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Its not that simple. Snowden had some good comments here about Telegram in Iran: https://twitter.com/Snowden/status/947190333540061185 https://twitter.com/Snow

Its not that simple. Snowden had some good comments here about Telegram in Iran: https://twitter.com/Snowden/status/947190333540061185 https://twitter.com/Snowden/status/947190333540061185 Telegram can only exist in Iran if it allows itself to be censored, basically. The alternative is for them to not exist at all in Iran. The Iranian government cant force Twitter to do anything, but I assume they can shut down the Telegram app completely in Iran since they control the phone network and Internet there. As long as the technical infrastructure for these apps are centralized, they are easy to shut down.

tinus_hn 9y ago
How do they have more control over Telegram than over Twitter? They’re both internet based services.
- yorwba 9y ago
  Twitter is already blocked.
deleted 9y ago
[deleted]
teen 9y ago
russian shill account?
- mschuster91 9y ago
  No, you don't need to be a russian parrot in order to have this (in my opinion perfectly valid) view on things. The core problem is that the Internet is both centralized and decentralized at the same time - while the Internet is able to route traffic away from broken cables etc. easily, it is vulnerable to hostile actors who are able to control an entire country's uplinks. Something like Tor should have been built into the Internet from the beginning... but it wasn't, as the Internet was built on the implicit trust that no one would do harm.
- dang 9y ago
  This comment breaks the site guidelines, as have a bunch of your other comments unfortunately. Would you please read https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html and follow the rules?
fauigerzigerk 9y ago
>Telegram can only exist in Iran if it allows itself to be censored, basically. The alternative is for them to not exist at all in Iran. Many companies face that choice. What I will never understand is why anyone would use a service like that to organise protests against a government that can enforce its censorship rules.
- mschuster91 9y ago
  > What I will never understand is why anyone would use a service like that to organise protests against a government that can enforce its censorship rules. Scale effects. Everyone I know has Whatsapp, some have Telegram and I can count the number of Signal users I know on one hand. It's easier to get a mass protest done via chainmal in WA/Telegram than via Signal.
  - fauigerzigerk 9y ago
    Why not email?
    - cosarara97 9y ago
      If signal users can be counted on one hand, people using gpg can be counted on a finger.
      - fauigerzigerk 9y ago
        I don't see a need for GPG at all. There are tons of options for sending email that is encrypted enough to lock out the Iranian government. Any popular mail service would work, and using several email addresses at different mail services would work best. Also, organising a protest isn't about keeping individual messages secret. You can never keep something secret that you want thousands or hundereds of thousands of people to know about. It's all about getting the message across fast without the government blocking it.
        StavrosK 9y ago

tinus_hn 9y ago

How do they have more control over Telegram than over Twitter? They’re both internet based services.

yorwba 9y ago
Twitter is already blocked.

deleted 9y ago

[deleted]

teen 9y ago

russian shill account?

mschuster91 9y ago
No, you don't need to be a russian parrot in order to have this (in my opinion perfectly valid) view on things. The core problem is that the Internet is both centralized and decentralized at the same time - while the Internet is able to route traffic away from broken cables etc. easily, it is vulnerable to hostile actors who are able to control an entire country's uplinks. Something like Tor should have been built into the Internet from the beginning... but it wasn't, as the Internet was built on the implicit trust that no one would do harm.
dang 9y ago
This comment breaks the site guidelines, as have a bunch of your other comments unfortunately. Would you please read https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html and follow the rules?

fauigerzigerk 9y ago

>Telegram can only exist in Iran if it allows itself to be censored, basically. The alternative is for them to not exist at all in Iran. Many companies face that choice. What I will never understand is why anyone would use a service like that to organise protests against a government that can enforce its censorship rules.

mschuster91 9y ago
> What I will never understand is why anyone would use a service like that to organise protests against a government that can enforce its censorship rules. Scale effects. Everyone I know has Whatsapp, some have Telegram and I can count the number of Signal users I know on one hand. It's easier to get a mass protest done via chainmal in WA/Telegram than via Signal.
- fauigerzigerk 9y ago
  Why not email?
  - cosarara97 9y ago
    If signal users can be counted on one hand, people using gpg can be counted on a finger.
    - fauigerzigerk 9y ago
      I don't see a need for GPG at all. There are tons of options for sending email that is encrypted enough to lock out the Iranian government. Any popular mail service would work, and using several email addresses at different mail services would work best. Also, organising a protest isn't about keeping individual messages secret. You can never keep something secret that you want thousands or hundereds of thousands of people to know about. It's all about getting the message across fast without the government blocking it.
      - StavrosK 9y ago