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Here is a source in Russian [0] saying that Apple is asking Telegram to remove messages that de-anonymize Belorussian police members, rather than blocking chann

• boudin 6y ago
  This seems to match this post, where apple is asking to remove telegram groups used to de-anonymize law enforcement members. Apple could do something really simple if they wanted to not interfeer with how people organize their fight: allow to install apps outside of the app store. This would force law enforcement to deal with Telegram directly rather than being able to take advantage of apple's own authoritarian way to run its platform. Now it's a question of what's apple highest priority, people freedom or profit.
  • shoulderfake 6y ago
    We all know the answer to that
  • antris 6y ago
    It doesn't change the legal threats of the Belarus government, though. It can still compel Apple to ban self-installs.
    • Barrin92 6y ago
      How are they going to compel Apple, send a Soviet era fishing boat to the shores of California and scream loudly or turn their own internet off?
  • tgragnato 6y ago
    Profit. They are already requiring entitlements to develop things that use the network extension framework (no sideload for VPNs and proxies bypassing the Chinese firewall). This is just them being forced (again) to make visible the negative sides of such a centralized platform.
  • zepto 6y ago
    It would also allow governments to force people to install tracking apps, as they do in parts of China. It’s not simple.
    • dane-pgp 6y ago
      Apple could still retain the capability to delete malicious apps from phones (even apps that weren't installed via the App Store). Presumably Belarus would then make a demand that Apple delete Telegram from people's phones as it is "malicious", but I'd hope that forcing a company to delete things from someone's phone is legally harder than forcing them to hide things on their own servers.
      • sjwright 6y ago
        And that capability would be trivial for Belarus to side-step.
        • dane-pgp 6y ago
          Presumably you're imagining some sort of cat-and-mouse game where Belarus release a new version of the app, and then Apple add that app to the blacklist (which iPhones would update daily from Apple's servers, and broadcast via AirDrop). Rather than blacklisting the app's name or hash, Apple would probably have to blacklist the Developer ID, which it would be hard for Belarus to generate quicker than Apple could blacklist.
    • cageface 6y ago
      Unnecessary because they can already force you to pass all monetary transactions through an app like WeChat and can track you all they want there. And let's not pretend that Apple has shown any willingness to stand up to the Chinese government.
  • Mindwipe 6y ago
    As this is the inevitable consequence of a platform where a central party controls all software on it, Apple picked profit day 1.
• dan-robertson 6y ago
  One issue is that public attitudes to doxxing vary between places. What is unacceptable in America may be considered more normal elsewhere. In this specific situation there’s a pretty obvious power imbalance where the public do not wear masks and the authorities would be able to track them down and oppress them later (or just do what they currently do and grab them from the streets at the time). The threat of unmasking is one of the few things the people have to use against the authorities: when a policeman has his mask removed he will typically run away for fear of being identified. (The only other things they have are sheer numbers and the moral superiority of being basically peaceful against a violent government). A similar argument about law enforcement safety was used by Apple to remove a map app in Hong Kong which showed people where large groups of police (and eg tear gas releases or which small coloured banners announcing illegal assemblies had been raised). The claim was that the app could be used to target individual policemen even though it only showed larger units and mainly helped people to get around the city without getting gassed by the police. Meanwhile the Chinese government were funding a site offering money for doxxing protestors but it wasn’t in the App Store so I guess it was ok.
  • powerapple 6y ago
    the site you are referring to in your last sentence is not funded by Chinese government, but by a previous governor of Hong Kong (Liang I believe).
    • antris 6y ago
      But isn't the former governor pretty much a puppet of the Chinese Communist Party though?
      • anoncareer0212 6y ago
        nah they're still a person, the conversion to puppet proved more difficult than expected
        • MiscIdeaMaker99 6y ago
• qPM9l3XJrF 6y ago
  Yeah, I don't see how this is different from Twitter taking down a tweet which doxxes someone. Would people object if Apple told Telegram they had to remove a channel that was being used by white supremacists to coordinate terrorist attacks? The answer to that question matters, because if users in this thread succeed in making iPhones less of a walled garden, terrorists will be able to use their iPhones to coordinate terror repeatedly on a large scale, and there won't be anything Apple can do about it. Is that really the world you want to live in? Personally, 2020 has satiated my appetite for craziness, and I'm ready for a little stability.
  • FeepingCreature 6y ago
    I think a channel for white supremacists to coordinate terror attacks existing isn't good, per se, but it should still be possible for them by default and the government should have to demonstrate that it can responsibly handle the power to police it before we let it do so. So at the current state of the world, I wouldn't object to Apple doing this, but I'm still in favor of white supremacists being able to do this, because I don't know of any mechanism by which you could stop precisely white supremacist terrorists from coordinating but not also citizens coordinating against state power. I don't want white supremacists being able to carry out terror attacks, but I want people to be able to coordinate demonstrations and civil resistance, and I'm not aware of a way to do this without also enabling white supremacists, and I think that's a valid tradeoff.
    • qPM9l3XJrF 6y ago
      This isn't a government, this is Apple. It seems perfectly reasonable to me for Apple to install some speed bumps against activity such as doxxing or terror which it strongly frowns upon.
    • Demiurge 6y ago
      A state is most of the time a tool for a majority to oppress a minority. Laws and police are just their tools, and so are dictators. Whoever is labeled a dictator is just a figurehead supported by majority of elites, who in turn are supported by economically strong coalition, represented by some majority of people who are united. Precisely, there is no difference between oppressing white supremacist minority and any other minority that wants to overthrow the status quo. It’s not going to be easier or harder depending on how the anti state elements are hiding their communication, because their conflict has to become public to have the effect you desire, which is some systemic change that you agree with ( making you part of this group by the way). I’m not saying privacy is not important. I’m wondering whether unmitigated privacy is more important to people you and I most probably do not support.
• BurningFrog 6y ago
  Griefing? Belarus is on the brink of civil war. Doxxing regime supporters can easily end up as a "murder todo list" if things heat up. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Griefing https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Griefing
  • random5634 6y ago
    And visa versa - mainstream platforms don't seem like the place too do this
  • baybal2 6y ago
    > Doxxing regime supporters can easily end up as a "murder todo list" if things heat up. Do you give an innuendo that this is somehow wrong?
    • metiscus 6y ago
      Yes. Murdering people that you disagree politically with is wrong. Even the actual nazis were allowed to surrender and stand trial. Vigilantism is nearly always a bad thing.
      • 188201 6y ago
        Who can put Nazi on trial? The people in Germany? History said it was the ally. And ally has killed many Nazi before they can put Nazi on trial. If you don't see the power imbalance between the government and the people, then you are very lucky that you had not experienced it. Not trying to justify murdering, but some kind of deterrence for oppressing peaceful, freedom-loving people is not a bad thing. Of course if it become French Revolution style execution after taking power, that is wrong and it must be stopped. For the moment, that is before that state, so anything can be bearable.
    • jlokier 6y ago
      I would advocate that these things are clearly wrong and should be defended against: - Killing a "regime supporter", meaning someone targeted only because of their political beliefs. It is not right that political beliefs should be punished like that. Ideally they shouldn't be punished at all, they should be tolerated but simply lose an election. You can't claim to "protest for democracy" while being happy to facilitate murdering people who vote for the other side! That would be mad hypocrisy. - Killing a police officer whose crime, even if violent, fell significantly short of killing someone themselves. Punishment should fit the crime, not be 10x worse. You can't claim to "protest for justice" while being happy to facilitate extra-judicial killings that aren't even based in justice. - Killing an innocent person who is mis-identified, whether by accident or not so much. See above. The third point, killing an innocent person seems even more likely due to automated facial recognition software like what's running on Facebook, with its biases and a mask to add more noise too, integrated with deepfake image reconstruction technology to produce convincing "unmasked" images, combined with vigilantes often not being too bothered about accuracy and statistics. However wrong or right you think it is, surely everyone agrees it's wrong if it ends up getting the wrong people. But no apparently. I've spoken with people in other situations (at other times) who said, basically, it's ok for "a few innocents" to die if that's what it takes to rid the world of guilty people. And others taking the view that it's ok for "police" to die because police are bad. Both views strike me as boneheaded AF. It is clear AF from the reports that the Belarus authorities think it's ok for some number of innocents to die and suffer for the sake of policing and intimidation. If I were there I would certainly want the authority to "die", by being thoroughly dismantled asap.
• deleted 6y ago
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• summerlight 6y ago
  https://t.me/durov/136 https://t.me/durov/136 At least being transparent and willing to take a part of responsibility of this action?
• stefan_ 6y ago
  In what particular hellhole have I even landed that we are now using the terms of a Twitter fight to discuss brutal, indiscriminate suppression of protests? Applying "doxxing" rules to police on the job in public must be the most absurd perversion of the term ever. Why on earth would we grant privacy to public servants entrusted with the force monopoly?
  • zepto 6y ago
    Do you mean all police everywhere?
  • mswtk 6y ago
    It really is one of the most egregious examples of a cultural echo chamber I've seen on HN. We're talking about a brutal police force serving a corrupt and delegitimized regime, that is involved in extrajudicial detention, torture, and murder of peaceful protesters. This unit, the OMON, was specifically established to serve as Lukashenko's beatstick against the opposition. Now, the overwhelmingly peaceful protest movement in Belarus has turned towards intimidation (no actual violence has been reported, afaik) against these people specifically, as a way of fighting back. And then you see people on HN referring to this as "doxxing", as if this was some kind of pithy Twitter fight. I understand that Twitter fights are what people around here can more easily relate to their own life experience than what is currently going on in Belarus, but for Christ's sake, let's try and put things in perspective here.
    • sjwright 6y ago
      Sure, but for Apple to change its policies specifically in this case is for Apple to take sides in a political conflict/civil war. I don't think that's a viable outcome either. Apple doesn't have any good options here; I think their strategy of a toothless demand with no follow through might well be the least worst option for Apple, and for Telegram.
      • mswtk 6y ago
        I wasn't really commenting on what Apple should or shouldn't be doing, just on the tone of the conversation in this thread. That said... Apple have a really good, straightforward option: Don't police user-generated content in iOS apps. Or, at the very least not the ones intended specifically for communication. They aren't listening to people's phone calls or reading their messages in search of ToS-breaching content after all. It simply shouldn't be any of their business what Telegram's users post on Telegram's platform. Telegram should be able to independently make the decision what it wants to permit therein.
• tripzilch 6y ago
  > So what do you do if you are Apple? Nothing because Apple has ZERO, no place meddling in this business. Just hear yourself, "it's against the TOS" versus people on the streets trying to save their own country from a stolen election and a dictator?? OF COURSE the TOS of a tech company is completely irrelevant in this situation. TOS aren't even laws, they were just created by a profit driven corporation for legal protection. Of course they aren't relevant here. Just because Apple can say this, and can pressure Telegram, doesn't mean they aren't absolutely in the wrong here.
  • apexalpha 6y ago
    Just hear yourself, "it's against the TOS" versus people on the streets trying to save their own country from a stolen election and a dictator?? This is literally the "just comply with the police and you'll be fine" argument. Yes, we KNOW everyone clicked through the ToS, but it _completely_ misses the point of the discussion.
  • thatjamesdude 6y ago
    Whilst I agree with the specifics here, the problem is the general case. I don't agree that you should be allowed to post people's private, identifying data to a public forum without consent. This HAS to apply equally, because the idea that there is a universal set of right and wrong is incredibly naive. A better argument here is how the laws aren't applied equally. TrueCaller was used by the Chinese to harass and attack human rights activists, and it is essentially an index of everyone's contact list. Yet, somehow, this doesn't bother Apple. 100% financially motivated. But my point stands. These telegram channels that exist to distribute public data of people merely accused of being involved with the regime should be shutdown. The term here is witch hunt and I'll take a lot of convincing that innocent people haven't already been falsely accused
    • toyg 6y ago
      This is just beef with Telegram. That’s where the content is hosted. Apple as a distributor should have NO relevance to this. Apple is like a landlord who legally rented his shop to people who run it as a bar in which some people might meet to discuss protests. Should the police even call the landlord? Should the landlord act on this info?
• einpoklum 6y ago
  > messages that de-anonymize Belorussian police members, Police officers must not be able to act anonymously. This is not like "doxxing" anonymous Internet trolls or forum users or whatever. > Apple says it didn’t require any channels to be removed. But they demanded to immediately remove any information If they don't like published information, they are welcome to sue the people who published it. That is, if they are in cahoots with the US government's foreign meddling initiatives. > that discloses someone's data on the Internet without the consent of these persons, as well as content aimed at specific people in accordance with the rules of the App Store. Can't break the rules of the all-powerful Apple app store, now can we? Tsk tsk tsk. > This refers to the efforts of the Belorussian opposition to 'unmask' members of the riot police by posting their personal details online. > So what do you do if you are Apple? Exploit my users, perform mass surveillance for the US government, breath down the neck of app makers, produce cheaply with poor employment conditions in China, and manipulate the media to fawn over me. That is, if I were Apple. Luckily I'm not Apple and neither are you, so don't think about what you would do in a place in which you should never get to.
• deleted 6y ago
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• boogies 6y ago
  (offtopic) > (google translate) DeepL is a much better translator, at least for the languages I know and according to all comparisons I’ve heard others make, btw (though I don’t know if Yandex Translate is better for Russian).
  • kazinator 6y ago
    You're right. I just tried this, into Japanese: "I cannot believe you would say that to me." It came up with: 私にそんなことを言うなんて信じられないわ Holy crap, complete with a disparaging なんて, and a nice わ sentence-ender to make it a feminine sounding complaint. I'm almost sensing like the thing is tying to tell me, "here is how your boring English sounds if it is turned into line from a J-drama." Was this trained using subtitle databases, I wonder. It's as if a mediocre English subtitle was found, similar to my text, and the corresponding original line had been retrieved.
• deleted 6y ago
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