this post was submitted on 23 Mar 2024
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Piracy: ꜱᴀɪʟ ᴛʜᴇ ʜɪɢʜ ꜱᴇᴀꜱ

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[–] [email protected] 123 points 1 year ago (2 children)

Blocking a large messaging platform because a minority of people are using it for piracy, of all things, seems extremely disproportionate

[–] [email protected] 40 points 1 year ago (1 children)

And it is pointless too as there are countless other messaging apps that can be used and countless others ways that can be created to circumvent. Law makers clearly do not get tech.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

The other messaging apps offering better privacy on top of that, making it harder to control.

[–] [email protected] 20 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I mean Telegram has been blocked in Russia before and it didn't stop their operations for too long. At best now some engineer at telegram has one more ticket and things will be back to normal.

[–] [email protected] 9 points 1 year ago

and it didn’t stop their operations for too long

You had to change proxies regularly, so it did. With some ISPs, at least.

I think it wasn't for really blocking it, just to test whether they can block it if they need it, during some big events.

[–] [email protected] 21 points 1 year ago (5 children)

Honestly, Telegram sucks. Use Signal for private communications and Matrix for groups/communities.

[–] [email protected] 21 points 1 year ago

Telegram is great for nothing related to privacy.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 1 year ago (1 children)

It's the best app when it comes to functionality. It has it all.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Can you name a feature that other apps are missing?

[–] [email protected] 13 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (11 children)
  • You can schedule messages
  • Have supergroups, subgroups, broadcasts, admin roles in groups,...
  • Channels can be configured in various ways. For example, you can post messages and choose the type of previews links render.
  • You can add voting options to posts
  • Members of the channel can only reply in threads so the replies are bundled.
  • You can decide wheter new group members can view chat history or not.
  • Members can be muted.
  • Bots can be built withing the app
  • Chats can be arranged in folders *...

I could go on.

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[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Matrix is good for personal communications too The us companies made you to use phone numbers for chatting Id's are convenient

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I mean, sure, you can use Matrix for personal chats. It's perfectly secure, but it's not as easy to use as Signal. For example, if I told my grandma to install Element and send me her Matrix ID, she would be really confused. Signal is very easy to use, and the user experience is basically the same as on mainstream platforms like WhatsApp. I also don't think that the phone number requirement is a US thing, as Telegram also has it. Signal only requires phone numbers to prevent spam, but they recently introduced usernames, so you don't have to give people your phone number in order for them to message you.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Element is just a piece of shit. Matrix is fine for almost all use cases. If you actually need metadata protection use Session.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago (1 children)

The old version of Element ain't great, but it is currently being replaced with a complete new, rewritten app called Element X. Check it out, it's really awesome. Session isn't good at protecting metadata, as it removes important parts of the Signal protocol, in order to work on a decentralized network. Just using Signal is probably the best solution for private communications.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Yes.

My server doesn't support sliding sync.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago

That's unfortunate

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[–] [email protected] 18 points 1 year ago (5 children)

Does Telegram have anything that torrents and usenet don't?

[–] [email protected] 26 points 1 year ago

It indeed empowers common people by distributing full seasons of series all in one place in a somewhat user friendly way without "10 chicks in 10mt" popups.

A bunch of my friends, who don't even know how to install an adblocker, have a very rich catalog of things there.

Also, it is more difficult for a telegram channel to be banned than a website.

[–] [email protected] 22 points 1 year ago (1 children)
[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Sticker packs are a gateway drug to, well, drugs. Which you can buy on telegram too of course.

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[–] [email protected] 16 points 1 year ago

It's normie-accessible

[–] [email protected] 6 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Probably not, but Telegram is very easy to use.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

So are Signal, Element, Revolt and many other apps. What's to special about Telegram?

[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 year ago

It has it all and 900 million users.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago

Actually, yes, there are a few groups with unique niche content that isn't available anywhere else.

[–] [email protected] 13 points 1 year ago

Good luck ban it, Telegram runs everywhere without playstore and with proxy.

[–] [email protected] 9 points 1 year ago

Sounds like EU will need to unblock it again... But Faschistoid governments do such things from time to time... (idiots)

[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 year ago (7 children)

Spain? Really? I thought they had a pretty left government?

[–] [email protected] 16 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (2 children)

This is one of the rare things where the Spanish left and right agree, for different reasons.

Simplifying a lot:

  • The left generally supports culture, actors, theatre, writers, Spanish made movies. They see piracy as a threat to the earnings of those people.
  • The right has historically cut any sorts of subsidies to the "culture creators", but they see piracy as a threat to the publishing, TV (...) industries.

They both support SGAE, which translates cleanly to the General Society of Authors and Editors, who protects their interests by charging fees to everyone who dares look at copyrighted work.

  • You own a bar and you play TV, Radio, or Spotify? You have to pay SGAE.
  • You buy a computer, part of the money goes to SGAE.
  • You buy a blank CD, DVD, Hard Drive, you pay SGAE (because they know you will put copyrighted material there, and if you don't, well, fuck you)

It's a fucked up system and I don't know if things have changed in the past few years as I don't live in Spain anymore. But it honestly feels like a prosecution of the population who is so evil and trying to destroy Spanish Culture.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Tbh switzerland has a similar system to the SGAE, where there is a "hidden tax" on all devices that you can load with data. And in turn the downloading of media (with the exclusion of computerprograms and games) is legal. Only the upload of copyrighted material is forbidden.

Not a bad system imo, the tax is so small that you dont really notice it so its a pretty consumer-friendly and piracy-friendly solution. Altho I assume the swiss government gets away with it because it would be too expensive to lobby/legal for a copyrightsholder-favoured system compared with the small amount of people (let alone pirate) who live here.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 1 year ago

That's different, we also have a "canon digital" which means you pay an extra tax on all copying and storing devices. But that has nothing to do with the SGAE, which is a corrupt organization that funnels money to their artist list, instead of giving it to the actual artists that are being played.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I'd actually agree with it IF they also didn't bother harassing piracy. So fuck 'em until then.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 1 year ago

Yeah, true. Charging a tax on downloaded copyrighted material can be kinda okay if you don't actively chase it. It's not right to charge people a penalty for doing something but then prevent them from doing it. You can't have it both ways, if it's not right you can chase it, but don't make me pay for doing something I'm not allowed to do! That would be like having to preemptively pay traffic fines before you actually drive over the speed limit, just in case.

[–] [email protected] 10 points 1 year ago

They do, but this is coming from a right-dominated tribunal known to be extremely conservative and reactionary in nature.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 year ago (1 children)

What is the relationship between the government ideology and the court system? Both are independent from each other.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 year ago
[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago

Eh, the tech-illiterate come in all shapes, sizes, and flavors.

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[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago (3 children)

You know Telegram is secure when every government in the world is trying to ban it.

[–] [email protected] 33 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Not actually, the end to end encryption is not active by default for example. Its just that telegram is more of a unmoderated social media than a messaging app.

Signal, Matrix and similar are way safer but don't usually have large piracy groups.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 year ago (1 children)

To be honest Telegram doesn't ban private groups "for piracy" and only takes out public groups that receive a DMCA.

I think the above user is pointing out a rather fun fact - if you're in some of the many private groups where shit is shared freely.....those wanting to ban it don't like the fact that they can't see in those private groups.

Like, is there any evidence of private groups being monitored by media corps or their lackeys in gov?

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago (1 children)

This doesn't make it secure for anything else. There are also plenty of private torrent trackers.

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[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago (1 children)

The CEO is a Russian, the company is based out of Dubai, and messages aren't encrypted by default. In fact, only private messages can be encrypted, group messages cannot. Telegram is not a trustworthy platform and a champion for user privacy like most people think, Signal is what you're looking for.

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