At various times, most social media platforms have received criticism for alleged failure to prevent distribution of copyright-infringing content. Few, however, have been threatened with widespread blocking more often than Telegram. In a row that seemed ready to boil over last year, Telegram was given an ultimatum by the Malaysian government; come to the negotiating table or face the consequences. A Malaysian minister now says that Telegram is ready to fight piracy.
Maloyse absolutely can:
- eavesdrop above Alice’s shoulder
- be an evil, militarily dressed maid on
BobAlice’s home - have remote administrative permissions on Bob’s phone
- (“accidentally”) get a full-workspace snapshot of Charlie’s desktop while he has the group open in Signal Desktop
- Sneak around and check the phone while Alice and Donny are having sex
- Hit Charlie with a $5 wrench
Yes, but we’re discussing group chats disseminating piracy links. Do you think it’s harder to join such a group chat and report it to signal than it is to do all the cloak and dagger nonsense?
Which one is harder has zero relevance upon how much work Signal has to do to vet the contents transmitted on the channels, which is zero, nil, because they can’t. Even if it was Charlie who reported the channel, Signal intentionally has no practical means to verify neither the accused contents nor the authenticity of the report. And this is actually good.
Infrastructure-wise, Signal (mostly) limits itself to only being a carrier. In a just world, a carrier who has been set up to take the limited responsibility of a carrier is not liable for the contents of carried things that are protected so that the carrier can not peek into. Sure, they can be legally pressed to change that and “upgrade” their lawyer plan to “content vetter”, but as far as I know that hasn’t happened yet.
