Drug dealers, scammers and white nationalists openly conduct business and spread toxic speech on the platform, according to a Times analysis of more than 3.2 million Telegram messages.

Drug dealers, scammers and white nationalists openly conduct business and spread toxic speech on the platform, according to a Times analysis of more than 3.2 million Telegram messages.

Archived version: https://archive.ph/0UFhF

  • JackGreenEarth@lemm.eeEnglish
    121·
    3 months ago

    Without a disclaimer that Telegram is a platform that anyone can use, and that is mainly used by non criminals, and policing speech in private chats is a really bad idea for privacy, it just seems like fearmongering to get people to hate Telegram, because obviously Facebook’s WhatsApp is so much better.

    • BrikoXOPMEnglish
      5·
      3 months ago

      The comparison was uncalled-for, but Telegram earned its reputation by conscious action and not inaction. If they wanted to avoid all of this mess, they could have easily done that by enable E2EE by default. Policing Telegram’s public groups is no different from Discord servers or other centralized non-encrypted platforms.

  • JackGreenEarth@lemm.eeEnglish
    62·
    3 months ago

    For a long time, Telegram has acted as if it’s above the law

    What law? That the government can read and censor your private messages? Then good, and we should want it to stay that way!

    • BrikoXOPMEnglish
      42·
      3 months ago

      There are plenty of laws that require platforms to police publically accessible content. From SMS filters, ISPs are required to have, to CSAM reporting chat platforms like Discord have to do.

      Government can’t read or police E2EE messages, even if they want to. Telegram just doesn’t care about that.