Telegram blocks terror content after Indonesia threatens ban
HAGATNA, Guam (AFP) – As Guam prepares to celebrate Liberation Day this week, political leaders on the Pacific island say it's time to decide whether to remain a US colony or become an independent nation.
Debate about independence has raged for decades but legal complications mean plans to take the issue to a vote have stalled several times.
Former senator Eddie Duenas said a self-rule plebiscite was long overdue and should be held alongside a gubernatorial election due next year.
''We have been driving but we don't know where we're driving to and how far we will go,'' he told a recent meeting of Guam's decolonization commission in the capital Hagatna.
''We just keep driving and driving. It's annoying.''
Guam has been an unincorporated territory of the United States since 1898, meaning its 160,000 inhabitants are US citizens but have limited
JAKARTA, Indonesia (AP) – The encrypted messaging app Telegram is forming a team of moderators who are familiar with Indonesian culture and language so it can remove ``terrorist-related content'' faster, its co-founder said Sunday, after Indonesia limited access to the app and threatened a total ban.
Pavel Durov, who with his brother Nikolai founded the app in 2013, said in a message to his 40,000 followers on Telegram that he'd been unaware of a failure to quickly respond to an Indonesian government request to block a number of offending channels - chat groups on the app - but was now rectifying the situation.
The Ministry of Communications and Information Technology on Friday said it was preparing for the total closure of Telegram in Indonesia, where it has several million users, if it didn't develop procedures to block unlawful content. As a partial measure, it asked internet companies in the world's most populous Muslim nation to block access to 11 addresses offering the web version rights.
They cannot participate in US elections and Guam's sole representative in the US Congress does not get to vote on legislation.
The United Nations lists Guam as one of only 17 remaining colonies worldwide, a situation Governor Eddie Calvo wants remedied.
Calvo has long campaigned for a referendum on self-determination that would give voters three options for the future -- independence, becoming a US state, or remaining in ''free association'' with Washington.
All options have their advocates and Calvo says whatever the outcome, at least voters would have had a say in their future.
''Anything is better than the status quo,'' he said earlier this month.
''I would be happier if we became a state (but) if voters chose independence or free association I would be happier than I am right now.'' of Telegram.
Samuel Pangerapan, the director general of informatics applications at the ministry, said the app is used to recruit Indonesians into militant groups and to spread hate and methods for carrying out attacks including bomb making.
Suspected militants arrested by Indonesian police recently have told authorities that they communicated with each other via Telegram and received orders and directions to carry out attacks through the app, including from Bahrun Naim, an Indonesian with the Islamic State group in Syria accused of orchestrating several attacks in the past 18 months.
Durov said Telegram has now blocked the channels that were reported to it by the Indonesian government.
But the government move sparked a public outcry in Indonesia, with Twitter and Facebook exploding with negative comments and some people reporting they were unable to access the web.telegram. org domain. Indonesians are among the world's biggest users of social media.