Comment by poemxo
5 hours ago
I wonder when people in the west will start flocking to Telegram groups (or equivalent) to get the real information the way they do elsewhere.
5 hours ago
I wonder when people in the west will start flocking to Telegram groups (or equivalent) to get the real information the way they do elsewhere.
Outside the US, WhatsApp already fills that role, but like Telegram, "real information" is an optimistic descriptor.
Trading one "private sector" state surveillance and narrative control platform for another isn't much of an improvement.
That said, I hate to break it to you, but there is no real question of 'when', or even 'if'. The general public simply does not care, no matter how much abuse they are subjected to by mainstream platform operators.
There will always be a minority who care enough to embrace decentralization, open source, good e2ee, but they are the exception to the vast majority, at least inside the US, who simply do not care enough to change their behavior.
What percentage of Americans do you think would voluntarily, permanently relinquish their own fourth amendment rights for $5000? Scary thought experiment when you recall studies that have found only two thirds of Americans can name all three branches of government, or that fewer than one in four can name any right secured by the first amendment other than freedom of speech.
https://studyfinds.org/constitution-americans-rights/
> ... "only two thirds of Americans can name all three branches of government, or that fewer than one in four can name any right secured by the first amendment other than freedom of speech."
Mere decades ago, not knowing this kinda stuff would get you failed in grade-school Civics class, and again in junior high, and yet again in high-school (at least where I grew up, here in the "Great NorthWest" Rocky Mountains area USA).
Used to be that knowing the basics about how your government worked and what your rights and responsibilities are as a citizen was considered "required knowledge" (right alongside basic history, math, reading, etc) to help prepare you for "life in the real world".