jswifty1

In 2015, telegram started removing posts after the attack in Paris—but they’d linked attacks as early as 2014 back to telegram communications and recruiting. Even in 2015, attempts were half-hearted until a high profile expose (Vox) and Others like it ran.

There were never any calls for deplatforming telegram in this manner as far as I know; it would be like giving Parlor another 3-5 years to clean itself up.

I agree that the attackers need to be silenced, but this move by apple and google is unprecedented and unnecessary; if they are inciting violence, it should be dealt with legally, not via corporate ethics panels. Platforms should be responsible for content like what parlor presents, but apple shouldn’t be the who holds them accountable. This isn’t the cake shop declining to serve a gay customer, but rather the phone company pulling the plug.

Yet telegram wasn’t, and that’s exactly what they were doing.

How do you delineate between Parlor planning this and ISIS using telegram for recruiting and planning? In both cases, the platforms did nothing to prevent, but in the telegram case the consequences were much more severe—evidence of mass casualty events due to telegram planning.

To me, this is why it feels political: these tech companies are responding more strongly to this than well-organized terror organizations that were active for years.