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this post was submitted on 24 Oct 2023
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You object to the business model of the free service you subscribe to? That's what you basically said. You want to use Google's free email service. You agreed to allow them to collect your data and target you with ads as is their business model. But you object to them collecting your data to target you with ads. That doesn't make any sense.
Spear phishing and so on are still a thing. Scams via regular SMS messages? Still a thing. It absolutely is profitable to target one person depending on how you target them and what you get in return. These scams and the businesses and companies that fight them are constantly playing whack a mole. They wouldn't bother to continue trying to scam via email and SMS if it wasn't profitable still.
Saying Telegram has to monitor their users and the content sent via the service and suggesting that they should (as an extension of that) violate the privacy of the users to monitor them all for illegal activity because they have "no reasonable expectation of privacy" is an interesting take. Even the police are supposed to subpoena your texts if they can show reasonable cause.
You're throwing reasonable cause out the window. If it's an app for private messaging the people who use it have the expectation that their messages are private. This isn't a forum we're talking about. It's not twitch. They are sending messages to a specific recipient. They aren't making a public post on Facebook.
Telegram is incredibly aware of Hamas's channels and still doesn't feel like doing anything about it: https://www.theverge.com/2023/10/25/23931710/telegram-android-block-hamas-channels-google-play-guidelines-war-israel
And if Hamas is violating their TOS while using the service, then they should do something about it. In the same way that Google blocks what scammers it can find who are using google voice numbers to scam people. But what you are suggesting isn't that they take action against people or organisations that are violating the TOS or using the service to break the law.
You are suggesting they essentially listen in on every conversation or message sent on the service to find people breaking the law or violating the TOS. That's not the same thing.
I'm not suggesting that!
They don't need to listen to private chats to see what Hamas is doing, it's open, it's public, they're not being subtle, and Pavel Durov himself has publicly commented on it. He just doesn't give a fuck.
Explain that? How is it public?
Did you read the article? Do you know what broadcast channels are?
https://www.theverge.com/2023/10/25/23931710/telegram-android-block-hamas-channels-google-play-guidelines-war-israel
So I did read the article. But telegram as a service allows users (some of whom are just civilians with no ties to Hamas) to warn people of imminent attack. That's in the article. They (that channel admins) still have to add subscribers.
The thing is though, for telegram and messaging apps like it this is basically playing whack a mole. I know I said that before, but what I meant by it is that it's better for the purposes of building intelligence and or sending their geolocation data to relevant authorities. If they close one channel more will pop up. IP bans and even device bans will not stop this from happening. You can create a telegram bot in like 10 minutes.
But deleting certain channels will detrimentally affect the civilians caught in the cross fire.
"Telegram CEO Pavel Durov wrote that he was hesitant to shut down Hamas-used channels in a post on October 13th, saying that “tackling war-related coverage is seldom obvious” and writing that Hamas had used Telegram a few days prior to warn civilians to evacuate an area before the attacked it " < from your article.
It's the same thing with scammers. Most telegram scammers are using private messages that have encryption. So you absolutely are suggesting the telegram snoop through private messages.
So can we stop pretending that this is simply an easy fix?
It's a Hamas channel! They're not warnings, they're threats! And they're recruiting! And they know those users are sharing video of their attrocities in other Hamas groups! And the al-Qassam Brigades have a public channel too!
The mole is out in the open, sticking its fingers in its ears, and laughing at us, and Durov is saying "yeah, that's a fine mole, no idea why I'd whack it." It's gaining steam! They're openly using the names of terrorist organizations and recruiting new members constantly and telegram isn't even considering a response.
No, it absolutely will not.
He referenced Ashkelon. There are zero Israelis in Ashkelon following Hamas on Telegram. Israel knows when to evacuate its citizens, and unlike Hamas, actually does so when necessary. Hamas is a terrorist organization. Hamas is threatening Israeli civilians before targeting those civilians. THE THREAT IS THE FIRST CAUSE OF THE TERROR. This is what terrorism is! They threaten violence on civilians, they do the violence they threatened, and then they celebrate it by sharing videos! They threaten, plan, and celebrate on telegram, out in the open!
There's a funnel. They start on twitter, just kind of innocently saying "follow me on Telegram." Then they say "alright, this broadcast channel will tell you exactly what token to buy, and when! Do exactly that!" It's a pump and dump scheme, some people fall for it. And then the real rubes get into those 1-on-1 secret chats with the scammers where they go ahead and give out their private info.
A tech company like Telegram could, in theory follow this funnel through the unencrypted channels. It's obvious enough from the information you and I have.
These channels are all operating openly. You know they're all pump and dump scams, right? They're not in secret chats, they're huge channels with hundreds of thousands of subscribers.
Can we stop pretending that ignoring the problem is a better solution?
Look. I don't support Hamas in the same way that I don't support the Israeli government. They're both basically terrorist organisations at this point. Shelling Gaza with no regard for civilians and children is just as bad as targeting children and civilians for the purposes of a terrorist attack. Your own article disputes what you've said. But if you've made up your mind that one group is worse than the other and therefore one group deserves to be punished (as it would appear based on your comment), then I don't see the point in this discussion.
This thread has quickly become less about scammers (as you first claimed) and more about giving a voice to terrorist organisations, which I don't necessarily agree is a good thing but is something that won't be stopped by deleting a channel. More will pop up. Disenfranchised people who have been hurt repeatedly will act out. Relieving them of an avenue to voice their opinions doesn't stop them and it often makes things worse.
Nobody is forcing you or anyone to use telegram. You've gotten increasingly more upset (it would seem based on your replies) that I am not automatically condemning Hamas or Telegram's CEO and you go out of your way to ignore my questions about privacy when it concerns private messages. Additionally you are hyper focused on the Hamas channels angle as if it's the only thing in your original post.
Israeli's aren't the only civilians dying in the crossfire between Hamas and the Israeli government.