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This will be interesting. Some background for the discussion: - Germany has a different take on freedom of speech from the US. There are things that you canno

This will be interesting. Some background for the discussion: - Germany has a different take on freedom of speech from the US. There are things that you cannot say (holocaust denial, inciting racial violence). We can argue about this, but it's deeply ingrained in the legal system and unrealistic to change - Germany has a special law regulating responsibilities and content moderation in social media (NetzDG, think section 230 but wider). This law - among other things - mandates content moderation and cooperation with law enforcement - A key point in the debate surrounding Telegram is the question of whether or not it is a "platform", that is an open social network. Telegram argues that it's a messenger, but in practice, there are many open and public groups used for public debates. So Germany argues that it should be regulated in accordance with the NetzDG, which Telegram denies. - Recently, there have been a number of death threats and criminal conspiracies which were orchestrated via Telegram; on top, a huge chunk of covid deniers and co are active in this space. - Telegram so far has not cooperated at all (in contrast with other social platforms, even TikTok). So in essence, this is currently a battle about the German government saying: Look here, you got a bunch of criminals and terrorists (literally, with weapons) on your platform, you need to do something about it. [edit] Here is a report on the assassination plot and subsequent raids: https://www.euronews.com/2021/12/15/german-police-launch-raids-in-dresden-over-alleged-anti-vax-death-threats-to-governor https://www.euronews.com/2021/12/15/german-police-launch-rai...

akho 5y ago
> the German government saying: Look here, you got a bunch of criminals and terrorists (literally, with weapons) on your platform, you need to do something about it. This sounds like a police matter, and should be a question that is asked to, not by, the government. Not that any government understands that…
- sascha_sl 5y ago
  Unfortunately, it turns out that it is not too rare that these people doing something in between prepping and planned terrorism are police or military.
- Milner08 5y ago
  That is exactly what has happened? The police will be aware of this, and the government need to decide what to do.... The first step is clearly to engage with the platform. Maybe its you that doesn't understand?
  - akho 5y ago
    The steps are to investigate the criminal / terrorist activity, identify and arrest the culprits, and reach an appropriate outcome in the justice system. Engaging the platform in so far as the platform can legally assist the investigation. Closing (or publicly threatening to close) the platform is not helpful in any way.
sveme 5y ago
Thank you for providing a balanced argument containing facts and further descriptions, in the best spirit of HN. Sadly, it will not keep this thread from becoming dominated by single liners and cheap shots. For evidence, see below. It all boils down to the question of whether Telegram is a public forum or a messenger service.
- dathinab 5y ago
  For me the answer is it's both. A 1000+ group isn't really a messenger service anymore. A 20 people family group clearly is a messenger service. So IMHO the question is where is the limit? And is the limit based on other factors then just the number of involved people? Also pushing this IMHO this doesn't change any of the problems they want to change. It likely even makes them worse.
emteycz 5y ago
The notion of a government watching over group conversations is scary.
- kybernetyk 5y ago
  Sadly to most Europeans it's not scary. Even with the terrible track record of European governments.
- sveme 5y ago
  Is it a group or a public forum? With the t.me links, isn't it more like a public forum?
  - emteycz 5y ago
    When have you seen a police officer at public forums? I never saw one, and I don't want to see them online.
- BurningPenguin 5y ago
  Most governments are not interested in you talking nonsense in your group. They're interested in people planning to overthrow them or other criminal acts. Depending on the type of government that might be good or bad.
- dtech 5y ago
  We seem pretty used to the idea that the NSA basically watches everything, which we've known since Snowden
  - emteycz 5y ago
    I'm still not used to it. I bet it's not just me too, it's just hard to change for us.
- Applejinx 5y ago
  The notion of a platform watching over group conversations, with its only purpose being engagement, is scarier. There is nothing more engaging than existential threat. As long as anybody anywhere stands to benefit from fomenting the idea of existential threat and using the terror thus inspired to get a social group to exterminate a selected other social group… which is then itself under existential threat and can respond in kind… the only refuge to this is something like a government or legal system watching over this. Otherwise competitive pressure will ensure that the platform fomenting the most fear of existential threat will have the most engagement and will prosper. YouTube seems to have already recognized this and is grappling with it in its own way. I doubt Telegram has any wish to moderate its real purpose for existence and undermine the engagement it must have to survive. And there is nobody who cannot be turned monstrous through invoking existential threat: all the better if it's a realistic fear, it will persist long after the tables are turned and the victim has become the monster in turn. History has shown this really clearly.
Aerroon 5y ago
Sadly, cutting out Germany means that you'd eventually have to cut out the entire EU. If you just block Germany they're going to push on the EU to take up this fight for them. It'll all be in the name of "stopping online abuse" or something like that. Germany, in general, seems to be a very poor country to do digital business compared to most other places. This is the same country that required (requires?) streamers to get a broadcasting license that cost thousands of euros to stream to more than 500 people.
- danbruc 5y ago
  [...] to stream to more than 500 people. More than 20,000 simultaneous viewers on averaged over a six months period and if the content is considered relevant for public opinion formation.
  - Aerroon 5y ago
    It used to be 500 viewers. This change happened because streamers lobbied the government to enact change. Now it's just a higher number. The point of this example is to show what kind of a country it is and what the population of the country seems to think is okay. Digital business is something they seem to want to hinder.
- b3orn 5y ago
  It's the other way around, if it's not going through local legislation it gets pushed to the EU level. Doing digital business doesn't seem to be that hard considering that in the end everyone still tries to get german customers/subscribers. And the ruling on broadcasting licenses for streamers was relaxed a lot, it's required if you had more than 20 000 viewers on average over the last 6 months, only very few german streamers are affected by that.
  - wreath 5y ago
    > And the ruling on broadcasting licenses for streamers was relaxed a lot, it's required if you had more than 20 000 viewers on average over the last 6 months, only very few german streamers are affected by that. That doesn't make it any better. You have +20k viewers on avg last 6 months and the government doesn't like what you are saying for any reason, they revoke your license. If this isn't a control over freedom of speech (and I'm not saying freedom to call violence on people or anything here), I don't know what is really.
kybernetyk 5y ago
Terrorists AND covid deniers? By God, Telegram must be closed ASAP!
sascha_sl 5y ago
The equivalent to section 230 would be Section 10 Telemediengesetz, but from my own experience law enforcement here seizes first and asks questions later for anyone that's not a household name. NetzDG is much less broad, only applying to social networks (so not Telegram) with more than 2M users.
- sveme 5y ago
  Why is Telegram not a social network? What's the key differences between a social network, a forum and a messenger service (with groups) that we could define to figure out what telegram actually is?
  - sascha_sl 5y ago
    well, let's check section 1, paragraph 1-3 of NetzDG >(1) Dieses Gesetz gilt für Telemediendiensteanbieter, die mit Gewinnerzielungsabsicht Plattformen im Internet betreiben, die dazu bestimmt sind, dass Nutzer beliebige Inhalte mit anderen Nutzern teilen oder der Öffentlichkeit zugänglich machen (soziale Netzwerke). We have a requirement for profit motive (so the Fediverse is mostly safe) and sharing arbitrary content with different users (broadly) or the public. >(2) Plattformen mit journalistisch-redaktionell gestalteten Angeboten, die vom Diensteanbieter selbst verantwortet werden, gelten nicht als soziale Netzwerke im Sinne dieses Gesetzes. Blogs and news sites that do not claim the above-mentioned protection under TMG are specifically excluded as social networks here. >(3) Das Gleiche gilt für Plattformen, die zur Individualkommunikation oder zur Verbreitung spezifischer Inhalte bestimmt sind. Further exceptions for "individual communication" and "posting specific content". So I guess a Telegram Group specifically counts as a social network under this definition. It'd be anyone's guess how many people a group needs to no longer count as "individual communication", that's probably for a German court to decide.
ascar 5y ago
I feel this comment is unfairly treated and should be upvoted not downvoted. It provides pretty good insight about the situation. As someone with family members that are being fed conspiracy theories through telegram groups I'm definitely suspicious. On the other hand, if telegram or the telegram group feature is banned another service will just take its place and these people will just feel more oppressed/attacked possibly making the situation worse. Overall I feel social media is a net negative for society because it creates a feedback loop of your own "bubble" with more and more extremist and radical ideas, often with no scientific or even remotely factual basis.
dathinab 5y ago
It might not be a popular opinion, but a group chat of 1000+ people is less messaging(1) and more either social network (through a badly implemented one) or a something like a publishing channel (if used mainly one directional). (1): Messaging in the sense of a digital continuation of letter writing. Still, it's a stupid move. There are endless alternatives. And the problem isn't really caused or amplified by Telegram, Telegram is just an arbitrary chosen tool which happen to meet the requirements for the given use case. It's not even the best tool out there for the given use case. In the end this is nothing more then trying to find a scapegoat to blame a out of control situation on. A situation caused by years of political/social negligence of increasingly out-of-touch political parties combined with out-of-touch media. The choice of choosing it as a scapegoat already shows how out of touch it is, I mean like did they forget that it's one of the most widely used messengers in Germany by all parts of the society?? You are literally telling people which have gotten increasingly suspect of the government and media that the tool they are nicely using since years is supposedly easier. Putting people into a very obvious perceived difference between their reality and what you tell them, without a good reasoning basis, is a pretty sure fire way to lose more trust.
dabber21 5y ago
- Germany has a different take on freedom of speech from the US. Germany has freedom of opinion, they explicitly decided against American style freedom of speech after WW2
dafoex 5y ago
I'm glad you've explained it. Maybe I'm being dumb, but I can't see where the article actually says what laws are being violated.
rndgermandude 5y ago
Yeah, and that wasn't the only example. Here is another recent one[1]: German soldier (so a guy who had prolonged training and access to serious weapons) gives German government an "ultimatum". He was a heavy telegram user as well. I am generally a proponent of as much free speech as possible, as long as it is lawful, and the laws in question are not just authoritarian wet dreams. Inciting violence or making threats is not lawful. It's unlawful not just in Germany but in most other places including the US too, and for good reason. When it comes to these kinds of German telegram groups we're not even talking about thinly-veiled threats where there is wiggle room in interpretation, we're talking about people saying "we're at war and must fight until every politician and traitor is executed. Arm yourself today!". Telegram groups promoting these kinds of threats daily with tens of thousands of members exist, and telegram provides tools to create and promote such groups easily. So I am not buying any claim that they are a mere messenger service. This is therefore one of the few cases where I do not mind the government demanding the company take action, or else face legal consequences up to effectively shutting them down within Germany. What gives me pause at the same time is that German politicians usually do not just demand Telegram shut down clearly illegal speech like threats, but also constantly talk about vague "misinformation"/"fake news"/"conspiracy theories". As much as "fake news" sucks, it cannot be the government in a free society deciding what is "real news". [1] https://www.vice.com/en/article/g5q5vx/german-soldier-covid-vaccine-mandate-video-threat https://www.vice.com/en/article/g5q5vx/german-soldier-covid-...

akho 5y ago

> the German government saying: Look here, you got a bunch of criminals and terrorists (literally, with weapons) on your platform, you need to do something about it. This sounds like a police matter, and should be a question that is asked to, not by, the government. Not that any government understands that…

sascha_sl 5y ago
Unfortunately, it turns out that it is not too rare that these people doing something in between prepping and planned terrorism are police or military.
Milner08 5y ago
That is exactly what has happened? The police will be aware of this, and the government need to decide what to do.... The first step is clearly to engage with the platform. Maybe its you that doesn't understand?
- akho 5y ago
  The steps are to investigate the criminal / terrorist activity, identify and arrest the culprits, and reach an appropriate outcome in the justice system. Engaging the platform in so far as the platform can legally assist the investigation. Closing (or publicly threatening to close) the platform is not helpful in any way.

sveme 5y ago

Thank you for providing a balanced argument containing facts and further descriptions, in the best spirit of HN. Sadly, it will not keep this thread from becoming dominated by single liners and cheap shots. For evidence, see below. It all boils down to the question of whether Telegram is a public forum or a messenger service.

dathinab 5y ago
For me the answer is it's both. A 1000+ group isn't really a messenger service anymore. A 20 people family group clearly is a messenger service. So IMHO the question is where is the limit? And is the limit based on other factors then just the number of involved people? Also pushing this IMHO this doesn't change any of the problems they want to change. It likely even makes them worse.

emteycz 5y ago

The notion of a government watching over group conversations is scary.

kybernetyk 5y ago
Sadly to most Europeans it's not scary. Even with the terrible track record of European governments.
sveme 5y ago
Is it a group or a public forum? With the t.me links, isn't it more like a public forum?
- emteycz 5y ago
  When have you seen a police officer at public forums? I never saw one, and I don't want to see them online.
BurningPenguin 5y ago
Most governments are not interested in you talking nonsense in your group. They're interested in people planning to overthrow them or other criminal acts. Depending on the type of government that might be good or bad.
dtech 5y ago
We seem pretty used to the idea that the NSA basically watches everything, which we've known since Snowden
- emteycz 5y ago
  I'm still not used to it. I bet it's not just me too, it's just hard to change for us.
Applejinx 5y ago
The notion of a platform watching over group conversations, with its only purpose being engagement, is scarier. There is nothing more engaging than existential threat. As long as anybody anywhere stands to benefit from fomenting the idea of existential threat and using the terror thus inspired to get a social group to exterminate a selected other social group… which is then itself under existential threat and can respond in kind… the only refuge to this is something like a government or legal system watching over this. Otherwise competitive pressure will ensure that the platform fomenting the most fear of existential threat will have the most engagement and will prosper. YouTube seems to have already recognized this and is grappling with it in its own way. I doubt Telegram has any wish to moderate its real purpose for existence and undermine the engagement it must have to survive. And there is nobody who cannot be turned monstrous through invoking existential threat: all the better if it's a realistic fear, it will persist long after the tables are turned and the victim has become the monster in turn. History has shown this really clearly.

Aerroon 5y ago

Sadly, cutting out Germany means that you'd eventually have to cut out the entire EU. If you just block Germany they're going to push on the EU to take up this fight for them. It'll all be in the name of "stopping online abuse" or something like that. Germany, in general, seems to be a very poor country to do digital business compared to most other places. This is the same country that required (requires?) streamers to get a broadcasting license that cost thousands of euros to stream to more than 500 people.

danbruc 5y ago
[...] to stream to more than 500 people. More than 20,000 simultaneous viewers on averaged over a six months period and if the content is considered relevant for public opinion formation.
- Aerroon 5y ago
  It used to be 500 viewers. This change happened because streamers lobbied the government to enact change. Now it's just a higher number. The point of this example is to show what kind of a country it is and what the population of the country seems to think is okay. Digital business is something they seem to want to hinder.
b3orn 5y ago
It's the other way around, if it's not going through local legislation it gets pushed to the EU level. Doing digital business doesn't seem to be that hard considering that in the end everyone still tries to get german customers/subscribers. And the ruling on broadcasting licenses for streamers was relaxed a lot, it's required if you had more than 20 000 viewers on average over the last 6 months, only very few german streamers are affected by that.
- wreath 5y ago
  > And the ruling on broadcasting licenses for streamers was relaxed a lot, it's required if you had more than 20 000 viewers on average over the last 6 months, only very few german streamers are affected by that. That doesn't make it any better. You have +20k viewers on avg last 6 months and the government doesn't like what you are saying for any reason, they revoke your license. If this isn't a control over freedom of speech (and I'm not saying freedom to call violence on people or anything here), I don't know what is really.

kybernetyk 5y ago

Terrorists AND covid deniers? By God, Telegram must be closed ASAP!

sascha_sl 5y ago

The equivalent to section 230 would be Section 10 Telemediengesetz, but from my own experience law enforcement here seizes first and asks questions later for anyone that's not a household name. NetzDG is much less broad, only applying to social networks (so not Telegram) with more than 2M users.

sveme 5y ago
Why is Telegram not a social network? What's the key differences between a social network, a forum and a messenger service (with groups) that we could define to figure out what telegram actually is?
- sascha_sl 5y ago
  well, let's check section 1, paragraph 1-3 of NetzDG >(1) Dieses Gesetz gilt für Telemediendiensteanbieter, die mit Gewinnerzielungsabsicht Plattformen im Internet betreiben, die dazu bestimmt sind, dass Nutzer beliebige Inhalte mit anderen Nutzern teilen oder der Öffentlichkeit zugänglich machen (soziale Netzwerke). We have a requirement for profit motive (so the Fediverse is mostly safe) and sharing arbitrary content with different users (broadly) or the public. >(2) Plattformen mit journalistisch-redaktionell gestalteten Angeboten, die vom Diensteanbieter selbst verantwortet werden, gelten nicht als soziale Netzwerke im Sinne dieses Gesetzes. Blogs and news sites that do not claim the above-mentioned protection under TMG are specifically excluded as social networks here. >(3) Das Gleiche gilt für Plattformen, die zur Individualkommunikation oder zur Verbreitung spezifischer Inhalte bestimmt sind. Further exceptions for "individual communication" and "posting specific content". So I guess a Telegram Group specifically counts as a social network under this definition. It'd be anyone's guess how many people a group needs to no longer count as "individual communication", that's probably for a German court to decide.

ascar 5y ago

I feel this comment is unfairly treated and should be upvoted not downvoted. It provides pretty good insight about the situation. As someone with family members that are being fed conspiracy theories through telegram groups I'm definitely suspicious. On the other hand, if telegram or the telegram group feature is banned another service will just take its place and these people will just feel more oppressed/attacked possibly making the situation worse. Overall I feel social media is a net negative for society because it creates a feedback loop of your own "bubble" with more and more extremist and radical ideas, often with no scientific or even remotely factual basis.

dathinab 5y ago

It might not be a popular opinion, but a group chat of 1000+ people is less messaging(1) and more either social network (through a badly implemented one) or a something like a publishing channel (if used mainly one directional). (1): Messaging in the sense of a digital continuation of letter writing. Still, it's a stupid move. There are endless alternatives. And the problem isn't really caused or amplified by Telegram, Telegram is just an arbitrary chosen tool which happen to meet the requirements for the given use case. It's not even the best tool out there for the given use case. In the end this is nothing more then trying to find a scapegoat to blame a out of control situation on. A situation caused by years of political/social negligence of increasingly out-of-touch political parties combined with out-of-touch media. The choice of choosing it as a scapegoat already shows how out of touch it is, I mean like did they forget that it's one of the most widely used messengers in Germany by all parts of the society?? You are literally telling people which have gotten increasingly suspect of the government and media that the tool they are nicely using since years is supposedly easier. Putting people into a very obvious perceived difference between their reality and what you tell them, without a good reasoning basis, is a pretty sure fire way to lose more trust.

dabber21 5y ago

- Germany has a different take on freedom of speech from the US. Germany has freedom of opinion, they explicitly decided against American style freedom of speech after WW2

dafoex 5y ago

I'm glad you've explained it. Maybe I'm being dumb, but I can't see where the article actually says what laws are being violated.

rndgermandude 5y ago

Yeah, and that wasn't the only example. Here is another recent one[1]: German soldier (so a guy who had prolonged training and access to serious weapons) gives German government an "ultimatum". He was a heavy telegram user as well. I am generally a proponent of as much free speech as possible, as long as it is lawful, and the laws in question are not just authoritarian wet dreams. Inciting violence or making threats is not lawful. It's unlawful not just in Germany but in most other places including the US too, and for good reason. When it comes to these kinds of German telegram groups we're not even talking about thinly-veiled threats where there is wiggle room in interpretation, we're talking about people saying "we're at war and must fight until every politician and traitor is executed. Arm yourself today!". Telegram groups promoting these kinds of threats daily with tens of thousands of members exist, and telegram provides tools to create and promote such groups easily. So I am not buying any claim that they are a mere messenger service. This is therefore one of the few cases where I do not mind the government demanding the company take action, or else face legal consequences up to effectively shutting them down within Germany. What gives me pause at the same time is that German politicians usually do not just demand Telegram shut down clearly illegal speech like threats, but also constantly talk about vague "misinformation"/"fake news"/"conspiracy theories". As much as "fake news" sucks, it cannot be the government in a free society deciding what is "real news". [1] https://www.vice.com/en/article/g5q5vx/german-soldier-covid-vaccine-mandate-video-threat https://www.vice.com/en/article/g5q5vx/german-soldier-covid-...