‘Russians do everything via Telegram.’ Pavel Durov’s arrest upends Kremlin military comms.
Telegram founder and CEO Pavel Durov was arrested Saturday night by French authorities on allegations that his social media platform was being used for child pornography, drug trafficking and organized crime. The move sparked debate over free speech worldwide from prominent anti-censorship figures including Elon Musk, Robert F. Kennedy. Jr. and Edward Snowden. However, "the immediate freakout came from Russia," reports Politico. "That's because Telegram is widely used by the Russian military for battlefield communications thanks to problems with rolling out its own secure comms system. It's also the primary vehicle for pro-war military bloggers and media -- as well as millions of ordinary Russians." From the report:
"They practically detained the head of communication of the Russian army," Russian military blogger channel Povernutie na Z Voine said in a Telegram statement. The blog site Dva Mayora said that Russian specialists are working on an alternative to Telegram, but that the Russian army's Main Communications Directorate has "not shown any real interest" in getting such a system to Russian troops. The site said Durov's arrest may actually speed up the development of an independent comms system. Alarmed Russian policymakers are calling for Durov's release.
"[Durov's] arrest may have political grounds and be a tool for gaining access to the personal information of Telegram users," the Deputy Speaker of the Russian Duma Vladislav Davankov said in a Telegram statement. "This cannot be allowed. If the French authorities refuse to release Pavel Durov from custody, I propose making every effort to move him to the UAE or the Russian Federation. With his consent, of course." Their worry is that Durov may hand over encryption keys to the French authorities, allowing access to the platform and any communications that users thought was encrypted.
French President Emmanuel Macron said Monday that the arrest of Durov was "in no way a political decision." The Russian embassy has demanded that it get access to Durov, but the Kremlin has so far not issued a statement on the arrest. "Before saying anything, we should wait for the situation to become clearer," said Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov. However, officials and law enforcement agencies were instructed to clear all their communication from Telegram, the pro-Kremlin channel Baza reported. "Everyone who is used to using the platform for sensitive conversations/conversations should delete those conversations right now and not do it again," Kremlin propagandist Margarita Simonyan said in a Telegram post. "Durov has been shut down to get the keys. And he's going to give them."
Edit: Not sure where the Slashdot summary got "Edward Snowden", but he's not mentioned in any of the links.
Damn lmao.
Imagine the US Military relying on WhatsApp for communication.
Orks are fucking stupid.
They’re not the only ones. Social media mind cancer has swept the world and will most likely destroy it.
Turns out people will do just about anything to avoid learning how computers work.
What does the US Military use?
Nice try, Private Conscriptovich.
That's more like a Polish surname by the look of it.
This insanely complicated system that doesn't really have parallels in other messaging systems. Tons of different systems, dedicated hardware, etc. These systems are specifically designed for military use and do not have direct parallels with civilian messaging apps
Source: almost enlisted to do communications (out of desperation, I hate the military)
Snapchat
kagis
Apparently "SINCGARS".
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SINCGARS
Grindr.
Private email servers.
Facebook Messenger
According to some national guardsmen I saw on the highway awhile ago, a smartphone ducktaped to a megaphone blaring caramelldansen.
MSN messenger
Haha yeah it would be absolute clownhood if US government employees with security clearances high up in the administration were using WhatsApp.
I don't understand why they repeated themselves here?
Also Musk routinely stifles free speech on his platform.
That’s not true. Per citizens united, money is free speech. As there is only a limited amount of free speech to go around, he allocates it by net worth on the platform.
"free speech" as implied by the constitution is a governance between citizens and the government. it has zero to do with private entities like twitter
Except that Musk declared himself a free speech absolutist. It's fair to call him out when he censures posts on his website.
except this has nothing to do at all with freedom of speech.
It's not a First Amendment issue, but freedom of speech doesn't have to merely mean "First Amendment". Hell, in all but one of the countries out there, it means something different in one way or another.
It has everything to do with him being a hypocrite.
Yeah, that's the same thing they say after bitching for years when it went against them.
They don't hate censorship, they just hate being censored and want to control who gets censored
Musk has literally said he wanted to change twitter to be like the US law on free speech so Musk made it relevant to his private entity.
Except (currently) in the US the amendment (is supposed to) cover all speech, not exclusively bigoted content from neo-Nazis.
tit doesnt matter what he says about his private entity, or its content policy. it has nothing to do with the government preventing humans from speaking.
Seriously... Were Jill Stein and Tucker Carlson not available for comment?
Lmfao, the russian military is using telegram? That is insane. We use it for furry groups. Can't believe they'd trust it for life or death situations. Develop your own secure communication, morons, haha.
They tried, it was too hard.
!piracy@lemmy.dbzer0.com has an interesting take on this.
Why anyone would use telegram when there's copious better options is beyond me
What are those?
You mixed and matched a lot of different sources in your summary, and did a fair amount of editorializing, it was honestly pretty confusing. Ed Snowden, for example, isn’t mentioned in any of your links, but you tossed him in with RFK and Musk, which misrepresents his ideology pretty seriously.
I’d suggest keeping it simple, post one link and one summary of it if you feel the need. Maybe I’m overthinking it, but this post doesn’t feel right.
Ed Snowden, the Ron Paul supporter Ed Snowden? The Ed Snowden who took hundreds of thousands of documents which he didn't release to journalists to Russia? The Ed Snowden who wanted the death penalty for whistleblowers before a black man became president? He's different from RFK and Musk?
[Citation needed]
https://www.newsweek.com/2017/01/20/why-obama-wont-pardon-edward-snowden-nsa-538632.html
So nothing but the word of his accusers, got it.
As opposed to...?
Who else is going to have the information necessary to make an analysis?
You can disbelieve the House report if you want, and you wouldn't be wrong about them being biased, but the only other source for estimating Snowden's actions within the context of what he did vs. what he released is Snowden's own claims; and though this may come as a shock, he, not unlike the US government, is also biased and has a history of tall-tale-telling.
Elon is a prominent censorship figure.
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MBFC claims CNN is Left-Center, when it is owned by conservative billionaire John Malone, one of the largest landlords in the world. Lemmy.World mods need to stop feeding flak organizations like MBFC. Corporate propaganda is harmful to democracy.
They've made statement they they like the bot, and it's staying. 🙄
They've also removed comments critical of the bot, and ignored the overwhelming negative feedback and the consensus that the bot should be removed when they've opened the discussion up to the community.
I'd be satisfied if my criticism changed the mods minds, but at this point they are not my target audience. My goal in these comments is to inform those who are on the fence about why the bot is a bad idea, and signal boost the consensus that the bot's assessments are illegitimate.
Sure, well put.
It's good to have a moment where mods of a platform show their hand, sets my expectations, and tailors my behavior.
Like, I'm just being me, not trying to stir things up, but this, among a few other actions have made clear to me that if the axe ever falls I'm going to be fine without Lemmy, it's not worth much.
That's not the conclusion I'd like you to draw. I'm an admin of a Lemmy instance. I wouldn't volunteer so much of my time if I didn't think Lemmy was valuable.
Lemmy.World has a central role in the Threadiverse, but not an essential one. Sh.itjust.works, Lemm.ee, Reddthat.com or another general instance could easily take over that role if the consensus determines that Lemmy.World doesn't deserve it. Beehaw.org is the largest instance to de-federate from LW, and if things continue or get worse, LW's admin's actions may result in a re-ordering of the Threadiverse structure. Lemmy.World is not the same as the Theadiverse.
This is a radical option that is not possible in any corporate form of social media. If it occurs or the specter of it instigates the LW admins to relent, it would be a huge victory for democracy on the Threadiverse. A Lemmy instance can't exist without its hosts and admins, but it also relies on the consensus of its commenters, posters, and voters. This gives you as a participant unprecedented control of how the communities that you build engage with the news and the world.
As just some dude, I will reflect on your words
Same. Maybe I’ve been here too long and it’s time to fire up an alt on a different instance.
Thing is, I'm entirely happy with lemm.ee
How so: I never notice it. There's never problems, just our admin regularly improving and supporting it.
The problem is it almost seems like federation has allowed people to hyper specialize to a level they can't coexist. I think there's a lot of cross instance unhappiness percolating, before defederation. It seems like on other platforms, admins and mods with different attitudes had to put up with each other.
But, I literally don't know shit about fuck