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Serious question to those cheering on the deplatforming power of the big tech monopolies: Are you still going to be onboard when Signal is banned from the App

Serious question to those cheering on the deplatforming power of the big tech monopolies: Are you still going to be onboard when Signal is banned from the App stores? How about when backdoors are required? Bear in mind, Signal has no moderation - that's baked into the product.

siver_john 6y ago
I had this exact conversation with some friends yesterday, and here was my response to them edited for clarity: And the difference between Parler and Signal is that Parler is a social media platform, Signal is a messaging platform. It's the difference of having a group of terrorists[0] in your restaurant everyday audibly planning a terrorist attack versus being the site of a message drop that occurs discreetly. Accessory charges are likely in the former unlikely in the latter.[1] [0]Replace terrorists with criminals or whatever is palatable to you, it was the example we were using at the time. [1]Standard disclosure I am not a lawyer/prosecutor/etc.
- rmsaksida 6y ago
  I don't know about Signal, but Telegram blurs the lines between a messaging app and a more general purpose social network. Telegram has public groups (supporting 100s of thousands of users) and channels that feature comment sections. It wouldn't surprise me if Telegram ends up getting banned by app stores because of their resilience and respect of privacy.
  - siver_john 6y ago
    Admittedly, I don't know about Telegram. But I would probably guess the distinction is still there because if I had to guess Telegram doesn't advertise those groups, you have to look for them, which decreases the condition of "audibly hearing the discussion." Where as Parler being a social media platform first wants to encourage the network effect and engagement among it's users, thus encouraging this open discussion and connection among potentially dangerous elements. Again in my non legal estimation of the law (not that I think anything I'm currently suggesting has been tried in court).
  - selykg 6y ago
    The reason Parler was banned was not being willing or able to moderate the content. Telegram would only be banned, based on this info, if they weren't going to do the same thing.
  - joshxyz 6y ago
    I'd say telegram isn't likely to get banned from app stores as there is intentionally no support for e2ee in group chats, and dm's aren't also e2ee by default.
    - unicornporn 6y ago
      This. No one I know uses the E2EE chats in Telegram. They go with the default and they heard Telegram is "secure". To add to the inconvenience the secure chats do not sync between devices.
      - monocasa 6y ago
        Also, you just can't use E2EE on the desktop clients, and they have stated that they have no intention of fixing that. https://github.com/telegramdesktop/tdesktop/issues/118#issuecomment-72011592 https://github.com/telegramdesktop/tdesktop/issues/118#issue...
        unicornporn 6y ago
        Works on the native macOS client though.
    - saagarjha 6y ago
      Didn't Apple get pushed to tell Telegram to get rid of posts in Belarus? If they hadn't made a deal out of it while also refusing to delete the posts, a ban could have been in their future.
    - im3w1l 6y ago
      Parler wasn't e2e encrypted.
- RcouF1uZ4gsC 6y ago
  > It's the difference of having a group of terrorists[0] in your restaurant everyday audibly planning a terrorist attack versus being the site of a message drop that occurs discreetly. If we are making a restaurant analogy, I think a more accurate one is that the restaurant provides a sound proof room where a group can enter and discuss anything they want without anybody overhearing. The restaurant does not know what anybody uses that room for. It could be people planning a birthday surprise, it could be a group of terrorists.
  - siver_john 6y ago
    Except for in Parler it isn't a soundproof room? It's literally a social media site where the admins (owner of the restaurant) can see what is going on. So it is the audible example I mentioned above. The sound proof room would be more apt for the later comparison to signal.
    - deleted 6y ago
      [deleted]
    - godelski 6y ago
      Let's say that the restaurant goes to KKK and Neo-Nazi rallies handing out fliers saying that the restaurant is where "anyone can feel welcome." But they never advertise to the general public or to groups of opposing views. Is that restaurant for the general public or is it for a specific type of people? They said it was for anyone, but I'm not sure people are going to believe that.
  - godelski 6y ago
    More importantly there is a difference if you advertise that sound proof room to the public (maybe for business meetings) vs the mafia. Let's say that anyone was technically allowed to reserve the room but you only told mafia members about it then it is reasonable to believe that the room is intended to be used for nefarious activities and not as a general private room. Calling it a general private room and saying it is for businessmen or government officials to talk in private would be a coverup for its real intent.
- HaloZero 6y ago
  Wasn't WhatsApp used for forwarding tons of disinformation in Myanmar and India? I imagine the same thing can happen in Signal no? https://www.vox.com/2018/7/19/17594156/whatsapp-limit-forwarding-fake-news-violence-india-myanmar https://www.vox.com/2018/7/19/17594156/whatsapp-limit-forwar...
hairofadog 6y ago
I'll bite, but then I have a serious question for you. I'm definitely not cheering on deplatforming – I think it's fraught with problems – but I do think there's a grave danger being posed by extremists plotting violent attacks using these platforms (Twitter, Facebook, Parler) right now. It's complicated! Here are some of my thoughts on the issue (which may conflict or have logical inconsistencies – I'm just a person trying to think through this stuff, and I don't have the answers). - Private conversations should be private, always, and there should be no back doors, ever. The only regulations regarding private conversations should be to strengthen them. I think it's okay for law enforcement to try to crack those private conversations, but I am vehemently against requiring a "secure back door" that (supposedly) only the government has access to, or laws preventing tech companies attempting to make uncrackable encryption. - Any rules created about this stuff should be applied equally across the board to all people, regardless of political persuasion or position in government. - I'm in favor of internet access being considered a public utility or even government funded; nobody should be "deplatformed" from basic internet access. Assuming that's the case, I don't see what's stopping Parler from setting up a server. AWS isn't the only way to serve web applications, and Twitter isn't the only way to broadcast messages publicly. However, if Parler's primary content is plots to violently overthrow a democratically elected government, I'm not sure that should be legal. - I'm troubled by the stranglehold that payment processors have on our systems of commerce, and I'd be in favor of more decentralized payment methods. - Broadcast mediums are fundamentally different from private conversations, and I don't think free speech should be confused with right to Tweet. Trump, in particular, is the most powerful person in the world and has the biggest platform in the world; he need only step out to the press room and every news outlet in the world will report what he says. I don't feel this is the best example of someone being suppressed. He chose (and arguably drastically increased the importance of) Twitter, and he avoids reporters, because he can spread disinformation and propaganda there without focused criticism. - The idea that Trump and his supporters haven't been heard is laughable; I feel like we've been living in a Trump theme park for the past five years. It's all we've heard about every single day. I try to remember what it was like not thinking about Obama for two weeks at a time, and I look forward to not thinking about Biden for two weeks at a time. - It feels like everyone on all sides of this issue agrees that the big tech companies are too powerful in many ways: as you point out, they have the ability to tamp-down public conversation, but on the flip side they have the ability to propagate disinformation on a massive scale. (There's also obviously their anti-competitiveness, but that feels like a different topic.) I have no idea what, if anything, should be done about this. Just as consolidation of power in tech companies is worrisome, so is consolidation of power in government. - Speaking as someone on the left, I'm also troubled by (and I hate this term) "cancel culture". In recent weeks I watched someone I care about get destroyed for no reason other than the tone of a jokey story they told missed the mark. In my mind, "Internet Mob Justice" is as worrisome and problematic as government or corporate overreach, and I'm extremely skeptical of it regardless of which end of the political spectrum it's coming from. - The disinformation thing is a huge and serious problem, and I haven't seen many "total free speech at all costs" advocates address it aside from saying something along the lines of "let each person listen to all the arguments and decide for themselves". That feels naive to me; flooding the airwaves with propaganda and disinformation is another way to quell free speech. I thought this was an interesting article on that topic: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/10/13/magazine/free-speech.html https://www.nytimes.com/2020/10/13/magazine/free-speech.html - Facebook in particular allows for a dangerous combination of broadcasting and private conversations, which is to say they allow broadcasting to specific targets in a way that can't be observed from the outside. One thing about public free speech (including disinformation) is that everyone can see it and at least try to refute it (difficult in this age of 'bubble' media, but still feasible). The way Facebook allows the spread of disinformation seems especially dangerous in that it's secret but also at scale. ------- I dunno, that's just some of what's going through my head in regards to all of this. My serious questions for you are: - Do you think there's a problem with the way technology has enabled the scale and precision of disinformation campaigns? If so, do you have any ideas what we can do about it? - Do you think there should be any moderation whatsoever? In other words, should people be allowed to incite, advocate, and organize violence in public forums? If not, where is the line? If so, what's remedies do we have as a society to the subsequent violence?
godelski 6y ago
There's this weird train of thought going around that I don't understand. If terrorists or criminals are talking in large groups, as they did on Parler, they might as well be in plain text. The point is that an average person can get into that conversation (be radicalized) and then become part of that mob. If the CIA/FBI/NSA can't get into those groups then they should be all removed because of gross incompetence and we've been overestimating their influence by several orders of magnitude for the last 50 years. We hear stories about agents infiltrating groups all the time. So what's the issue here? That they have to infiltrate and can't passively monitor? The only thing this stops is dragnet operations where small group terrorists are plotting together. Which historically we've seen that this isn't effective because it's just adding more hay to the haystack. I'd contrast this from a platform like Parler where they actively encouraged extremists to adopt their platform. It is one thing to say "free speech" as a dog whistle and another thing to say "free speech" in the true meaning. Parler sought out extremists from the get go, Signal has been focusing on mass adoption. There's a big difference.
- Niten 6y ago
  > Parler sought out extremists from the get go Can you share evidence of this? Because it clashes with all the messaging I've seen from Parler.
  - brandall10 6y ago
    It’s literally funded by the Mercer family. The messaging for this and Gab may thinly suggest otherwise, but it’s clear what these communities target, and it absolutely is the dog whistle version of free speech.
  - godelski 6y ago
    I'm having a hard time finding an ad since everything is being pulled, but they advertised to sites like Breitbart and Info Wars and even included the enforcements in several ads I saw. That's specifically catering to extremist groups. But I'll point to videos I can find which aren't as bad. If anyone can find the original ads that I mentioned I'd appreciate a link. Here[0] Ingram mentions radicals like Alex Jones and Candice Owens mentioning that it is a social network specifically for conservatives. It is easy to find plenty of videos like this where they consistently talk about it being a social media platform for conservatives. Here's one where the CEO complains about fact checking the president[1]. He does end struggling to suggest that Parler is gaining diversity, but also says that Twitter is a Biden community in the same sentence. But I've never been one to think that Twitter was specifically targeting conservatives. But you'll find that a lot of these interviews do still focus around the politics of the issue. Compare that to Signal's much more neutral stance on the matter. [0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j6iyAt1Ydpc https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j6iyAt1Ydpc [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F8IcjsFHwc8 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F8IcjsFHwc8 Edit: Downvoters, would you mind explaining? Is it that I no longer have a direct link to Parler using Info Wars/Alex Jones and Breitbart as endorsements? Or do you not think those are extremist websites?
1vuio0pswjnm7 6y ago
From a user perspective, I am not sure "App Stores" or the leverage used to create them was ever a good thing. As a user, if a hardware vendor can choose to "ban" users from running certain software (after they have paid for the hardware), I do not see that as progressive. Maybe it is a clever "business model" but as a user I like to choose software based on personal preferences rather than delegate the process to someone else, e.g., a trillion dollar company.

siver_john 6y ago

I had this exact conversation with some friends yesterday, and here was my response to them edited for clarity: And the difference between Parler and Signal is that Parler is a social media platform, Signal is a messaging platform. It's the difference of having a group of terrorists[0] in your restaurant everyday audibly planning a terrorist attack versus being the site of a message drop that occurs discreetly. Accessory charges are likely in the former unlikely in the latter.[1] [0]Replace terrorists with criminals or whatever is palatable to you, it was the example we were using at the time. [1]Standard disclosure I am not a lawyer/prosecutor/etc.

rmsaksida 6y ago
I don't know about Signal, but Telegram blurs the lines between a messaging app and a more general purpose social network. Telegram has public groups (supporting 100s of thousands of users) and channels that feature comment sections. It wouldn't surprise me if Telegram ends up getting banned by app stores because of their resilience and respect of privacy.
- siver_john 6y ago
  Admittedly, I don't know about Telegram. But I would probably guess the distinction is still there because if I had to guess Telegram doesn't advertise those groups, you have to look for them, which decreases the condition of "audibly hearing the discussion." Where as Parler being a social media platform first wants to encourage the network effect and engagement among it's users, thus encouraging this open discussion and connection among potentially dangerous elements. Again in my non legal estimation of the law (not that I think anything I'm currently suggesting has been tried in court).
- selykg 6y ago
  The reason Parler was banned was not being willing or able to moderate the content. Telegram would only be banned, based on this info, if they weren't going to do the same thing.
- joshxyz 6y ago
  I'd say telegram isn't likely to get banned from app stores as there is intentionally no support for e2ee in group chats, and dm's aren't also e2ee by default.
  - unicornporn 6y ago
    This. No one I know uses the E2EE chats in Telegram. They go with the default and they heard Telegram is "secure". To add to the inconvenience the secure chats do not sync between devices.
    - monocasa 6y ago
      Also, you just can't use E2EE on the desktop clients, and they have stated that they have no intention of fixing that. https://github.com/telegramdesktop/tdesktop/issues/118#issuecomment-72011592 https://github.com/telegramdesktop/tdesktop/issues/118#issue...
      - unicornporn 6y ago
        Works on the native macOS client though.
  - saagarjha 6y ago
    Didn't Apple get pushed to tell Telegram to get rid of posts in Belarus? If they hadn't made a deal out of it while also refusing to delete the posts, a ban could have been in their future.
  - im3w1l 6y ago
    Parler wasn't e2e encrypted.
RcouF1uZ4gsC 6y ago
> It's the difference of having a group of terrorists[0] in your restaurant everyday audibly planning a terrorist attack versus being the site of a message drop that occurs discreetly. If we are making a restaurant analogy, I think a more accurate one is that the restaurant provides a sound proof room where a group can enter and discuss anything they want without anybody overhearing. The restaurant does not know what anybody uses that room for. It could be people planning a birthday surprise, it could be a group of terrorists.
- siver_john 6y ago
  Except for in Parler it isn't a soundproof room? It's literally a social media site where the admins (owner of the restaurant) can see what is going on. So it is the audible example I mentioned above. The sound proof room would be more apt for the later comparison to signal.
  - deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]
  - godelski 6y ago
    Let's say that the restaurant goes to KKK and Neo-Nazi rallies handing out fliers saying that the restaurant is where "anyone can feel welcome." But they never advertise to the general public or to groups of opposing views. Is that restaurant for the general public or is it for a specific type of people? They said it was for anyone, but I'm not sure people are going to believe that.
- godelski 6y ago
  More importantly there is a difference if you advertise that sound proof room to the public (maybe for business meetings) vs the mafia. Let's say that anyone was technically allowed to reserve the room but you only told mafia members about it then it is reasonable to believe that the room is intended to be used for nefarious activities and not as a general private room. Calling it a general private room and saying it is for businessmen or government officials to talk in private would be a coverup for its real intent.
HaloZero 6y ago
Wasn't WhatsApp used for forwarding tons of disinformation in Myanmar and India? I imagine the same thing can happen in Signal no? https://www.vox.com/2018/7/19/17594156/whatsapp-limit-forwarding-fake-news-violence-india-myanmar https://www.vox.com/2018/7/19/17594156/whatsapp-limit-forwar...

hairofadog 6y ago

I'll bite, but then I have a serious question for you. I'm definitely not cheering on deplatforming – I think it's fraught with problems – but I do think there's a grave danger being posed by extremists plotting violent attacks using these platforms (Twitter, Facebook, Parler) right now. It's complicated! Here are some of my thoughts on the issue (which may conflict or have logical inconsistencies – I'm just a person trying to think through this stuff, and I don't have the answers). - Private conversations should be private, always, and there should be no back doors, ever. The only regulations regarding private conversations should be to strengthen them. I think it's okay for law enforcement to try to crack those private conversations, but I am vehemently against requiring a "secure back door" that (supposedly) only the government has access to, or laws preventing tech companies attempting to make uncrackable encryption. - Any rules created about this stuff should be applied equally across the board to all people, regardless of political persuasion or position in government. - I'm in favor of internet access being considered a public utility or even government funded; nobody should be "deplatformed" from basic internet access. Assuming that's the case, I don't see what's stopping Parler from setting up a server. AWS isn't the only way to serve web applications, and Twitter isn't the only way to broadcast messages publicly. However, if Parler's primary content is plots to violently overthrow a democratically elected government, I'm not sure that should be legal. - I'm troubled by the stranglehold that payment processors have on our systems of commerce, and I'd be in favor of more decentralized payment methods. - Broadcast mediums are fundamentally different from private conversations, and I don't think free speech should be confused with right to Tweet. Trump, in particular, is the most powerful person in the world and has the biggest platform in the world; he need only step out to the press room and every news outlet in the world will report what he says. I don't feel this is the best example of someone being suppressed. He chose (and arguably drastically increased the importance of) Twitter, and he avoids reporters, because he can spread disinformation and propaganda there without focused criticism. - The idea that Trump and his supporters haven't been heard is laughable; I feel like we've been living in a Trump theme park for the past five years. It's all we've heard about every single day. I try to remember what it was like not thinking about Obama for two weeks at a time, and I look forward to not thinking about Biden for two weeks at a time. - It feels like everyone on all sides of this issue agrees that the big tech companies are too powerful in many ways: as you point out, they have the ability to tamp-down public conversation, but on the flip side they have the ability to propagate disinformation on a massive scale. (There's also obviously their anti-competitiveness, but that feels like a different topic.) I have no idea what, if anything, should be done about this. Just as consolidation of power in tech companies is worrisome, so is consolidation of power in government. - Speaking as someone on the left, I'm also troubled by (and I hate this term) "cancel culture". In recent weeks I watched someone I care about get destroyed for no reason other than the tone of a jokey story they told missed the mark. In my mind, "Internet Mob Justice" is as worrisome and problematic as government or corporate overreach, and I'm extremely skeptical of it regardless of which end of the political spectrum it's coming from. - The disinformation thing is a huge and serious problem, and I haven't seen many "total free speech at all costs" advocates address it aside from saying something along the lines of "let each person listen to all the arguments and decide for themselves". That feels naive to me; flooding the airwaves with propaganda and disinformation is another way to quell free speech. I thought this was an interesting article on that topic: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/10/13/magazine/free-speech.html https://www.nytimes.com/2020/10/13/magazine/free-speech.html - Facebook in particular allows for a dangerous combination of broadcasting and private conversations, which is to say they allow broadcasting to specific targets in a way that can't be observed from the outside. One thing about public free speech (including disinformation) is that everyone can see it and at least try to refute it (difficult in this age of 'bubble' media, but still feasible). The way Facebook allows the spread of disinformation seems especially dangerous in that it's secret but also at scale. ------- I dunno, that's just some of what's going through my head in regards to all of this. My serious questions for you are: - Do you think there's a problem with the way technology has enabled the scale and precision of disinformation campaigns? If so, do you have any ideas what we can do about it? - Do you think there should be any moderation whatsoever? In other words, should people be allowed to incite, advocate, and organize violence in public forums? If not, where is the line? If so, what's remedies do we have as a society to the subsequent violence?

godelski 6y ago

There's this weird train of thought going around that I don't understand. If terrorists or criminals are talking in large groups, as they did on Parler, they might as well be in plain text. The point is that an average person can get into that conversation (be radicalized) and then become part of that mob. If the CIA/FBI/NSA can't get into those groups then they should be all removed because of gross incompetence and we've been overestimating their influence by several orders of magnitude for the last 50 years. We hear stories about agents infiltrating groups all the time. So what's the issue here? That they have to infiltrate and can't passively monitor? The only thing this stops is dragnet operations where small group terrorists are plotting together. Which historically we've seen that this isn't effective because it's just adding more hay to the haystack. I'd contrast this from a platform like Parler where they actively encouraged extremists to adopt their platform. It is one thing to say "free speech" as a dog whistle and another thing to say "free speech" in the true meaning. Parler sought out extremists from the get go, Signal has been focusing on mass adoption. There's a big difference.

Niten 6y ago
> Parler sought out extremists from the get go Can you share evidence of this? Because it clashes with all the messaging I've seen from Parler.
- brandall10 6y ago
  It’s literally funded by the Mercer family. The messaging for this and Gab may thinly suggest otherwise, but it’s clear what these communities target, and it absolutely is the dog whistle version of free speech.
- godelski 6y ago
  I'm having a hard time finding an ad since everything is being pulled, but they advertised to sites like Breitbart and Info Wars and even included the enforcements in several ads I saw. That's specifically catering to extremist groups. But I'll point to videos I can find which aren't as bad. If anyone can find the original ads that I mentioned I'd appreciate a link. Here[0] Ingram mentions radicals like Alex Jones and Candice Owens mentioning that it is a social network specifically for conservatives. It is easy to find plenty of videos like this where they consistently talk about it being a social media platform for conservatives. Here's one where the CEO complains about fact checking the president[1]. He does end struggling to suggest that Parler is gaining diversity, but also says that Twitter is a Biden community in the same sentence. But I've never been one to think that Twitter was specifically targeting conservatives. But you'll find that a lot of these interviews do still focus around the politics of the issue. Compare that to Signal's much more neutral stance on the matter. [0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j6iyAt1Ydpc https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j6iyAt1Ydpc [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F8IcjsFHwc8 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F8IcjsFHwc8 Edit: Downvoters, would you mind explaining? Is it that I no longer have a direct link to Parler using Info Wars/Alex Jones and Breitbart as endorsements? Or do you not think those are extremist websites?

1vuio0pswjnm7 6y ago

From a user perspective, I am not sure "App Stores" or the leverage used to create them was ever a good thing. As a user, if a hardware vendor can choose to "ban" users from running certain software (after they have paid for the hardware), I do not see that as progressive. Maybe it is a clever "business model" but as a user I like to choose software based on personal preferences rather than delegate the process to someone else, e.g., a trillion dollar company.