Telegram repeatedly refuses to join child protection schemes

[squarefoot]

Here's a cartoon I found years ago that says it better than a thousand words. I posted it like a half dozen times, and it keeps being spot on.

https://starecat.com/content/wp-content/uploads/control-of-i...

[southernplaces7]

I guess when you label your mendacious, snooping, encryption-breaking, backdoor sneak schemes created for the sake of easier mass surveillance as "child protection measures", moral alchemy turns them into wholesome good programs that only monsters would object to.

[SXX]

Yeah it's all true except 99% of Telegram is not encrypted by design and majority of content is publicly accessible to anyone with account

I would agree with you if Telegram actually had e2ee like Signal. But it isn't. No encryption breaking required to moderate public content.

[codedokode]

Note that only US-companies are required by (US, I guess) law to join these programs.

Also note this part:

> IWF said that the company did remove CSAM once material was confirmed but said it was slower and less responsive to day-to-day requests.

So in the end Telegram removed the content.

I think it would be better if Telegram used the hash lists, however I think that they should use manual review and not remove content automatically, because this is an US platform that theoretically can be misused to remove legal content that US govt doesn't like.

[LorenPechtel]

Hash lists aren't that hard to defeat. They'll stop the amateurs tossing stuff around endlessly but the real problem--the creators--will know to keep changing it up a little bit.

And the capability to remove anything means they have to respond to secret orders from the government to remove something.

[MichaelRo]

Easiest thing is to say that you are protecting children. End to end encryption is that technology which ensures that when your wife sends you the shopping list on WhatsApp, tavarish militsiyan cannot eavesdrop and see that you ran out of toilet paper and liquid soap. But they must see! What if you accidentally dropped some pedoporno on that list? It's for kids protection!

So with this attack on Telegram encryption, definitely EU didn't wanna see what political opponents are doing or who's organizing what protest so they undermine it before it happens. We're just hunting pedophiles, what's your problem?

[akomtu]

From the french gov's perspective, telegram is a worldwide web of underground tunnels that are inaccessible to the gov. And the gov, being a paranoidal control-freak, gets really upset when you're hiding something from it.

[rKarpinski]

> Another norm that Telegram does not conform to in the usual way

Seems beyond a "norm" if your CEO is jailed for not "conforming"

[sixhobbits]

"He was jailed for not following norms and we know he was not following norms because he was jailed" is maybe slightly circular

[libertine]

Well, not to play the devils advocate but there have been several instances where most of Europe, including France, made efforts to protect children. Just in the recent conflicts:

EU is against genocide in Ukraine, where more than 500 children were killed and +25.000 children were kidnapped and filtrated in Russia. A deliberate action to eliminate Ukrainians and the Ukrainian culture.

In this case, Putin has several arrest warrants for crimes against Humanity and War Crimes in European countries, and other countries of course, and it will be a matter of time before genocide charges will be set.

They have also been giving aid to Sudan children.

Not to mention they have an unequivocal stance about child casualties in the war Israel-Hamas war:

> The European Council deplores all loss of civilian life. It notes with utmost concern the unacceptable number of civilian casualties, especially children, as well as the catastrophic levels of hunger and imminent risk of famine caused by the insufficient entry of aid into Gaza. It calls on all parties to take every feasible step to protect civilian lives.[0]

They also condemn Hamas terrorist attacks and their usage of Palestinians as protection, including children.

So I don't see that much of a contrast; they seem pretty consistent in supporting child protection.

Do you have better references for countries that are doing a better job at child protection than the EU? So we can have some contrasting measures to understand where the EU is lacking and where others are doing better - after all the EU isn't perfect and has a margin for improvement, it's quite a new organization.

[0]https://www.consilium.europa.eu/en/policies/eu-humanitarian-...

[notinmykernel]

Backdooring a social media platform to undermine encryption "in the name of children"... It's for child safety alone. Sure. ::insert eye roll::

[SXX]

Telegram is not really encrypted. No one blame Signal that you can send whatever on it.

[amy-petrik-214]

Hot take: the way to end CSAM (childhoods sexual abusing MPEGs (motion picture expert group) ) aka CP (childhood predator images) for those whom don't know the acronyms -- it is to legalize (((AI generatrated))) CSAM. No child harmed. As we see the internet is already full of AI slop, there can be no question that an infinite amount of CSAMslop may be generated. The reason why this is good, is because anyone looking to profit or market REAL such material, now there is no longer a market to sell it, nor is there a market for giving it for free to get some sort of fucked up pedo kudos. For people who are actual victims and their data shared, their data is but a drop in a vast ocean.

[cowboylowrez]

whats the three parentheses mean? I've seen the two in bash, but rarely more than one in regular online chat.