The National Court orders to block Telegram in Spain
Judge Santiago Pedraz of the National Court has ordered the blocking of the Telegram messaging platform in Spain. This is a precautionary measure in response
Blocking a large messaging platform because a minority of people are using it for piracy, of all things, seems extremely disproportionate
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.
The other messaging apps offering better privacy on top of that, making it harder to control.
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.
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.
Honestly, Telegram sucks. Use Signal for private communications and Matrix for groups/communities.
Telegram is great for nothing related to privacy.
It's not great if security is your main goal for organizing, but it has a better user experience than most chat apps. Especially if cross platform chatting is important to you.
Matrix is good for personal communications too The us companies made you to use phone numbers for chatting Id's are convenient
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.
Why Signal is a bad idea
This is BS, half of it is pure speculation, the other half consists of conspiracy theories.
Does Telegram have anything that torrents and usenet don't?
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.
Lots and lots of sticker packs.
It's normie-accessible
Actually, yes, there are a few groups with unique niche content that isn't available anywhere else.
Good luck ban it, Telegram runs everywhere without playstore and with proxy.
Truly Spain without the S
My buddy in Spain says the block it pretty easier to get around at least.
You know Telegram is secure when every government in the world is trying to ban it.
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?
Just use Signal if you want an easy, relatively privacy friendly and secure messenger.
Telegram hands over data to goverments, is infested with spammers and scammers and its encryption is not end to end for group chat which lets Telegram access those chats.
Edit: Telegram is great for lots of things like big groups, communities, piracy, drugs etc but its just not the place where you should expect secure communication.
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.
All of that is more reliable then an entity based in the US.
WTF is this ignorant "I know what they want but I'm smarter" crap, if you don't know how it works you know nothing, and "what they want" you get from news.
I know of a few governments not trying to really. Like the Russian one.
Read something about its internals before saying something as stupid.
XMPP with OMEMO is secure (not for targeted attacks, in that case you'll just get a trojan on your Android device via some unclosed vulnerability and finita la comedia, or rubber hose cryptanalysis will be applied).
Spain? Really? I thought they had a pretty left government?
This is one of the rare things where the Spanish left and right agree, for different reasons.
Simplifying a lot:
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.
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.
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.
They do, but this is coming from a right-dominated tribunal known to be extremely conservative and reactionary in nature.
You dont have to boil down everything to "left vs right" especially not in Europe. Because if you do, blocking a chat app is by definition a leftist thing to do because of the government interference.
Please keep the American team vs team culture away from Europe.
What is the relationship between the government ideology and the court system? Both are independent from each other.
Lol.
Eh, the tech-illiterate come in all shapes, sizes, and flavors.
It's a monarchy
As if this is something good.
Infinitely better than a hard-right government.
I hijack the post to ask for a telegram client suggestions?
you didn't specify your system. If android then there are regularly updated solutions on fdroid. On Linux I'm just using the flathub official package
