
Islamic State has shifted to Telegram from Twitter - cskau
http://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-34478695
======
nl
No. Nope. Not true. Mostly, anyway.

Follow
[https://www.reddit.com/r/syriancivilwar](https://www.reddit.com/r/syriancivilwar),
look at some of the links from Twitter and click around a bit and you'll find
plenty of IS sympathisers.

However, Twitter is fairly active in shutting them down nowdays. What most do
is keep a Tumblr with a link to their Twitter account, and link their Tumblr
from Twitter. Then when one shuts down they can reestablish from the other.

I'd be surprised if IS aren't using Telegram though. They are pretty active on
every other social platform.

~~~
forgotpwtomain
While I really do understand the logic and reasoning for censoring hate,
vitriol and those sympathizing with such movements; overall I do not think
this is taking humanity down a good path.

Consider that the US and Israeli Governments are responsible for _far more_
loss of innocent lives per year than any of these terrorist groups. Except
here it's framed in the _fight against evil_ , _protect the people_ , _spread
democracy form_ which I guess makes it okay?

When it comes down to it if we accept that our platforms for discussion of the
world around us are to be limited to the _good_ forms (someone will decide for
you which forms are good) than the terrible world has already won, and to me
personally it makes no difference whether the innocent are dying by military
sanction of some general's order or due to the influence of some crazy
preacher.

~~~
riffraff
> Consider that the US and Israeli Governments are responsible for far more
> loss of innocent lives per year than any of these terrorist groups.

That might possibly be true of the US government, given it's at war in plenty
of places, but AFAIK israel is only in one theater, and the death toll among
palestinians in 2014 (the highest number in recent times) was reportedly
2300[0]. Citation needed?

ISIS is reported to have killed a lot more people.

Also, israel mostly states "we will defend ourselves", and so does the US. As
much as that might be BS, it's not as bad as ISIS explicitly stating it wants
to erase other cultures.

[0] [http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/mar/27/israel-kills-
mo...](http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/mar/27/israel-kills-more-
palestinians-2014-than-any-other-year-since-1967)

~~~
dogma1138
Yep the entire Arab-Israeli conflict with all of it's wars cost less lives (on
both sides) during the past 70 years than one year of the Syrian civil war.
When it comes to loss of lives the Arab-Israeli including the conflict with
the Palestinians is pretty much a non-issue compared to other conflicts that
happen all the time in the world.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_ongoing_armed_conflict...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_ongoing_armed_conflicts)

The problem like always is media focus and over-reporting, I've met actual
people that believed that Israel killed millions of Arabs, I've have gotten
figures that were higher than 10M from some people and they even quoted
"sources".

Same goes for the war on terror people said that the US killed more people
than the German in WW2 and some of them actually believed it.

And this is a big issue it's hard to discuss a conflict that people think
costing millions of lives where in actuality only about 24,000 people (both
sides) died in since 1948, and once you've settled in your own little world of
millions of deaths it's hard to take in numbers that are less than a football
game.

------
KaiserPro
I know what the inference is here: give me your back doors, encryption is only
for evil people.

However you could say the same for electricity, GPS, phones, guns etc.

------
gozo
"Telegram itself suggests it will take down illegal material"

What does illegal material mean? I guess Germany has lesser free speech than
the US, but still it's a messaging service after all.

I wonder were Twitter draw the line. They outright welcome many state actors
that rival IS if not in scale at least in means. Maybe the line is drawn for
them by some friends from the state department?

~~~
gil
Indeed.

It also begs the question of how will the scan for "illegal material"?

------
Canada
I didn't think group messages on Telegram had any special security.

~~~
yoavm
According to the article they are planning to use Telegram channels (which is
more like a broadcast list in whatsapp), and not group chat. Doesn't seem like
it's meant for internal communication, so I guess that security isn't a top
priority for this purpose.

------
gaius
If this isn't proof that Twitter's business model is doomed then I don't know
what is. It would be like the Taliban announcing they'll no longer use
Toyotas.

------
heroh
The US government allows the Isalmic State to exist, from providing them
training, Toyota trucks + enabling the "black market" sales of oil

all this is mostly fear mongering

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nXe4gy_ABf8](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nXe4gy_ABf8)

------
mtgx
Do they know Telegram is not encrypted E2E by default?

------
krmmalik
Rather convenient that this news comes out at the same time that Obama says he
won't ask for keys to encrypted data.

~~~
zamalek
A: Telegram has no intentional back doors. Any malice on the part of Obama has
absolutely no relevance here whatsoever. If you want to disprove me feel free
to audit the source[1]. Nobody would have ever been able to ask for keys in
the first place, hence, the reason it was purportedly chosen by IS.

B: That's pure conjecture and is a conspiracy theory.

[1]: [https://telegram.org/source](https://telegram.org/source)

~~~
krmmalik
This isnt about Telegram. It's about BBCs decision to report on IS and what
theyre doing. Youre clearly not familiar with IS history. IS was armed and
supported by the US (do your research) and the BBC is well known as a US mouth
piece. Looking at this as a purely tech debate, one of conjecture or a
conspiracy theory is incredibly naive.

~~~
zamalek
Here are the HN guidelines [1].

> This isnt about Telegram.

Yes it is: the article is about Telegram and _you yourself_ bought up
cryptography keys. You implied that Telegram had some unsubstantiated
correlation to the Obama administration (regardless of what _previous_
administrations have done). You're veering wildly off-topic into a typical
flamewar topic with no evidence, as well as asserting without justification
that I am clueless about IS.

> [1]: Please avoid introducing classic flamewar topics unless you have
> something genuinely new to say about them.

That is to say, it's probably best to be done here.

[1]:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html](https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html)

------
jkot
Could we stop propagating them? There is no 'state', it is just part of desert
with bandits in pickups. And BBC should not give hints where to find latest
propaganda. It is like reporting 'piratebay.com' domain is down, use
'piratebay.xyz'

~~~
coffeecheque
I'm not sure if the article been updated since you had a look, but the first
line of the article refers to the Jihadist group as the "so-called Islamic
State".

Also I think there is a public interest in knowing that Daesh is apparently
switching communication platforms. If there's been an effort to reduce/remove
Daesh from Twitter, why couldn't there be a similar strategy with Telegram?

You seem to be advocating the security-by-obscurity line, in regards to
propaganda. It's out there, and if people want to find it, they don't need to
look far.

~~~
jkot
'So called' disclaimer is on almost every BBC article. But it is media like
BBC who spread this name in first place.

Compare IS with 'Kurdistan'. It is a 'state' somehow similar to IS, but it
gets completely different treatment.

And they gave step by step manual: Go to app store, install Telegram, search
IS channel.

~~~
gaius
In the Falklands war, the BBC broadcast that the Argentine air force were
setting their bomb fuses wrong and their bombs weren't exploding when they hit
British ships, and also pre-announced the attack on Goose Green. They're well
known for playing both sides against the middle.

~~~
arethuza
I have read that the Goose Green incident was actually caused by a MoD
official releasing something too early - they were just passing on the
message.

The thing about the bomb fuses was a horrendous mistake “six better fuses and
we would have lost” - particularly as there was nothing wrong with the fuses
and the Argentinians could have easily fixed this by a simple adjustment.

