Telegram messaging app blocks some 'public' ISIS-related channels

Thursday 19th November 2015 14:50 GMT HollyHopDrive

Blocking accounts is surely backwards logic. Surely not blocking accounts and grassing up any bastard the posts or reads their idilogical bull shit would be a far better proposition. And make it public knowledge that it's how you run your service.(I.e. the Gov don't have to ask for the data you just offer it up proactively) That way terrorists and sympathisers are unlikely to use it unless they want an army of angry looking military personnel coming to their house with some guns to have a word. May have to block access from TOR/anonymous networks though.

Could be wrong (and I'm sure there must be a flaw in the plan somewhere), but that has to be easier than playing wack-a-mole and may lead to actually catching some scumbags in the act.

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1. Thursday 19th November 2015 15:50 GMT Alistair Swanson
  
  How will that trap them?
  
  If you make it "public knowledge" that they'll be grassed up, terrorists/sympathisers will not use the service so no scumbags will be caught.
  
  As a better idea, they could just put it in the terms and conditions of use and then use it to spy on terrorists/sympathisers, meaning that ~90% of them won't realise they are being spied upon...
  
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  1. Friday 20th November 2015 14:24 GMT e^iÏ+1=0
    
    Re: How will that trap them?
    
    "public knowledge"
    
    'just put it in the terms and conditions'
    
    I like this concept. Terms and conditions aren't "public knowledge" because no normal person reads them!
    
    Just include in the t&cs, buried deep, something along the lines of "thou shalt not promote terr'ist ideals etc, etc, cont p94."
    
    Any user contravening p94 gets doxed to NSA, GCHQ and so on.
    
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Thursday 19th November 2015 15:25 GMT Peter Simpson 1

Late to the party, much?

Telegram seems to have had no problem with Daesh using their service up until it was publicised. Now, they decide to take action?

I'm all for allowing freedom of speech, and not censoring. When that speech involves gratuitous beheadings, rape and slavery, my tolerance level is a lot lower.

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1. Thursday 19th November 2015 16:37 GMT Robert Helpmann??
  
  Re: Late to the party, much?
  
  When that speech involves gratuitous beheadings, rape and slavery, my tolerance level is a lot lower.
  
  So what would non-gratuitous beheadings, rape and slavery look like?
  
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  1. Thursday 19th November 2015 23:33 GMT Mark 85
    
    Re: Late to the party, much?
    
    So what would non-gratuitous beheadings, rape and slavery look like?
    
    Probably much like an old Hollywood movie. Same beheading, rape, and slavery but no blood and happy rape victims and slaves. Let's not forget the Busby Berkley singing and dancing also.
    
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  2. Friday 20th November 2015 14:27 GMT e^iÏ+1=0
    
    Re: Late to the party, much?
    
    "So what would non-gratuitous beheadings, rape and slavery look like?"
    
    Game of Thrones, or some kind of Viking thingummy?
    
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Thursday 19th November 2015 16:12 GMT DN4

telegram i remember them stop now stop

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Thursday 19th November 2015 18:47 GMT Suricou Raven

I have a better proposal.

Don't disable the accounts. Just set them so anything they post can only be viewed by themselves so they don't realize they are shouting to no-one. And if you do disable them, set up a 48-hour IP blacklist too. Either way, it gets a bit harder for them to just set up new accounts right away.

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Thursday 19th November 2015 21:18 GMT i1ya

We see nice PR here

by the way, Telegram is a secure messaging service, they don't have to block terrorists (or anyone), it's just not within their competence. So blocking ISIS accounts looks more like an act of good will from them and an attempt to address bad publicity. Pavel Durov, creator of Telegram, was author of a very popular in Russian segment Facebook clone, VKontakte, but was pushed by the government-friendly oligarchs into selling it.

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