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Comment by debt | Hacker News Reader

Apple would be held liable if someone uses Telegram to coordinate a terrorist attack or if it's used for human trafficking or whatever highly illegal activity it could be used for. Potentially both in the court of law and the court of public opinion; the latter Apple has no control over.

It's just not worth it financially for Apple to assume that liability.

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So, to carry your argument to a slightly (but only slightly) more extreme version, doesn't that mean that postal mail could be held liable if someone coordinated a terrorist attack by letter?

Think about what you're suggesting.

Should they pull their Messages app for the same reason? How about any ios email clients?

Maybe?

No, they definitely should not.

Telegram isn't even responsible for what people send using their service as long as they take reasonable steps towards stopping abuse. Apple has no liability here at all.

Are you sure? ISIS has been coordinating operations and attacks via Telegram for its entire existence, and I don't see a lot of Apple backlash in either of your courts. (Rightly, I believe. Would you go after HTC or Sprint for a phone being used as a detonator?)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FBI–Apple_encryption_dispute

Apple got sued for encryption-related reasons. In theory these types of lawsuit don't stop after one time.

Apple was not sued, and that case is irrelevant to your point.

If this was a problem then Whatsapp and every other secure chat app should be banned as well.

I think that's not unlikely or at least, it may be necessary for apps to remove that component from the apps.

Anytime you submit an app to the App Store you have to check a box that asks if you're complying with all necessary encryption export laws. In theory, those laws could change in the future and they just simply won't let you publish apps using strong encryption.

By your logic sprint could be held liable based on providing a phone network, or google for providing free email which can be used with encryption.

So I could you liable (by your own creation argument) for having a car of yours(hypothetically you are a Owner of a car dealer) be used in a hit and run? That does really sound like a world you want to live in mate?

This seems controversial, but my original point stands. If Apple believes they may be liable for providing access to Telegram, then maybe that's why they removed it in the first place.

Y'all are right, there a probably very could counterarguments to that, but I don't think that makes Apple potentially any less liable.

Liable based on what law? You really need to support your arguments.

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