (roughly 5.7 billion people) live under authoritarian rule. Almost 3/4 of mankind. Let that sink in brother. The last time it was this bad was in 1986 during the cold war. I was a 19 year old kid serving in the Army, and I thought we were gonna change the world. All I know is nearly 40 years later, something sure as hell changed..and it ain't looking good. Seems all we can do is hope against hope man, and do our best to fight the good fight.

https://www.gu.se/en/news/the-world-is-becoming-increasingly-authoritarian-but-there-is-hope

@Ghostrunner66
My understanding is that specific charges have been laid related to the hosting of illegal material and the deliberate obstruction of a law enforcement agency. Similarly, the prosecution of British people last month relates to incitement of religious/ethnic hatred. If a person distributes child pornography on the street, or repeatedly urges bystanders to burn a hotel with migrants inside, I doubt anybody would even attempt to describe these as "free speech" issues. So why should making the same representations online be viewed as any different? The fact that law agencies have been slow to keep up with online innovations and the internet has evolved into a "wild west" is irrelevant. Criminals should not be shielded just because they are skilled in manipulating social media.

@Elessar Just because it is above government surveillance does not mean it is above the law. It has really only been in the last 20 years that people have been convinced through fear that their government is entitle to spy on anyone and denying that capability alone is now seen as criminal.

@SunshineGirl First off good luck proving the CEO had personal knowledge of specific crimes on the platform. And denying the government a blank check to spy on all users because they might do something wrong someday, maybe is only a crime in police states.

And you seem to like using the "save the children" card. What about political dissidents? I guess they should be thrown under a bus over a hypothetical?

@SunshineGirl Fair enough on the Telegram issue, that does appear to be a problem as I said of malfeasance. Any thing related the abuse of children must be dealt with lawfully, swiftly and effectively. However in the case of British citizens being jailed for posts made for words on social media related to opinion is concerning. Violence has increased in England exponentially over the past several years and the British people are becoming more and more frustrated at the policing, as I understand it, that is being done there. I don't remember England, even though I'm an American, as being as violent as it is now, as many it seems in the country would attest due to mass immigration. And the same goes for America and our immigration problems. A cultural shift will always be inevitably hard for its indigenous peoples. It should go without saying that violent crime should not be tolerated on any level, whatever side of the social and/or political spectrum it lands. Being responsible when posting online should be a given, and I agree, the incitement of violence is always concerning. However that doesn't mean that a government should "cowboy up" on the wild west internet as you say, and perform their own remedial actions for simply putting forth an opinion. I'm reminded of what Orwell said in 1984: "The fallacy is to believe that under a dictatorial government you can be free inside." Food for thought Sunshine.

@Elessar And I mean sure the far right is a problem. But they have been for longer than either of us have been alive. But that is what policing is for. Not a justification for a surveillance state.


These events are also alarming when Canadian media has started dropping hints that regular Canadians could potentially be arrested for expressing views online about Ukraine that are not pre-approved by Anthony Blinken or the Kiev Post. And that would include anyone who was critical of our government honouring a nazi criminal as a national hero too btw. It seems there are some on high that want to make expressing an unpopular opinion a crime of espionage.

@Elessar I would even go so far to say that at least in Canada being part of the far right now has official government support and backing as long as your flavour of fascism originates from a certain eastern European country.

@PicturesOfABetterTomorrow
There is no need to. The French authority is likely to prosecute on the basis of culpable negligence. All social media platforms host illicit material, but whereas Facebook employs around 40,000 people on safety and security, Telegram has a total workforce of around 50 and its CEO is ideologically opposed to the idea of any government oversight of his business empire.


Yes, because child sexual exploitation is a serious and specific crime that is largely facilitated by platforms such Telegram. France will prosecute according the rule of law. There is no obvious national or social interest to be served in accessing the accounts of political dissidents (unless they are involved in child pornography).

@Ghostrunner66
Be that as it may (and owing to the sheer volume of misinformation on the internet related to migration this is difficult to gauge) the prosecutions that are currently being criticised relate solely to the spreading of inaccurate information that was used cynically to incite rioting and violence against people and property. Plus statements that went way beyond expressing personal opinions and were simple, old fashioned racial and religious abuse.

It is the job of government to enforce the common law. There is no conspiracy in pursuing criminals who use the internet. Their only fault lies in their relative slowness to hold the big social media platforms to account.

Some of us with recent family memories of authoritarian government in Europe perceive the real threat to freedom as being too little legitimate government rather than too much. Hitler came to power through violent intimidation, misinformation, and subverting the laws of a democratic authority.

@SunshineGirl But that's the point I'm making. Who makes the determination on what's inaccurate or misinformation?
"Plus statements that went way beyond expressing personal opinions and were simple, old fashioned racial and religious abuse."
Really? I don't know if your an American, I'm assuming your not (forgive me if I'm wrong), but the whole reason for our 1st Amendment is to protect the hate speech. Not the other speech. That's so a government or a person, specifically, doesn't get to decide or determine what the 'hate' speech is, or is not. People don't have to like it or even listen to it, but they should never be able to police it.

@SunshineGirl You have to prove that they had knowledge of a crime. Not the possible hypothetical that someone might commit a crime. Unless of course you want to live in a dystopian surveillance and police state which seems to be what you want.

@SunshineGirl And the idea that there is no value to silencing political dissidents is just comical.

France is the country that just recently made all pro Palestinian protests illegal.

And if you know anything about these sorts of things the "requests" to arrest people like this come from Washington, not Paris.

@Ghostrunner66 A very valid point. In many cases the people who decide disinformation are belligerents in the conflict discussed who are pushing their own narrative for their own purposes.

And at least in the case of Canadian media it has gotten to the point of objectively lying and handwaving inconvenient facts as "Russian propaganda" while not addressing anything.

@PicturesOfABetterTomorrow It's getting that way in the States as well. Like I said in the previous post on this thread, nearly 3/4 of the world's population lives under authoritarian rule. That should scare the Hell out of anyone with an ounce of intelligence.

@Ghostrunner66 Here is another uncomfortable stat for Americans. Over 70% of those regimes are backed by the US government and the US even has it's own dictator finishing school at Fort Benning.

@Ghostrunner66
The summer riots in the UK arose from the publication and re-publication of inaccurate claims on social media that the alleged murderer of three young girls in the north-west of England was (1) An asylum seeker; (2) A Muslim. This information gave rise to over a week of violent protests during which a hotel housing migrants was set on fire, mosques were damaged, and businesses belonging to Asians were attacked. The claims were completely fabricated. The alleged murderer is (1) A UK citizen; (2) The offspring of practising Christians. These are objective facts, not shades of opinion. The judge in the pre-trial took the extraordinary step of releasing details of the identity of a minor (he turned 18 a week later) in an attempt to defuse the speculation.

Lucy Connolly admitted to and was subsequently convicted of publishing abusive material intended to incite racial hatred (which perpetuated the original misinformation). She wrote on her X account:

"Mass deportation now, set fire to all the fucking hotels full of the bastards for all I care... If that makes me racist, so be it.”

And on the other side . . Ricky Jones, addressing an anti-fascist rally, allegedly said of far right protestors that "We need to cut their throats and get rid of them". He is now on trial on suspicion of inciting a crowd to.violent disorder.

These are objective facts that have been established by the courts, by investigative journalists, by law enforcement agencies, and by a multitude of other independently operating parties who apply critical judgement and scrutiny to information rather than passively accepting what is placed in front of them.

I am not American and the 1st Amendment does not run here. In determining cause and effect, I think there are clear parallels between what happened here and Donald Trump's impeachment over the January 6 insurrection (although thankfully nobody died during our riots). Which may give some perspective on why this has assumed such importance.

@PicturesOfABetterTomorrow
Who knows, you may be right. However, on the basis of current evidence, the simplest (and to my mind most plausible) explanation is that they are pursuing straightforward law enforcement.

@SunshineGirl Based on history when something like Telegram suddenly becomes a problem after a decade of nobody caring until it is political inconvenient than the political problem is usually the cause.

@SunshineGirl And you make valid points about the UK riots.

But we also have where I live in Canada where Parliament has recast the Waffen SS in Ukraine as noble freedom fighters and national heroes.

And these are the people who decide what is disinformation in my country.

And in case you think I am exaggerating the SS "hero" in question is wanted in Poland to face a war crimes tribunal.

@PicturesOfABetterTomorrow I know, my unit was support to the School the Americas at Fort Benning in 80's. 😁

@Ghostrunner66 Yikes.