Russia blocks social media: censorship!!!
Germany blocks social media: this is so cool!
Please note that Apple and Google apparently already started censoring content related to covid on Telegram in Germany a few days ago. Boris Reitschuster’s channel (https://t.me/reitschusterde) with about 300K members is currently not available for the App/Play-Store version of Telegram: https://reitschuster.de/post/zensieren-google-und-apple-jetzt-auch-fremd-bei-telegram-2/
As far is I am aware there is no official statement yet and this may not be censorship but it sure looks that way. Perhaps someone else knows more about this?
While I am not particularly fond of said journalist this is definitely a step into the wrong direction.
Telegram has an apk download which I use (https://telegram.org/android). Better than the google app store. (there is also something in FDroid I believe)
I find justification here interesting given that Telegram doesn’t have feeds like Facebook or Twitter. It’s a point to point messaging service, so is Germany saying that Telegram is supposed to spy on the communication of the users in private groups?
The problem they see is the one-to-many communication, with huge channels where channel creators can post to 100.000 others.
Sure, but the premise here is that the government should be able to control what people are allowed to discuss using online platforms. I don’t necessarily disagree with the notion of limiting harmful speech, but it’s worth pointing out that this is precisely the kind of thing westerners like to criticize China for doing saying that Chinese government is authoritarian.
If we accept that it is reasonable for the government to limit free speech when it’s deemed harmful and to ban platforms that don’t comply then we have to admit that China’s approach to controlling online speech was fundamentally correct. It certainly could be argued that it helped avoid the kind of social instability we now see in the west.
Germany has a democracy, and like you said, harmful speech can be limited. I don’t yet have a clear stance on this specific issue though. I tend to think that it’s unpractical and an overreach by the government. Mostly because they don’t understand the tech and the problem enough.
China has a democracy that clearly functions a lot better than German democracy given that public satisfaction is far higher than any western government. Harvard research center study of long-term public opinion survey finds extremely high government approval. People who actually live in China say their country is democratic.
edit: it will never cease to amaze me how westerners form strong opinions about China without having the first clue about it. Thinking that you understand a country better than people who actually live there shows an incredible amount of chauvinism.
I don’t want to discuss this any further.
It’s not ok for the government to limit what you can say.
What about threats of violence?
That’s an easy and obvious case to make a small exception for. But not a good reason for this kind of widespread censorship.
Widespread? Afaik the only thing that was banned was a couple of 1 to many thousand channels that spread neo nazi propaganda and anti vax content. Many are still up of course.
I don’t think it’s effective to do this btw.
