Russia ordered a ban of the Telegram secure messaging app back in April, and the knock-on effects continue to cause issues for users outside of Russia. Following the messy block of 15.8 million IPs on Amazon and Google’s cloud platforms, Telegram CEO Pavel Durov says Apple has been blocking updates for the app globally. The lack of Telegram app updates mean some features, like stickers, aren’t working correctly in the recently released iOS 11.4 update.
“Apple has been preventing Telegram from updating its iOS apps globally ever since the Russian authorities ordered Apple to remove Telegram from the App Store,” explains Durov in a Telegram message. “While Russia makes up only 7 percent of Telegram’s userbase, Apple is restricting updates for all Telegram users around the world since mid-April.”
Apple’s so-called love of privacy only extends to people in the west, and only matters as long as it’s not too troublesome to the bottom-line. Apple has no qualms about handing over the data of Chinese Apple users to the Chinese government, and apparently, the company is all too eager to please the Russian government by selling out not only Russian Telegram users, but all Telegram users. It seems like Apple is just fine with undermining one of the primary tools with which dissidents in Russia communicate, because whatever, who cares about morals and principles, right?
Apple’s privacy advocacy is a thin veneer designed to trick rich, comfy westerners into believing Apple actually cares about them. I can’t believe it seems to be working, too.
use android instead?
is that too easy to say?
Yes, my main reason to use Android is that I can instance whatever I want regardless of what Google does.
Drop android, just get the librem. If you don’t control the platform/sourcecode you don’t control anything.
Is the firmware (for modems and every other piece of hardware, not the OS) open source? Otherwise it isn’t any better than iOS.
That’s kind of absurd. Things can be better without being perfect.
Like, would you prefer a windows XP machine from the original release, no patches installed, or fully patched Windows 10. Both have scary “closed source” binaries.
Although android is prevalent in Russia, more often than not its using Yandex services and not Google’s. Yandex is a Russian state sponsored equivalent.
Both Yandex and Google have already removed the App from their respective stores.
I really do, they made all laptops suck! All phones suck! It can’t just continue to operate as an activist. Yeah apple has a lot of cash they could push around, but in the end its all about business. In the end, the stupid people picked a phone that is locked. Apple has some dumb policies about sideloading, and openness. That’s why we need a healthy ecosystem, hopefully hauwei doesn’t use android in their new custom os.
We expect US companies to respect EU law for EU customers (see GDPR), but we condemn them when they finally respect Russian or Chinese law? I find that to be at least a double standard.
Yes, Russian law is absolutely horrifying, but that is the problem of the Russian people.
No, because you missed the point.
Companies want to portray themselves as respecting individual rights when they only respect where the money is.
The whole GDPR thing isn’t about “respect EU law”. It is about the rights of the individual, which the EU law happens to coincide when it comes to the GDPR.
If EU law were to go the other way, people who are for privacy rights would also be against bending over for the EU.
You’re trying to manufacture a hypocrisy when there is none.
Even though you are absolutely right, in the end, companies still need to abide by local laws.
I really would like to see companies respect universal human rights by principle, but I have yet to see a single one that does not do it mainly because it is good for business.
Edited 2018-06-01 08:49 UTC
How come I can install and update Telegram with Google Play just fine then?
Is it because Apple has to follow other laws than Google?
Another example:
It took them too long but in the end they did the right thing and ceased their self-censored service. What is Apple doing in the meantime?
http://money.cnn.com/2018/02/28/technology/apple-icloud-data-china/…
In the end it boils down to corporate politics, revenue against social responsibility. Some companies do lean more towards the latter, and it is the customers who decide with their wallet if they want to tolerate bad behavior or reward good behavior.
Edited 2018-06-01 10:45 UTC
Regarding GDPR, Microsoft have decided to apply the same protections to all their users, not just those in the EU. That was done as a principle.
We are often Very fast to denigrate, but a lot slower to praise those who stand up for these rights beyond what the minimum required.
I think this is true. Social responsibility is a choice. the GDPR is a law that obligates companies to disclose the information they hold and share.
But Russia and China have laws of their own, and as long as companies want to operate within their borders, they need to respect those laws. So you can’t just go about and blame Apple -regardless of their good or bad practices in other countries-.
“Apple’s privacy advocacy is a thin veneer designed to trick rich, comfy westerners into believing Apple actually cares about them.”
You’re almost -poetic, Thom.
Even when thinking World in permanent evil, no doubt We remain in especulative iteration.
A point comes when asking ourselves: Is it worth?
That’s how propaganda win Wars: We REDUCT to our inmediate realities, or fail to FAITH, or fail to lack of.
In memoriam of Gregor Johann Mendel.
We all able to chat about the PERFECT enchilada.
But only Apple about the perfect Apple.