Revealed: walkie-talkie app Zello hosted far-right groups who stormed Capitol

[realityphantom]

16. I'm certain I will be branded a trouble maker but...

Last edited Thu Jan 14, 2021, 05:58 AM - Edit history (1)

My biggest problem with the Gaurdian's article and most takes on digital platforms is that no one seems to make a differentiation between services and platforms.

Zello is not a platform, you cannot publicly post content to be seen by the service's users at mass. Zello is a messenger. Watkins was a member of a Radiogroup made up of people who were participating in conversation about the Capital operation. However despicable or moronic their actions, the Zello messenger and it's company deserves no backlash. It would be like trying to go after phone carriers for allowing them to text about they're behavior via SMS

Trying to normalize the concept of moderation in messaging services makes us no better than China and how they actively change people's messages in private conversations in WeChat to fit a narrative.

This group was stupid enough to use Zello, an unecrypted voice messager that just so happened to have some of it's messages downloaded and leaked. This should be something that concerned people look for when trying to make sense of senseless events such as the DC operation. Pushing on companies like Zello will either see us with public messaging options that have spying built in or will cause them to remove themselves from our market all together. Either scenario will cause the domestic terrorists to adapt and become adept in other communications that are harder to detect, record and leak.

(Speaking on all of this as an individual with decades of communications experience)