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What interests me more, is Signal's principal stance about censorship. If non-tech people ever come to Signal in numbers, the moderation problem will inevitably

What interests me more, is Signal's principal stance about censorship. If non-tech people ever come to Signal in numbers, the moderation problem will inevitably arise. Would they censor things that we currently have public consensus about? Like CP, terrorism etc.

henearkr 6y ago
I doubt that this will ever be an issue, because Signal is a messaging application, on which censoring/moderation is thus irrelevant. It's not a social network (contrary to e.g. Telegram which has tons of SNS features). Let's hope it will remain just a messaging/videocall app.
- ComodoHacker 6y ago
  They would have no other choice but add group and social features. That's what non-tech people come for.
  - henearkr 6y ago
    Group feature is already present and is a different thing than Telegram's channels or Facebook's groups. On Signal it is a group of your contacts, so it remains private conversation. There is nothing publicly said, and it is not open for strangers to participate. I don't see any compelling reason for Signal to evolve towards more SNSish groups, to the contrary, by remaining in the current state they avoid the costly conundrum of moderation. > That's what non-tech people come for. I disagree, people come to Signal for what it is. Arguably even more people would come if there was SNS features, but on the business/feasibility aspect (Signal is still an open-source based modest-size project), it would not be worth the cost and endless legal trouble of moderation in all the different countries with all the different laws. Most importantly, introducing SNS would entail moderation which would fail the very purpose of Signal's existence (since the contents of the messages is ciphered and private). In the end, actually less people would maybe come to Signal if it launched SNS features.
- jauer 6y ago
  This ignores demonstrated harm* from the combination of human behavior and low-effort large-scale communications. * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indian_WhatsApp_lynchings https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indian_WhatsApp_lynchings
  - henearkr 6y ago
    Moderation is still irrelevant. You don't solve the problem you refer to with moderation, you solve it by privacy laws and their enforcement, because publishing the contact details of somebody without their consent is a crime. The problem exists since long before WhatsApp: you have the same issue when an official or a celebrity gets their phone/email flooded...
sneak 6y ago
Signal is end-to-end encrypted. They have no way of discerning CP from non-CP as it transits their service.

henearkr 6y ago

I doubt that this will ever be an issue, because Signal is a messaging application, on which censoring/moderation is thus irrelevant. It's not a social network (contrary to e.g. Telegram which has tons of SNS features). Let's hope it will remain just a messaging/videocall app.

ComodoHacker 6y ago
They would have no other choice but add group and social features. That's what non-tech people come for.
- henearkr 6y ago
  Group feature is already present and is a different thing than Telegram's channels or Facebook's groups. On Signal it is a group of your contacts, so it remains private conversation. There is nothing publicly said, and it is not open for strangers to participate. I don't see any compelling reason for Signal to evolve towards more SNSish groups, to the contrary, by remaining in the current state they avoid the costly conundrum of moderation. > That's what non-tech people come for. I disagree, people come to Signal for what it is. Arguably even more people would come if there was SNS features, but on the business/feasibility aspect (Signal is still an open-source based modest-size project), it would not be worth the cost and endless legal trouble of moderation in all the different countries with all the different laws. Most importantly, introducing SNS would entail moderation which would fail the very purpose of Signal's existence (since the contents of the messages is ciphered and private). In the end, actually less people would maybe come to Signal if it launched SNS features.
jauer 6y ago
This ignores demonstrated harm* from the combination of human behavior and low-effort large-scale communications. * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indian_WhatsApp_lynchings https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indian_WhatsApp_lynchings
- henearkr 6y ago
  Moderation is still irrelevant. You don't solve the problem you refer to with moderation, you solve it by privacy laws and their enforcement, because publishing the contact details of somebody without their consent is a crime. The problem exists since long before WhatsApp: you have the same issue when an official or a celebrity gets their phone/email flooded...

sneak 6y ago

Signal is end-to-end encrypted. They have no way of discerning CP from non-CP as it transits their service.