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Telegram iOS app removed from App Store last week due to child pornography
The encrypted messaging app Telegram was mysteriously removed from Apple's App Store last week for a number of hours. At the time, little was known about the reason why, except that it had to do with "inappropriate content." According to a 9to5Mac report, Apple removed Telegram after the app was found serving up child pornography to users.
A verified email from Phil Schiller details that Apple was alerted to child pornography in the Telegram app, immediately verified the existence of the content, and removed the app from its online stores. Apple then notified Telegram and the authorities, including the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children. Telegram apps were only allowed to be restored to the App Store after Telegram removed the inappropriate content and reportedly banned the users who posted it.
[...] Since Telegram is a messaging app with end-to-end encryption, it's unlikely that the content in question originated from direct messages between users. It's possible that the child pornography came from a Telegram plugin, but neither Apple nor Telegram has revealed the source of the inappropriate content.
Telegram is an instant messaging service with at least 100 million monthly active users.
Also at The Verge and Apple Insider.
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(Score: 3, Interesting) by unauthorized on Wednesday February 07 2018, @02:22PM (3 children)
Clearly you don't understand ISIS [mirror.co.uk] (primary source [clarionproject.org]). Even if they couldn't make videos, they would behead people anyway as more than 15 centuries of Islamist barbarism has demonstrated beyond any doubt.
And you seem to have the wrongful impression that outlawing a product somehow reduces supply and demand. Those who fail to learn from the mistakes of the past [wikipedia.org] are doomed to repeat them.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Immerman on Wednesday February 07 2018, @04:16PM (2 children)
There is a difference between reducing demand and eliminating it. Unless demand is completely inelastic, which is basically never the case, raising the price reduces the demand. And making people risk prison terms to consume content raises the price.
Of course, it also drives the remaining demand to the black market, which typically increases the profit margins considerably, and may actually significantly increase the total profits available, and thus the incentive to produce. Especially with a digital product that has near-zero incremental costs per customer. And of course without any legal oversight there's likely to be a lot more egregious abuses and crimes surrounding the industry.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by unauthorized on Wednesday February 07 2018, @06:18PM (1 child)
I can understand the case that maybe outlawing child pornography will have non-zero impact on how many children are abused in it's production, I'm not denying this is the case. However, I do believe the impact is severely overstated.
Firstly, most of the deterrent effect can be accomplished by outlawing production sale and purchase only, where as outlawing possession is primarily a deterrent for consumption and does not directly increase the instances of abuse. Of course it would lead to rise in demand, but it would also significantly increase the demand for unauthorized sharing, which would act as a natural negative feedback effect. If people could download any Hollywood movie from The Pirate Bay legally but would be arrested for buying it, it's no brainer that next to nobody will be buying the movies, you've essentially created a legal incentive to sabotage any attempts to profit from producing movies by legally condoning piracy.
Secondly, and this is the real big deal, availability of pornography has very strong and well-established link with reducing the occurrence of rape. When pedos don't have outlets for their urges, this leads to increasing sexual frustration to the point where their desire to fulfill their psychological need starts outweighing their fear of the law, which leads to child abuse. This is the Trolley dilemma in a nutshell - if we legalize the the distribution of child pornography then this will likely lead to multiple instances where children who wouldn't have been abused were abused as a consequence of something we choose to do. However if we don't, we know with absolute certainty that the total instances of child molestation will be higher.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday February 08 2018, @01:38AM
It may no longer be true, if it ever was, but some years back a claim circulated that the total number of child porn videos and images out there was so few that cops and border guards were equipped with lists of checksums.
Run a checker on every media file in a computer or phone. And if anything came up matching, bring the owner in for "interrogation"...