Anyone who cares about some form of free speech shouldn't use Telegram because it was never designed to protect it, think of Telegram as a Discord with very lax moderation.

If you're a public platform moderator and you refuse to comply with a request from the authorities (for whatever reason) because you know that user data is accessible, you're asking for trouble.

As another example, users on a public forum shouldn't be surprised if their malicious posts can be used by indexing robots or used against them in an ongoing investigation.

locked France has jurisdiction since Telegram operates in France and is charged for complicity of several grave offences committed in France. Just like any other country. If you provide a service in a country, you have to respect the rules of that country, whatever the service.

    Once again we have proof of the fact that we are only allowed to exist ""freely" while it does not displease the government (usually american), and the security agencies / corporate dictatorships that run them. Those in the hot seat of any country, of any political party, are merely puppets.
    Good examples are Hussain and Khomeini who were welcomed by the West, and had beneficial plans regarding the freedoms and lifestyles of their citizens. Until they refused to sell oil at a discounted rate to the US. Assange was permitted to disclose secrets of any government in the world, but the moment he showed the US security services to be corrupt, unproven sexual assault charges and international warrants popped into existence.
    It is invariably our own governing bodies that are our worst enemies, and they are financed and powered by those with something to gain. Such individuals will push the line of "nothing to hide, nothing to fear", but will go out of their way to obstruct and obfuscate, any (mis)information that is made public of their personal affairs.
    Follow the money. Who really benefits from the nationalisation and capitulation of Telegram and similar?

    I'm sadly seeing a lot of the sentiment trend towards what was mentioned here:

    https://x.com/matthew_d_green/status/1828205281945256332

    It feels like people are quick to jump on something if it aligned with their existing political beliefs and morph said issue to fit their political reality rather than looking at things in a more detached, objective manner. That's of course easier said than done.

      Eirikr70 France is a hypocritical government, like every government in the world, but more specifically in our country. Not everyone knows it, but France has passed laws against the protection of our journalists.
      Freedom only makes sense if you think like the State. If France declares Hamas a terrorist group, that's the way it is, whereas for me it's clearly a resistance group, for example.

      Eirikr70 What offences did he commit in France? Furthermore, and I repeat, what I stated above, that "why did they spontaneously arrest Durov? If there was an ongoing investigation on him, and they determined that they needed to arrest him, why wasn't the warrant issued already??? Instead, they arrest him when he arrives in France by surprise. His country of residency has an extradition treaty with France, so France could have presented their case and issued a warrant which Dubai likely would have to reviews and validate its merit.

      By your logic, CEOs of other companies can be arrested for crimes that they did not directly commit, however that were facilitated by their infrastructure, such as an app like signal.

        [deleted] Telegram while not providing E2EE by default, provided the most robust and trustworthy platform. Durov's history showed that he will stand up for his users

        Could you elaborate your view here? I am trying to understand this point of view, because I have quite opposite one.

        From my perspective there is nothing robust, or even trustworthy on Telegram, when I compare it to Signal. Telegram set bad defaults, do not encrypt data, therefore they can manipulate with the data as they will. They could at least encrypt communication, but they chose not to. What exactly is robust and trustworthy about it? Am I missing something crucial here?

        As for the second part that Durov would stand up for his users: Would you say that a person who is trying to collect as much data from you as he can, and that he can do anything with your data, and that even though this person could easily shield your personal communication with encryption, he made a choice not to use the encryption, that this person has Your interest in heart?

          • Edited

          matchboxbananasynergy I actually agree with what he says in the tweet. However, I'll point out, that it has nothing to do with his arrest. That issue can be argued separately. However, if we recall, many years ago, when Durov was facing arrest and had to leave Russia, The west considered him a hero. He was a beacon of democracy, fighting for freedom. Does anyone remember? There was way more offensive content then than there is now.

          • [deleted]

          Moisture By robust i meant that its coded well and its a stable app. Channels wont shit temeselves unlike on matrix, and media file delivery works without issues unlike with Signal which often fails to play videos and has very lacking file type support. Telegram also has a very generous file size limit. From a usability standpoint nothing even came close. Its the most pleasant messenger to use.

          Would you say that a person who is trying to collect as much data from you as he can

          He is not "trying" to do that, and you're misrepresenting him as a person. Telegram has no interest in data mining users, because they don't profit from it. Durov's values contradict the conspiracy that he hasn't implemented E2EE for the purpose of harming users.

            • [deleted]

            • Edited

            Moisture
            Telegram never said its E2EE. They claim its "secure" on the same basis as every other company that has server side storage of user data. Not being E2E encrypted doesn't mean its not "secure", it means it works fundamentally differently than Signal for example. You have to be OK with that when you choose to sign up for any service. I'd use Telegram over Whatsapp despite Whatsapp being E2EE, because ethics are decided by company practices and not technicalities (that being said e2ee is still important to take power away from the provider). Telegram is a highly ethical service that bleeds money.

            • [deleted]

            Moisture Of course!

            [deleted] Channels wont shit temeselves unlike on matrix

            Can't really compare a service that utilises a centralised server against a protocol that allows decentralised, cross-server communication between self-hosted instances, but ok.

            media file delivery works without issues unlike with Signal which often fails to play videos and has very lacking file type support.

            Probably something to do with Signal being actually E2EE (by default) and not Telegram, but people are free to correct me if this is caused/related to something else.

            Telegram also has a very generous file size limit

            I'm sure that has nothing to do with potential data collection whatsoever.

            Telegram has no interest in data mining users, because they don't profit from it

            Maybe, maybe not. They apparently do profit however from "Sponsored Messages", which is strange because any time I hear other organisations do similar ad-related things, it causes an uproar and accusations of data collection.

              • [deleted]

              • Edited

              Dumdum

              Can't really compare a service that utilises a centralised server against a protocol that allows decentralised, cross-server communication between self-hosted instances, but ok.

              How cant i compare them? They serve the same purpose and even the GrapheneOS team says matrix sucks for this.

              Probably something to do with Signal being actually E2EE (by default) and not Telegram.

              No it doesn't. You literally just recieve files and its on the client to handle them. Signal's client is far worse esepcially on desktop.

              I'm sure that has nothing to do with potential data collection whatsoever.

              You're right, it also doesn't have to do anything with that. You have no basis to claim otherwise. Take off the tinfoil hat. They have literally zero incentive to do what you say they'd do.

              Maybe, maybe not. They apparently do profit however from "Sponsored Messages", which is strange because any time I hear other organisations do similar ad-related things, it causes an uproar and accusations of data collection.

              This is a nothing burger. You can hear anything but you will have to prove that they collect data because of these ads. The client is open-source, you can see. Brave also shows ads and they are far less invasive than traditional ads. People complaining wont make them collect more data.

                [deleted]

                How cant i compare them? They serve the same purpose and even the GrapheneOS team says matrix sucks for this.

                ........ because they're fundamentally different????? And who cares if GOS team says matrix sucks? That's a pointless deflection, since I never said that matrix was good. Simply that they "can't be compared".

                No it doesn't. You literally just recieve files and its on the client to handle them. Signal's client is far worse esepcially on desktop.

                So, it has nothing to do with encryption which at least if memory serves me right, has caused a difficulty for the transfer of non-text data in a few different apps/services? Either way, I don't care much about this point so I'm not going to bother arguing this point.

                You're right, it also doesn't have to do anything with that. You have no basis to claim otherwise. Take off the tinfoil hat. They have literally zero incentive to do what you say they'd do.

                Indeed I have no basis to claim otherwise hence why I said potential. I did not claim that they actually are. So no, I will not "take off my tinfoil hat" because it was never on in the first place, unlike the other user's comment that was just removed. As for "zero incentive", doubt. Like any service, they need to cover costs of maintenance. Especially for one of their size. To say that a common method of funding such costs is "zero incentive" is frankly laughable.

                This is a nothing burger. You can hear anything but you will have to prove that they collect data because of these ads. The client is open-source, you can see. Brave also shows ads and they are far less invasive than traditional ads. People complaining wont make it collect more data.

                If its a "nothing burger", then so is any other attempt to distribute/handle "private ads". Sure, their client is open source but Firefox is open source and still they get attacked with accusations of data collection (as do other open source projects no doubt). Brave gets regularly accused of data collection as well from what I've seen in the past, and are generally distrusted by a number of people in privacy communities for stuff relating to ads/crypto.

                locked As far as the other companies facilitate the commission of grave offences, they can be investigated and the natural persons responsible for them can be arrested ... just like you and me if we carry messages for drugs dealers, give access to pedopornography or spread messages in favour of terrorism ... Just like you and me !

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                  • Edited

                  Now as of telegram. Nothing suggests that they are doing anything with user data that would be for anything other than providing their service. They are not data mining users nor collecting excessive amounts of diagnostics. If you utilize "auto delete" its also gone from their servers, so people who deleted their chats have fewer things to worry about.

                    @[deleted] You conduct towards other community members here is not acceptable. It's unproductive, and quite frankly, childish.

                    It is very unfortunate that the community on the forum is proving time and time again that moderation should be stricter, not more lax, and that people are seemingly incapable of having mature and intelligent conversations about these topics without them not devolving into slapfights.

                    I'm removing numerous posts that add nothing of value to the thread beyond said slapfights and will consider further action regarding the thread and individual accounts after that.

                    [deleted] If you utilize "auto delete" its also gone from their servers, so people who deleted their chats have fewer things to worry about.

                    Who else would you extend this good faith to, I wonder? It's a genuine question. It really feels like people who would otherwise be extremely suspicious and be calling other services "honeypots" etc. seem to have a soft spot for Telegram in particular. Marketing goes a long way, I suppose. The long and short of it is, if there are no technical guarantees for the messages being confidential, which there isn't for the vast, vast majority of Telegram users, assuming the best case scenario is likely not your best choice.

                    Also, to be clear, I'm not saying that you specifically call other services honeypots or have similar opinions. It's mostly an observation after many days of discussing with people who had a fit when GrapheneOS explained that Telegram doesn't enable E2EE by default on X, Mastodon etc. Very weird behavior from some folks.

                      matchboxbananasynergy It's mostly an observation after many days of discussing with people who had a fit when GrapheneOS explained that Telegram doesn't enable E2EE by default on X, Mastodon etc. Very weird behavior from some folks.

                      It's generally difficult to have a healthy, constructive discussion when political influence, marketing influence and, worse when misinformation are involved. That's why these topics are banned from certain forums, along like sexuality and religion.