At the risk of getting some flak, I want everyone to take a chill pill on the grok / telegram thing and realize: 1) AFAIK it doesn't scrape your data 2) You do not have to use it 3) Telegram is an absolutely disgusting place already 4) Communities are important and fracturing them hurts them - ThreadSky

jjbbllkk.bsky.social • 3 days ago

At the risk of getting some flak, I want everyone to take a chill pill on the grok / telegram thing and realize:

1) AFAIK it doesn't scrape your data
2) You do not have to use it
3) Telegram is an absolutely disgusting place already
4) Communities are important and fracturing them hurts them

Comments

pebble.bsky.social•3 days ago

Big bummer is the fandom is not as aligned on AI as some people think. The amount willing to jump just because that is tiny

jellyb.bsky.social•3 days ago

I believe the main issue is how often any company dealing in AI tends to lie in their user data policies and how accountability over blatant crime doesn't exist at the moment.

They could just scrape data & lie about it. What's gonna happen to them? If they get sued, Trump will just pardon them

jellyb.bsky.social•3 days ago

I don't think this is a situation where people should run around with their heads on fire, but I still believe it to be a good time to strategize and agree on a new platform.

Cooperation with oligarchs is a worrying sign

jjbbllkk.bsky.social•3 days ago

agree on all counts

jjbbllkk.bsky.social•3 days ago

1) If the bot starts using Telegram data to train AI, yes, the platform is 100 percent dead. Not questions there.

2) Don't use the bot. If you're in a group chat, don't let other people use the bot. Keep the bot out.

3) Telegram is a cesspit already, full of animal abusers, CSAM, and crypto scams

snickeringsnack.bsky.social•2 days ago

The sad thing is that the thing that makes Telegram so good for queer people and furries - a dedication to data protection and DM privacy - also makes it a haven for the absolute scum of the world to spread their fucking filth to each other.

rive.su•3 days ago

Not to mention nazis and FSB agents.

jjbbllkk.bsky.social•3 days ago

Outside the cute little furry sticker bubble, Telegram is a vile place used for absolutely the WORST shit. If you haven't been paying attention, that's fine, but like, an AI bot is the LEAST of the problems Telegram has.

There is no ethical use of Telegram and there hasn't ever been. Full stop.

jjbbllkk.bsky.social•3 days ago

Finally, community: maybe Telegram isn't the best place to organize insurrection, but it is a place where community has been built and grown. Fracturing that community to other platforms will have consequences.

sev.yote.social•3 days ago

On the one hand, this is the point I think the kneejerk types are overlooking the most, and it is really critical. It is So Hard to build communities, and you lose a ton in a migration, especially if adoption is slow or there are competing options.

sev.yote.social•3 days ago

On the other hand, though, I can't help feeling like Telegram is such a lightweight messenger. With so many platforms making questionable choices these days, how hard would it be really to roll our own? It would at least be fun to see somebody try, yanno?

hansfaffing.bsky.social•3 days ago

Having worked on chat apps: i would not use the word lightweight for telegram at all…

nrr.corvidae.org•3 days ago

With an eye only toward the distributed systems side of things and nothing else, it's actually kind of a pain in the ass unless you care about nothing but text.

jjbbllkk.bsky.social•3 days ago

This is definitely part of the conversation and unfortunately I have no idea

delta.refurrer.com•3 days ago

Yes, this would be incredibly difficult, time consuming, and fraught with the exact same problems that all the other messaging platforms have

jjbbllkk.bsky.social•3 days ago

I want Elon eating metal at high velocities as much as the next, and all his projects are corrosive. Gen AI is abusive and dehumanizing.

But let's not have a super hardcore kneejerk reaction. Talk to your friends and communities about this.

zorinlynx.bsky.social•3 days ago

Thanks for posting this. I was freaking out a little and didn't have the full story.

I fully agree that fracturing communities is bad. We STILL have a Twitter/Bluesky/Mastodon split to this day. Telegram has its issues but we're all still mostly there at least.

rive.su•3 days ago

Plus there are alternative clients for Telegram so someone will figure out a way to disable all the AI BS if you don't want it

derjoel.bsky.social•3 days ago

Damn, so this is how I learn about this. I already have to put up with the fact that I can only contact some relatives via whatsapp. I really hate how we have allowed venture capital to host almost all of our remote interactions. I swear it's only a matter of time until bluesky is burned too.

kauko.biosynth.link•3 days ago

I wouldn't worry too much about bsky, people have already figured out how to run it on the network without the main instance (https://bsky.social) being involved at all

derjoel.bsky.social•3 days ago

Tbh I don't know too much about bsky. But it is still venture capital backed though. In this industry that means we are the product that, at some point, will be used to make a profit. And they have the ownership over the protocol to do so, I think. I'm hoping for the best, but I'm pessimistic.

kauko.biosynth.link•3 days ago

It doesn't really matter as long as other people can run their own stuff without them being involved at all. They've intentionally painted themselves into a corner while they still have the room to do so

celticwarriormoon.bsky.social•3 days ago

Yeah like Telegram sucks but you're gonna have to pry it from the community's cold dead paws

kauko.biosynth.link•3 days ago

furries preemptively freaking out with minimal information over what is inevitably nothing is our bread and butter at this point

kauko.biosynth.link•3 days ago

(I'm still salty we left our self-hosted places to jump boat to boat on corp owned crap, don't mind me)

epicwolfy.bsky.social•3 days ago

This is why I'll always use FA and e621 over most other places, I'm only on Bsky every so often lmao

celticwarriormoon.bsky.social•3 days ago

Yeah, furry specific sites exist, will never understand why and how furry became a mostly Twitter/Instagram thing 💀 it's slightly different here ebcause furries are some of the original adopters, but I don't foresse it staying that way indefinitely either

bangaroo.likes.fish•3 days ago

so the big concern i have here is less "what this means right now with relation to grok" and more "what does this signal (no pun intended) about who telegram is aligned with and what level of involvement they are willing to accept." twitter has a vested interest in growing its userbase.

beesbuzz.biz•3 days ago

Telegram has long been pretty clearly aligned with a bunch of alt-right memelords and they love sneaking nazi dogwhistles into things, so I don't think them falling in with Grok is all that unexpected.

bangaroo.likes.fish•3 days ago

i don't think either is particularly acceptable, just one is more immediately dangerous

bangaroo.likes.fish•3 days ago

i think "slipping in dog whistles" and "being functionally owned by a government" are two different things here; it's pretty clear that twitter has some degree of function as an official communication tool of the worst parts of the US government at this time

beesbuzz.biz•3 days ago

Oh, absolutely, I'm not saying that either thing is even remotely equivalent, just, it shouldn't come as a surprise to people that the shitty company with alt-right tendencies is falling in line with another shitty company with alt-right tendencies.

The ownership stake is super weird though.

bangaroo.likes.fish•3 days ago

i'm not worried about the immediate outcome of twitter putting a grok bot on telegram - i am a little more anxious about the potential for them to deepen their partnership or potentially even become an acquisition (like whatsapp to facebook) to help grow twitter as a relevant brand again

bangaroo.likes.fish•3 days ago

there's always been reason to speculate that telegram is captured by the authoritarian right but the lines you can draw are mostly speculative, twitter is 100% captured by the authoritarian right in the US and their access to telegram data for say, trans furries, would be very bad

bangaroo.likes.fish•3 days ago

it is worth noting that outside of private chats every message on telegram is plaintext. your privacy from telegram as an org is minimal.

so while i do agree with you, i also think this should prompt a discussion about life rafts before things get worse.

jjbbllkk.bsky.social•3 days ago

i agree!

socksthewolf.com•3 days ago

It, like the other AI bots on Tg, have to be talked to directly.

People read an oversimplified headline and freaked out by assuming.

socksthewolf.com•3 days ago

Also this news was from a few months ago.

jjbbllkk.bsky.social•3 days ago

well its getting picked up by furries here now. not sure what the delay was about, but yeah. weeeeee.

socksthewolf.com•3 days ago

The new update is that you’ll be able to talk to grok without having to pay for telegram premium, and can directly ask grok questions via the searchbar.

This payment is to get grok up front and center of all the ai bots you can message on TG.

Deal only lasts a year.

dumbmagicvee.bsky.social•3 days ago

Thanks for the sitrep.
I was kindof out of the loop for a while.
No plans on leaving yet.

saphi.re•3 days ago

Personally I'm much much less concerned about the bot and more the fact that the two techbros arranged this at all, and put money on it

And sadly yeah TG is crumbling even just from UX perspective (monetisation yay). The uses of platform argument is a bit hmm though, some countries it's WhatsApp 2

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