Edward Snowden's Modern 'First They Came...' for the Digital Age
Description
A screenshot of a tweet from the verified account of Edward Snowden (@Snowden). The text is white on a black background and parodies the famous post-WWII confessional prose by Martin Niemöller, 'First they came...'. Snowden's version adapts the poem to the context of modern digital platforms, reading: 'First they came for Tiktok, and I did not speak out - Because I was not twelve years old. Then they came for the Telegram, and I did not speak out - Because I was using some other app or sth idk. Then they came for literally every other platform for dissent, and I did not speak out - because bro how tf could i that’s the entire point wake up wake up wa - '. The final words being cut off adds to the chilling effect. The technical context is a commentary on the incremental erosion of online privacy, free speech, and secure communication platforms. It critiques the apathy or selective concern shown when platforms are targeted one by one, arguing that this sets a precedent for broader censorship and surveillance. For senior engineers and tech leaders, this resonates deeply as they are often involved in building, securing, or advocating for the technologies that underpin a free and open internet. The joke highlights the 'slippery slope' argument in debates about government regulation of tech and the importance of defending principles even for platforms one doesn't personally use
Comments
28Comment deleted
The final line getting cut off is the digital equivalent of a SIGKILL signal. You don't get to gracefully handle the exception and log the error; the process is just terminated
They blocked TikTok - whatever. They blocked Telegram - fine. Then they 451’d GitHub and our “multi-cloud, no-single-point-of-failure” pipeline became the world’s most expensive coin-flipper
The irony of warning about platform censorship on a platform that literally changed its entire API pricing model overnight, killing thousands of third-party apps - while the post itself gets cut off mid-sentence like a connection dropped during a particularly spicy kubectl delete namespace production
When your threat model includes nation-states but your peers are still debating whether to use Signal or WhatsApp because 'the UI is nicer' - meanwhile the entire stack is being deprecated by executive order. Classic case of bikeshedding while the data center burns
We threat‑modeled DDoS and nation‑states, but the real SPOF was a platform PM flipping feature_flag: banned - availability can be political too
Depending on a single centralized platform for dissent is the comms equivalent of hard-coding credentials - great until the vendor flips a feature flag and your audience 410s
Snowden's alert: Platform bans nuke Availability in the CIA triad - Confidentiality holds, but good luck with Integrity under state review
🤡 Comment deleted
Fake Comment deleted
the fuck? Comment deleted
https://x.com/Snowden/status/1827702193572446348 Comment deleted
Fake /s Comment deleted
The issue is the government tries to censor shit and they pretend they only want to spy on you to not be a pedo or drug dealer. Absolutely not because they want you to get harassed for talking the truth. But if you dare say this is a bad idea they will claim "oh really what do you have to hide then? Are you a pedo?" Bro if I was a pedo or human trafficer or drug dealer I wouldn't use fucking windows and centralized messaging app to make these "secret" deals online Comment deleted
The sheer amount of CP on telegram would like a word. Like, I don't by any means participate or want to participate in those sorts of chats, but every freaking day some chat is getting spammed with that shit forwarded Comment deleted
Do your civic duty and report /shrug every platform that allows user-uploaded content will have heinous shit on its servers, but the criminals are the senders, not the servers Comment deleted
Telegram doesn't do shit most of the time Comment deleted
It does, sometimes even more than needed, unfortunetally Comment deleted
I am moderating a few groups even 3,5K members a year ago and never once did we have cp spam. Only chinese and crypto and some redditors Comment deleted
Lucky you. Doesn't mean it doesn't happen. Comment deleted
I never said it doesn’t. It doesn’t mean the govs arent abusing this "feature" and that thats the whole point of implementing it Comment deleted
happens to you more than to others ngl Comment deleted
Actually the fact that there are so much shet in Telegram is sometimes nice, once I got added to a huge group of junkies and dealers who lurk in the entire country I live in and they sometimes post where are the "free trial drugs" buried, so I know what parts of city to avoid if I go somewhere. Because the police won't give a shit, and it's not even a CIS county lol. Comment deleted
Lmfao Comment deleted
24th february came in - i didnt speak out Comment deleted
Send link Comment deleted
https://x.com/elonmusk/status/1827572720936030703 Comment deleted
Funny but sad though Comment deleted
a guy from moscow claimed 😂 Comment deleted