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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: 2) by pipedwho on Wednesday February 07 2018, @09:14PM (1 child)
I agree with this. Content itself is not the problem, it's the potentially harmful acts that went into creating it, or possibly the initial act where something was exposed. Trying to affect 'market demand' by making the thing itself illegal has spectacularly failed in the past.
Like bribery tries to punish 'all players', it is better to make the legality asymmetric. For bribery, it would be more effective to allow receiving bribes to be completely legal, but making it illegal to make the bribe. By giving one party legal protection of the act, it opens up the possibly that someone will report it. It also makes it uncertain to the person making the bribe that the recipient will take the money and then report the act. Even more likely if you let the recipient keep the money, as they're less like to carefully try to obfuscate and hide the income.
The other way round is more appropriate for 'illegal content'. ie. receiving some sort of payment for distributing the content. As it stands with current laws, it's way too legally ambiguous when someone ends up 'possessing' the content, no matter how they got it (especially if it was accidental or unintentional). The act of creating it is already illegal due to the acts themselves. The act of possession makes no sense as it reduces the odds that someone is likely to report the abuse (especially if they paid for content).
I think the legal reasoning may come down to likening the act of paying for something as equivalent to the act of 'commissioning' said content to be created. I'd hope this ambiguity has already been handled by current sales doctrine where buying something that has already been produced doesn't mean someone has initiated production of said item. Directly commissioning creation is a separate problem, as is selling said 'known to have been illegally commissioned' actions.
Not sure how best to deal with these things, but it's clear that the current system isn't ideal and can probably been shown to be sub-par with too many 'unintended consequences'. Just like the Drug War, this is typical knee jerk legislation.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday February 08 2018, @01:44AM
Thing is that what constitutes a "child" varies massively.
USA have some of the highest age of consent ages out there (if varies by state, and Hawaii apparently was as low as 14 well into the 80s), and thus anyone depicted below that is considered "child porn".
But then there are other places that have a much lower age, and bring any video you shot of your little get together back home and it's hello vice.
Damn it, you can mail order life sized dolls from asia these days. Complete with functioning genitalia no less.