Because we want to, and we can. I don't get how HN consistently fails to understand the actual social and political process by which regulations are made. I constantly see this argument which effectively boils down to "if you ban a thing, you will also need to ban everything else, which is absurd, so you shouldn't ban anything". But in real life we can choose what we ban. Everything is a trade-off; we can choose to ban something if the harm it creates is considered to outweigh its benefit to society.
It is open to society to decide that Telegram is more proximate to the harm being caused, and less otherwise socially useful, than an ISP, and on that basis punish the former but not the latter. (It is also reasonable to argue that Telegram is not sufficiently proximate to the harm and that it is sufficiently socially useful that it should be allowed to operate, and honestly I sympathise with that argument more. But my point is that it is a matter of weighing social harm vs benefit and not just a technical analysis of "where the bits go".)
If you get caught driving a getaway car for an armed robber, you are going to jail. Arguing "ah, but by that logic you'll also have to jail the guy who sold the robber his breakfast" isn't going to cut it, and rightly so.
Because 'we' want to. Who is this 'we' you are speaking about? Globalist authoritarian elite that you are somehow part of? Democratic voters? Communication application users? Whose this 'we'?
Well in Telegram's case the idea is that they knowingly provide taxi services to those criminals and do supposedly nothing when it's reported to them because they are "too small" to moderate everything
How do they "knowingly" service criminals ? Is there a check box to state that you are a criminal when you message someone ? I just installed Telegram and can't find it.
If we start weighing "social harm vs benefit" and not "where the bits go" - we quickly come to the Third Reich and "social harm vs benefit" of the Jewish people.
> But in real life we can choose what we ban. Everything is a trade-off; we can choose to ban something if the harm it creates is considered to outweigh its benefit to society.
This is the principle behind, and popularize by, Nazism and Soviet-style communism. In short, it is the arbitrary use of force against whichever targets the ruling bureaucrats deem to be "socially harmful". This principle leads inevitably to mass murder and war, as history has shown repeatedly and without exception.
You seem to fantasize that you'll be in the in-group who gets to decide who is harmful. But then one day it will be you who is considered harmful. And the state will sacrifice your life for the "benefit of society".
It is the principle behind all government. In fact it is not much more than a basic description of the concept of a government. Your government bans stuff too, I guarantee it.
No fantasies here, the state does plenty that I disagree with. But the idea that societies can regulate harmful conduct is not really that controversial outside of HN and a few other particularly libertarian bits of the internet.
It's certainly the principle behind most governments. But not all. The one shining exception is the United States of America. That government was founded on an entirely different principle, the principle of individual rights. This principle says that man, due to his nature, has rights that no one else, not even his government, is allowed to violate. These rights are not granted and revoked by government, but protected by it. And if the government violates those rights in a significant way, it is a person's duty to overthrow that government. This was a truly radical position in 1776. Unfortunately, it is still radical today, and little understood.
If you'd like to learn more about this, google the "Declaration of Independence" or "The Rights of Man" by the philosopher John Locke.
> That government was founded on an entirely different principle, the principle of individual rights. This principle says that man, due to his nature, has rights that no one else, not even his government, is allowed to violate.
That's far from a uniquely US principle. See, for example, the European Declaration of Human Rights.
The US places more emphasis on individual rights over the rights of the community, which is its prerogative, but the US is an outlier; most liberal democracies accept a little more restriction on individual rights for the good of the community.
You can argue it either way, but a lot of US commentators seem to get outraged that other countries might have a different viewpoint.
Because we want to, and we can. I don't get how HN consistently fails to understand the actual social and political process by which regulations are made. I constantly see this argument which effectively boils down to "if you ban a thing, you will also need to ban everything else, which is absurd, so you shouldn't ban anything". But in real life we can choose what we ban. Everything is a trade-off; we can choose to ban something if the harm it creates is considered to outweigh its benefit to society.
It is open to society to decide that Telegram is more proximate to the harm being caused, and less otherwise socially useful, than an ISP, and on that basis punish the former but not the latter. (It is also reasonable to argue that Telegram is not sufficiently proximate to the harm and that it is sufficiently socially useful that it should be allowed to operate, and honestly I sympathise with that argument more. But my point is that it is a matter of weighing social harm vs benefit and not just a technical analysis of "where the bits go".)
If you get caught driving a getaway car for an armed robber, you are going to jail. Arguing "ah, but by that logic you'll also have to jail the guy who sold the robber his breakfast" isn't going to cut it, and rightly so.