Effektio is now acter.global

It’s been a few months since we’ve started to build Effektio. And though our progress is always trackable on Github, we know that there is much more to #buildinpublic than that. As we are getting closer to the MVP of our app, we want to increase the communication about our journey, the progress, our highlights, our ups and downs. We love the concept of building in public and as of today the website – which we are relaunching with publishing this post – is designed to reflect this approach. From now on you will find the latest updates about the work on our purpose and product on the website. If you’re interested in Effektio make sure to come back frequently. In particular we’d like to highlight the revamped product progress page where we explain in detail what we are up to, how things are processing and provide pointers into the code if you want to contribute. Furthermore, we’ve updated the team section, featuring all active team members and a bit more of a journey on how we’ve gotten here. Overall, we are providing a lot more insights on what we are building for whom and why. Next to the progress page we added a structured blog, where we are getting into all kinds of topics concerning community building and organizing in the context of web3. We hope you like our relaunch. Any kind of feedback, requests and hints are always very welcome. 

2/2 Part 1 of this article can be found here and in German here. Most recently, I wrote about how essential Telegram is to Ukraine’s communications and messaging. Today, among other things, I explore the question of why Messenger has taken on such an essential role. There is no one answer to this, but I am making some assumptions here, which are welcome to be added to. Most importantly, Telegram enables group and broadcasting channels in addition to individual chats, and with unlimited numbers of participants. A decisive advantage over WhatsApp. This has made Telegram the second messenger worldwide for anyone who wants to communicate in large groups (many-to-many) or their own broadcast channels (one-to-many) for business reasons or for their engagement. That leads to point two. Telegram is the most international. The world map of messengers is clearly divided. WhatsApp and Facebook Messenger dominate in the West, Viber is strong in Eastern Europe, and so on. Above all, however, the boundaries between the apps run along national borders. Thus, a German WhatsApp user cannot find a Greek colleague in this app. He would have to install Viber. Or use Telegram, because that is the most established app, especially if he wants to communicate internationally in large groups or broadcasts. Rebel Channel’s reputation. The technical possibilities have also contributed to Telegram becoming the messenger of resistance in autocratic countries. In Belarus, Hong Kong and Iran, for example, protests in recent years have been organized primarily on Telegram. Crucial to this is the ability to create anonymous groups and messages and encrypt them. Security agencies have had and continue to have a difficult time responding to these dynamics. So it seems that the anonymity of the users actually holds. By the way, a very interesting study on Telegram and its role in the 2019 Hong Kong protests can be found here. The Founder. Pavel Durov, founder of Telegram, also cultivates a rebel image. Even the founding itself is considered an act of resistance against the Russian authorities. Durov was CEO of vKontakte, the “Russian Facebook,” and was supposed to hand over data on Euromaidan supporters. He refused, had to leave – and founded Telegram. When Russian authorities wanted to block Telegram because of its political permissiveness, Durov managed to get around the blocks. Even more, he managed to get the authorities to partially block their own sites. Not only the tech scene had to smile. Durov also claims that Telegram has never been given even one record to a governmental institution. However, this claim has probably been refuted by very recent research by Der Spiegel. Nevertheless, if you take all this together, Telegram seems to be made for a global second messenger, which serves more and more as a social network and organizing tool and is used less and less as a simple messenger. Let’s stay with the topic of politics for a moment, because Telegram naturally also has downsides that I don’t want to conceal here. The political and thematic tolerance also favors people and channels that one would rather avoid. From porn to drugs to right-wing agitation, you can find just about anything on Telegram. Especially the anti Corona protests and the right-wing scene in the U.S. became real movements with large reaches, not least on Telegram. Another example takes us back to Ukraine. Here, of course, Telegram is not only used by Ukrainian authorities and refugees. The Russians also use the app to spread propaganda. It’s the same here in Germany. Some organize their sports club via the blue messenger, others their Nazi sports groups. Parallels to social networks are also becoming increasingly apparent here. Here, as there, the eternal conflict between free speech and its limits applies. What is needed here is a discourse that seeks and finds compromises. Telegram is also not really up to date when it comes to data protection. Although there is the option to encrypt messages End2End, the user has to actively set this. However, it is not really secure in this case either, since Telegram does not publish any technical details and we thus have to rely on the company’s statements. Nevertheless, I personally think that it is wrong to demonize Telegram, as it so often happens in Germany. Here I too often encounter the statement “I don’t use Telegram, there are too many Nazis.” How about “I don’t drive cars, people die every day as a result”? No, both a messenger and a car are tools, technical aids that make our lives easier and offer many possibilities, and so can be used for good or bad. At the moment, at least, Telegram is helping a lot of people in Ukraine to defend themselves, to stay in touch, or just to survive. That is very human.

1/2 Messengers determine our lives. If you look at the usage figures, it quickly becomes clear that messengers are now more important than the classic social media channels. We all use them to communicate, both privately and professionally, and organize our lives through them. But because they are so important, they are also controversial. This is especially true for Telegram. More than three months after Feb. 24, 2022, however, I see this messenger quite differently. Since the beginning of the war, I have been to Poland and Ukraine several times to help, interpret and lend a hand. There I encountered the war in the form of much human suffering. I spent a lot of time in a camp for refugees on the Polish-Ukrainian border. Here it was a matter of organizing help for refugees quickly and without complications. “Where is the rest of my family?”, “Which bus is going to Warsaw next?”, “My husband has diabetes, where can I get insulin?” I was asked questions like these and many more every minute. We aid workers and refugees mostly got answers via Telegram. Polish and Ukrainian authorities had created various channels. But most of the channels came from private initiatives, such as car-sharing and accommodation agencies and similar channels on Telegram. Help at home in Germany is usually organized in the same way. Various city channels offer general help. At the same time, there are special channels that clarify legal issues, for example, or job boards where you can find work. At the end of the article I will link some of these channels. Moreover, the communication of the Ukrainian government and military runs mainly through one channel: Telegram. The English-language channel Zelenskiy Official, i.e. that of Ukrainian President Zelenskiy, currently has over 1.3 million subscribers. The Ukrainian government uses the messenger to disseminate news from areas that are otherwise difficult to access. Also worth mentioning are the Ukraine Now channels, which continuously broadcast news from Ukraine to the world in 6 languages. Together, the channels have more than 220,000 subscribers. All major organizations in Ukraine communicate not only, but also via Telegram. During my last trip a few days ago, I was traveling for Plast. These are Ukrainian scouts who have been providing supplies for certain units of the army since the beginning of the war. Here, too, the communication was via Telegram. In short, nothing works in Ukraine without the messenger with the bad reputation. At the same time, Telegram was not the country’s most important communication app until the start of the war. During my engagement there, I encountered an app again that I already knew from my travels in the Balkans: Viber. The purple messenger has the role there that WhatsApp has with us. It’s an end-2-end encrypted, very versatile messenger that basically combines the advantages of WhatsApp and Telegram. However, it seems a bit opaque as to who owns the service. It was originally founded in Israel, but also has strong ties to Belarus. More info about Viber can be found here, among other places. Despite this top dog, Telegram has gained significant ground since the war began. A personal survey among Ukrainian refugees paints an interesting picture. Before the war, Viber was the undisputed number 1. Since the start of the war, Telegram has become the most important source of news. All authorities from the president to the village mayor keep in touch with their people all over the world via Telegram and thus also provide them with news. However, Ukrainians continue to use Viber to communicate with each other. The question remains why Telegram has taken on such an essential role since the start of the war. Why, of all things, the messenger that is often reported on so critically, especially in Germany? I will deal with this in my next article. Stay tuned! Some Telegram channels on Ukraine: https://t.me/ukrasylumrefugee https://t.me/naym_germany https://t.me/pechalbeda200 https://t.me/V_Zelenskiy_official https://t.me/UAspecialists

Today, the EU’s interior ministers are meeting to discuss, among other things, the planned chat control. Therefore, I would like to briefly summarize what this is all about and why we should all be interested. I will try to make it short 🙂 → What is chat control? The EU plans to force operators of messengers and providers of email and storage services to completely monitor all communication within their apps, servers and programs without cause and furthermore to report suspicious content to the authorities. The reason behind is the issue of child pornography, which is to be combated through this regulation. This results in unprecedented mass surveillance of our communication though. All of our private messages are supposed to be reviewed by an AI. When it strikes, employees of corporations and police officers look at our private communication hereafter. → What exactly is to be monitored and how does it work practically? The planned law obliges all service providers in the EU to monitor their content. This affects all messengers, such as WhatsApp, Facebook Messenger or Telegram. Messengers with end-2-end encryption will be required to build a technical loophole into their services. In addition, all email services such as Gmail or GMX will be affected, as well as chat providers such as Slack and RocketChat. In fact, all of our digital communication is planned to be monitored. This includes all kinds of content, i.e. not only text, but also images, speech etc., even digital telephony. In short, the smartphone will become a completely monitored device. In practice the EU plans the use of an AI for mass control. If it gives an alarm, an employee of a public agency will first look at our pictures and texts. If the content is labeled as suspicious, it will be forwarded to a central investigative agency in The Hague, which in return will contact local police forces. → Why is the EU planning this surveillance? It’s about combating child pornography. This really sucks, of course, and I can’t think of anything I’d want to fight more urgently, either. However, the reason is unfortunately secondary. You could also take terrorism or other horrors. It is a fact that such challenges cannot be fought with such things as mass surveillance. It has rather been proven that such measures would lead to an indescribable flood of data for the investigators. But they already have too much data, that is not their problem. Investigative authorities are often understaffed and, above all, have insufficient technical means to evaluate data. It’s not me saying this, but many investigators themselves. The question remains, why does the EU intend to do this? I don’t know the exact answer, but basically only one remains: The lure of total knowledge about us, the citizens of the EU. → Okay, but I have nothing to hide. The topic of child pornography vs. blanket surveillance is a very difficult one when you take a closer look. Think of vacation pictures with your children on the beach. Or chats between teens in love. Or an intimate voice message exchanged by a couple. Anything like that will probably cause the AI to report it. Sometimes just a naked knee in a picture is probably enough, like right now in the summer. That is when anyone can very quickly end up in the suspicion files in The Hague or at the police, and who knows when and how they will get out of there. Besides, no one can guarantee us that the data will not be used for other things as well. Why, for example, should the state not query relevant data for the tax office? Create a movement log of a suspected burglar? No problem. This series can be endlessly continued. → What can I do about it? Tell your friends and colleagues about it and use social media. Spread the word! The biggest danger is when such things are decided secretly and quietly and eventually become facts. Then you can sign a petition here. You could also write to your member of the national parliament. → And the bottom line? What the EU Commission is planning here is unprecedented mass surveillance of all EU citizens. All content of our communication and our memories, whether on a device or in the cloud, will be affected. Primarily the authorities benefit from that, who will then know all of our most intimate secrets and will be able to track our movements. Unfortunately it does nothing regarding the fight against child pronography. The EU wants to build a system here that the Stasi and the KGB always dreamed of. It is never good when a state or a company or even the EU knows too much about us. It is strange that these efforts are coming from Brussels, of all places, because at the same time they are working hard on issues like data transparency and limiting the power of digital corporations. However, Brussels does not compromise on its own interests. It’s like 1984.