Ukraine's GUR head believes "anonymous" Telegram channel owners should register so the Agency knows who's behind them
Ukraine's GUR head believes "anonymous" Telegram channel owners should register so the Agency knows who's behind them
Кирило Буданов - найпублічніший керівник воєнної розвідки не тільки в історії України, а й в масштабах всього світу. Його прогнози вже не такі оптимістичні, але, як стверджує він, Україна не програє у цій війні.
Just for the context GUR is Ukraine's Main Intelligence Agency. Practically like the CIA is in the US.
The relevant part, translated:
BBC: You recently spoke about Telegram being a problem for Ukraine.
Kyrylo Budanov: I can repeat that again for you. It is a huge problem.
BBC: And what can be done about it?
Kyrylo Budanov: Or, as they say, to put it in order - at least legally force everyone to register, so it is clear who is behind which media resource, and Telegram has already definitely acquired the status of media. There is no question of influence or pressure - the issue is not about that. If you want to promote your position - and it may not please someone and that is normal in a democratic society - take responsibility. What are you afraid to say who you are?
BBC: So you're talking about anonymous Telegram channels?
Kyrylo Budanov: They are all anonymous. Do you know a single Telegram channel that openly said I am this person? That's the answer.
BBC: Could their closure become a solution to this problem? Blocking?
Kyrylo Budanov: Temporarily yes, but I still believe they need to be forced to register. This will not be pressure on the press. In a democratic society, I say again, you cannot simply exert pressure...
Why am I even telling you this? You are a media representative. Would you be very happy if someone came to you and said: that's it, from now on you write like this? Of course, that would be abnormal. But being afraid to say who you are is also wrong. And throwing anything into the ether on behalf of an anonymous person, excuse me, paid from completely different parts of the world is also abnormal.
"We're not pressuring them, we are merely holding them accountable"
Homie needs to stfu and realize that he's the middleman in a proxy war and stop saying stupid shit in public that could damage his ability to do his job.
And it's incredibly stupid shit.
35Lmao, I like this kind of political commentary
7It's interesting how the biggest comments either pretend there is no war, or remove Ukrainian self-determination from discussion of it.
Seems kind of like those people who try to lump in Palestinians in Gaza with some imaginary monolith of "all Muslims" in the middle east.
-5Ukrainian self determination ended with CIA coup in 2013. Ukraine was no longer a sovereign state from that point when Yanukovich, the democratically elected president, was forced to flee his country. CIA's coup in 2003 failed and Ukraine was still sovereign until 2013.
Honestly, you should be scared that Zelensky has said twice that he wants Ukraine to be the new Israel, and begged for WW3 last year.
-5
Yea Ukrainian government does want to make it a censored state. Good luck with that and joining the EU with such positions lol
28- 9
Last time I checked, Ukraine is fighting a war against a Russian invasion.
During World War II, the US censored pictures of dead soldiers until 1943. And that was without a war happening on American soil.
-7And that was wrong
23In Ukraine they have real bad censorship ideas and I'm against censorship of any form. What I'm the most worried about is the fact that one of the military related ministers (or maybe ex ministers I don't remember) has the highest chance of becoming the next president (at least the last time I saw the stats). That's a straight way to dictatorship and also the government tries their best to make the people truly aggressive to Russians (no matter who they are) and even kinda fascistic is general. There's nothing good about it, even in the current situation. And at the same time they're accusing Russia in doing the same (which is true but doesn't justify Ukraine) lol
12
If you want to promote your position - and it may not please someone and that is normal in a democratic society - take responsibility. What are you afraid to say who you are?
While I understand the problems the propaganda machines of Russia and China (among other) causes, this here is some stupid shit
Try to criticize Putin openly while living in Russia, speak up for the freedom to love and have sex with whoever you want in Uganda or publish pictures of Muhammad as a dog and sign all of it with your name and see what will happen.
Anonymity is a double edged sword. While being "nice to have" in a democracy it's a "must have" in a dictatorship.
22I think a lot of people might be sympathetic to the idea that in wartime, you need to be stricter because of the incredibly high stakes. That Ukraine is at war, so they need to find and deal with these sources of disinformation.
I think those same people need to realize that the policies never get rolled back to a more liberal state when the war is over.
It sucks that this is a systemic advantage for authoritarians. It really sucks. It feels bad. But it's the handicap you have to accept to resist authoritarianism.
-1
In most "democratic" society authors have the right to be published anonymously
21Yeah leave us alone
11Good luck with that.
9And animity keeps democracies alive. For without anonymity, democracies would soon turn into dictatorships.
9Why are people still using telegram anyway... Much better options out there
5People always complain on Lemmy about Telegram and point at alternatives that are theoretically better in terms of security and privacy.
Yet the security and privacy on Lemmy are good enough that you routinely see governments complaining about how they can't get at the info on Telegram like this story here, all while Telegram has a UI and experience that blows every competing messenger completely away.
9I'm guessing that due to the small size of Lemmy and the political nature of this post, there might be a lot of visitors who aren't aware of how bad Telegram is at protecting privacy.
Telegram has disclosed names of administrators, their phone numbers and IP addresses of channels
It shouldn't have had that data available to begin with...
4
To be frank I have used it since it started way back and it continues to have the best user experience among messengers. I myself don't use it for any crucial information but as a messenger with it's featureset it's second to none. When a better alternative pops up which will have a better UI and such an extensive featureset I will probably switch over
9-
Excellent UI (WhatsApp keeps copying them, but they're still ahead)
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Open-source client
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Good support for bots (very useful for group mods)
8-
Because 90% of my contacts use Telegram
7Piracy
6