A lot of really terrible takes in this comment section. Telegram didn't have encrypted groups by default, and telegram possessed a lot of content on their servers that they had been made aware was illegal and didn't cooperate. Nothing more, nothing less.
The comparisons to other providers is off base because either other providers are cooperating more when they possess actionable, unencrypted information and taking steps to detect or prevent such recurrences or they are like Signal and do not have access to the underlying material in the first place or store it for very long anyway.
One cannot legally run a hosted, unmoderated content platform in the developed world, one will always be required to remove illegal materials and turn over materials in cooperation with law enforcement.
> One cannot legally run a hosted, unmoderated content platform in the developed world, one will always be required to remove illegal materials and turn over materials in cooperation with law enforcement.
Just would like to clarify, Telegram does take down channels/bots in some cases including copyright infringement. The only bots I’ve dealt with were music downloaders so I don’t know much about other kinds of takedowns, but it’s wrong to say that telegram doesn’t/didn’t take down material. Perhaps not enough or frequently enough, and I certainly don’t condone immoral activities- but they do do it sometimes.
They do it whenever the risk of Apple or Google kicking them out of their respective app stores becomes too great. That's presumably the only entities they take content moderation input from.
This is a fantastic case of hypocrisy here. I personally see Facebook ads for illegal drugs at least once a week, and nothing happens. I even stopped reporting it because it was obviously pointless. Why? Because Zuck is "our son of bitch".
He's been publicly chewed out at hearings by U.S. Senators, at least on the Republican side, for things like that. But the senate apparently doesn't have the power to do anything about it, or at least prioritize it with the rest of what is on their plate. I agree though that if Zuckerberg had been a Russian citizen, France probably would have arrested him too.
Terrible takes notwithstanding, of which there are many, the issue I see with such arguments is that it's always possible to find legal violations that technically justify prosecution or imprisonment. However, the legal system only functions effectively if we trust that those handling the gray areas are motivated by the common good, rather than serving the interests of a select few or protecting an elite minority. Simply focusing on the arrest and comparing it to the alleged criminal activities on Telegram, along with the supposed lack of enforcement by the company, seems like turning a blind eye. It ignores the more likely reality that this is part of a broader effort to establish a censorship regime, with platforms like TikTok, X, Telegram, and Rumble already targeted. Accepting the official narrative and pretext at face value feels, frankly, a bit naive.
It's important to note that he has only just been arrested, so there will be a case laid out, a defense offered, facts tried, and ultimately a conviction or not. I don't find a lot of sense in speculating about why or why it didn't happen as that will presumably be surfaced during the trial itself. Such events may or may not be followed up on HN as most of time these things turn out to not be wide ranging conspiracies but more mundane wrong-doings or acquittals based on facts presented and mundane things do not get clicks.
The motivations for arresting/prosecuting a person does not usually come up in a trial. Trials usually just present evidence of why this person is supposed to be convicted/guilty, but seldom give insight to the broader picture of why this person was "chosen" while the others are not.
I also disagree with the characterization of the discussion as "wide ranging conspiracies"... voicing concern over a government arresting a major online platform that is well known for minimal censorship shouldn't be labeled as conspiracy theories.
The motivation can come up discovery though. If there is something nefarious, you would expect the defense to bring it up during pre-trial motions (which are public, just not presented to the jury). The defense also has wide lattitude to bring up such issues to the jury (although they are often limited in what they can argue about it).
In some cases, selective prosecution is itself a defense; but (as you allude to) that is a very high bar for the defense to clear.
The actual cause of the investigation is unlikely to come up during discovery or the trial. This is because of Parallel Construction [1]. Here is the first paragraph of the Wikipedia article to explain:
> Parallel construction is a law enforcement process of building a parallel, or separate, evidentiary basis for a criminal investigation in order to limit disclosure as to the origins of an investigation.
Parallel construction is about hiding methods, not motives or the actual transgression. What you’re describing is simply abuse of power: the cops don’t like the beat you’re reporting so they start ticketing you for going two over the speed limit.
I would argue that hiding methods is one way to obscure motives of those building the case against a defendant.
The specific discussion was related to a "wait-and-see" attitude in regards to the motives of the justice system of France (not the motives of the alleged perpetrator). The suggestion was that if this was politically motivated then that motive would be revealed once the discovery process began. However, if the French legal systems wants to hide a political motivation then they can use parallel construction to hide their methods, thus obscuring their motives.
Also, I didn't "describe" anything. I pointed to a Wikipedia article that, in part, declares parallel construction as supported by the Supreme Court of the US. So, at least in US law, it is not at all an abuse of power but rather a totally valid approach that law enforcement can take to build a case against someone. The entire reason I even know the terms is because it showed up so often in the TV show Law & Order.
I guess you have a point, but I think the specifics depend on jurisdiction.
That said, the defense can say whatever they want about what they perceive as selective prosecution... but how do they know? It's not like they would have more knowledge about the prosecution's thought process than the average conspiracy theorist?
> [...] telegram possessed a lot of content on their servers that they had been made aware was illegal and didn't cooperate.
Do we know this for sure? What are the sources?
If that were true — then it surely would be less surprising, and even expected, but I would argue it's still bad: first because encryption would lead to the same result (as you point out) and second because what's illegal is often a matter of perspective: Telegram had content that was illegal in Russia, and didn't collaborate.
>One cannot legally run a hosted, unmoderated content platform in the developed world, one will always be required to remove illegal materials and turn over materials in cooperation with law enforcement.
One can. I think you're confusing censored with moderated. Google, Facebook, Instagram, etc. aren't moderated. They're censored. They refuse to moderate or not moderate. Censorship is a form of moderation, but it itself isn't enough to be considered moderated. Censorship is enough to make it not unmoderated though.
> One cannot legally run a hosted, unmoderated content platform in the developed world, one will always be required to remove illegal materials and turn over materials in cooperation with law enforcement.
Should you remove e.g blasphemy which is illegal in many countries including some of what I assume you call "developed world"?
If you are a multi-national with a legal presence in that country you likely have the resources to engage local counsel in answering that question and to assist in understanding the legal risks of various business decisions.
I don't ask for legal advice, I ask you how do you imagine the "always remove illegal content, easy" part of your plan to work? There's no common definition of what is legal. E.g do you suggest removing content if it's illegal anywhere in the world?
This really isn't a difficult question to answer: You remove the smallest subset of content such that you are allowed to operate in the markets in which you plan to operate/have a business presence in/plan to visit.
That's an imaginary simplicity since there is no such thing: determining a subset requires very high certainty in the rules (to be able to apply them and not run afoul), which doesn't exist in any real legal system
The defendant in question is a French citizen, being arrested in France, so if I were similarly situated I would expect to follow French law at a minimum.
My answer wasn't intended to be dismissive, truly, the answer will be specific to ones legal situation and the jurisdictions they plan to operate in and are best answered specifically by competent counsel in those jurisdictions after considering ones specific facts. Asking if ones should comply with laws "anywhere in the world" is not a useful question by itself.
Why would you not ask for legal advice on potential legal issues when registering users from countries you do not operate in? That is the only way you can understand the definitions of what is and is not legal in those countries.
I've never ran a web service personally, but to me it seems blocking access from UK, FR, DE is going to be the real long-term solution. Direct user participation from those regions are irrelevant anyway. That's going to narrow the problems down into actually working with police agencies in good faith and bypassing payment processors moral policing.
You should certainly have a formal process to respond to those countries’ requests, and you might consider technical architectures that don’t leave you in direct custody and control of that content in the first place.
> You should certainly have a formal process to respond to those countries’ requests
Mere responding is evidently not enough, you need to cooperate.
> you might consider technical architectures that don’t leave you in direct custody and control of that content in the first place.
This rules out the "public channel" feature.
Essentially what you say boils down to a global publishing platform being impossible nowadays without random and contradictive censorship acts.
While this is probably true, I definitely don't share the "yeah throw him to jail" sentiment. On the contrary, I miss very much the truly global Internet of early 2000s. If this was possible back then, it must be, generally speaking, possible? Are we going to see anything like this again in our lifetimes?
> Mere responding is evidently not enough, you need to cooperate.
Only if the request is coming from a country with a lot of power to effect its judgments internationally, or from a country you plan to personally visit. Whether or not you agree with it, ignoring legal requests from the US, China, and the EU (and debatably some other countries), isn't really an option in this day and age.
Until you wanted to visit a small country on vacation and forgot you ignored their court order 4 years ago.
Or you visit some random country and didn't check the extradition treaties they have with some other country you thought you'd never visit.
Or maybe new extradition treaties (yay!)
The sad conclusion I'm seeing in this story is: If you make an internet service, it's safer to just block off all the countries except the specific ones you're planning to operate in.
We need forums in my town. Anyone can set one up in minutes if it has already been done. But even if the site is about engines, you can't be sure that some data is not what it seems. It could be a plot to burn down Parliament, or it could offend people from a peaceful country who humbly want to reconstruct the map of the world back to 100 BC.
You just don't know. And so we do not even have a single local forum.
I am pretty sure that aiding criminal activity or child pornography are illegal in more countries than not, which are on the list of charges, and can be expected to do against from anyone, and ontopic here. Unlike blasphemy.
Telegram has been operating for years and did not change recently to justify such an action yesterday. There's something more certainly. Maybe they did not comply with requests related to recent war in Ukraine or genocide in Palestine ?
The initial investigation which triggered the arrest was made by the OFMIN ("Office spécialisé dans la lutte contre les violences faites aux mineurs" basically the government branch tracking and fighting CSAM).
Supposedly, Telegram (and by definition of the french law, the CEO) did not respond to requests for takedown of harmful content (or not enough or faster?) from the the OFMIN. This triggered another investigation looking globally at how Telegram handle content moderation on the public part of Telegram (Channel) which lead to all others charges of complicity.
This is basically the CEO taking the fall because the (unreachable by french law) Telegram company is not on french soil and he made the mistake on landing here.
Telegram always elicits bizarre reactions from the public. On one side there’s actual security professionals saying don’t use Telegram because it’s not fully E2E encrypted, and on the other side there’s people who are convinced that it’s secure because Marketing and that there’s this big conspiracy to stop people from using Telegram.
The real conspiracy theory is: Telegram have never made any attempt to either implement full E2E or to dissuade their users for using it for politically sensitive messages. Why not?
> The real conspiracy theory is: Telegram have never made any attempt to either implement full E2E or to dissuade their users for using it for politically sensitive messages. Why not?
Could be something nefarious or could be because not doing things is easier than doing things. Why bother if the existing conditions are just fine (for Telegram)?
I sincerely doubt that Telegram makes most of it's money by being this kind of host. I don't generally give the government the benefit of the doubt when it comes to _communication_ platforms. I also see zero evidence that Telegram's existence or policies help promote or create crime in any way.
It's not conspiratorial to refuse to show deference to the government which currently only has vague accusations to justify jailing a CEO. If the French government was so concerned about the criminal aspect then they should just order Telegram to not operate in France or they should work to block it at a national level.
The problem, the reaction, and the solution are not at all aligned here. Why anyone would jump in to defend the government's actions is absolutely beyond me.
> "which currently only has vague accusations to justify jailing a CEO"
If they are charging him and intend to convict, they have specific accusations, unless the French legal system is much different than the rest of the western world.
> "If the French government was so concerned about the criminal aspect then they should just order Telegram to not operate in France or they should work to block it at a national level."
Many governments with anti-CSAM laws exercise universal jurisdiction in those statues (i.e. they will to prosecute anyone for those crimes regardless of where they were committed and regardless if the person in question is a citizen), that being said it isn't entirely relevant here since the defendant is a French citizen. I would fully expect a government with CSAM accusations to prosecute those involved in facilitating such not just "block" them.
It's worth noting that the person in question was just arrested, so the trial hasn't happened yet, and yes the government could be full of shit, that would presumably come out at trial as dropped charges or an acquittal.
Precisely. So the constant need for people to gatekeep in here and chastise other people for having a negative view of the French government's actions is, to me, absurd.
> and yes the government could be full of shit
Yes. That's the assertion based upon the balance of history and probability and the complete disconnect between these actions and actual law enforcement outcomes.
> that would presumably come out at trial as dropped charges or an acquittal.
That doesn't mean we can't have a discussion about it.
> I sincerely doubt that Telegram makes most of it's money by being this kind of host.
One thing I did find suspicious about Telegram was that accounts that are restricted for "spam" can create a new account and pay for a premium license to remove the restrictions on the new account. Seemed like a racket to me.
ultimately this fight against unmonitored messaging is going to be a lost one for the developed world. people who want encrypted group chats will get them
As I hinted at earlier Signal does not have this issue because generally they are not aware of the underlying content. Even if Signal becomes aware of said content, it likely isn't hosted on their servers anymore as their store and forward system is highly transient. The most signal could do is be compelled to block specific users and maybe shutdown certain groups (not sure on that last one, would have to review the group architecture)
Precisely my point - moderated messaging in the modern era will ultimately be unenforceable.
Which is why I don’t see why certain services should be legally penalized just because they don’t happen to be E2E encrypted. Like if Telegram was instead e2e encrypted, why should that be legal if what they were previously doing wasn’t?
1) On the technical side, Telegram groups operate more like a bulletin board, content is posted and can be fetched over and over again, a bulletin board owner can be compelled to remove material and if non-cooperating considered to be facilitating. Signal is more like a conversation in the town-square or a letter box of sealed envelopes. Once the content is fetched, it's gone. If signal is made aware that certain envelopes contain material that needs to be removed, I'm sure they would do so provided they still possess them.
2) On the non-technical side, many countries have crimes that are all about who knew what and when did they know it and could that have acted (or did they have a duty to do so). Facilitating, accessory, accessory after the fact call it what you will but that's more of a legal / philosophical argument to be had about the legal system in general rather than telegram specifically. A situation were telegram was made aware of illegal activity and was hosting said content in the clear and did nothing is manifestly different from a case where those facts did not exist, in most legal systems.
So essentially what you are saying that because we couldn't catch the smart criminals who use e2e encrypted services we shouldn't catch the dumb ones either?
They made a claim that Telegram are particularly unresponsive to legitimate requests from various law enforcement groups which as a statement goes isn’t particularly controversial.
I posted this else ITT, but whats your opinion on the following (I have NO opinion - as I cant verify any facts about anything - so I am just an Observer of the events and what people are saying:)
>This reminds me of the entire plot to the last of the Bourne movies, Jason Bourne, where there is a scene of the head of some intel agency (Tommy Lee Jones) propositioned a social media founder to give them backdoor access or he would be killed. Great movie.
A lot more and a lot less than that. Arresting this CEO in France is largely a political decision, not a politically neutral enforcement action against the Telegram platform.
They don’t perform the same enforcement against other entities they could go after.
How is it not just a neutral enforcement action against the Telegram platform? The Telegram platform knowingly hosts illegal content in unencrypted format and does little to moderate that, which is illegal in many countries. The CEO is accountable for how the company operates and what happens on the platform.
If Telegram breaks the law - which it does - it’s completely logical that the CEO is held accountable for that and is arrested
The comparisons to other providers is off base because either other providers are cooperating more when they possess actionable, unencrypted information and taking steps to detect or prevent such recurrences or they are like Signal and do not have access to the underlying material in the first place or store it for very long anyway.
One cannot legally run a hosted, unmoderated content platform in the developed world, one will always be required to remove illegal materials and turn over materials in cooperation with law enforcement.