Assuming this story has legs, as US phone carriers start to fine ppl $500 bucks for wrong think of bird app, Nostr and SimpleX anon accounts will start to look so-hot-right-now.gif
https://x.com/michelleweekley/status/1739340560106721297?s=46 
Discussion
It's wild. I hope people view this as a privacy issue and not an issue about stopping crimes or whatever.
BuT tHeY aRe a PrIvAtE cOmPaNy DerEk?!
That is true though. A private company can do what they want and a move like this should make that company fail.
Or ideally make it succeed, if that’s what the market decides.
Think of the children you monster /s
draconian state law - worst the soviet communists
An innovative new way to monetize user data
T-mobile announces they are infringing on the first ammendment rights of their users starting Jan 1st. Seeks to regulate user content by enforcing fines.
If you are on t-mobile leave, this is your cue to leave. Yse #Nostr, use #Simplex, use #Signal (#Molly), use #jmpchat.
share. spread the word...
#privacy #infosec #comsec #cybersecgirl
Uh we can say they’re infringing on our free speech or civil rights, but the 1st amendment of the U.S. constitution only applies to the u.s. government, specifically congress. Companies can violate our civil rights but they can’t violate the 1st amendment.
fucking hipocrites
This affects b2b users, not consumer accounts.
https://www.reddit.com/r/USMobile/comments/18qd98k/do_tmobile_tos_changes_affect_all_usm_customers/
l saw that. thank you. unfortunately can't edit the post for clarity. either way, it is unprecedented censorship for a phone company to regulate user content (business or consumer) this way, especially for cbc or marijuana...if it's not legal in all 50 states?
i would leave t-mobile with a quickness. like other service providers, according to their privacy policy, they are already automatically collecting the text messages of consumers and so much more just not fining them for it...yet. but they are openly monitoring for it.
i am all about stopping scams and spam, but not through invasive mass surveillance of user communication over their network. there better options
I agree. I know you appreciate clarity though.
Thankfully I do not use SMS for anything now. Everything is through iMessage or Telegram.
Not much better in some estimations, but at least I picked who I would let spy on me. 🤣
💯 always appreciate clarity. always. lol fr. oof though. not a fan of either privacy wise. genuinely curious, why did you decide on telegram and imessages? have you enabled secure chat telegram?
iMessage because it's on my family's devices. Honestly, it's pretty dang nice on iOS 17, have to admit.
Telegram because the few stragglers were willing to use it (very attractive interface/features, etc.). I have used Apple's Advanced Protection before, but no longer put anything of value or sensitivity on my phone except one bank account that rarely has more than a few bucks in it.
I do use Secure Chat any time I'm having sensitive conversations or transmitting PII over Telegram. Not all the time, because it neuters all the features (I have Telegram Premium, so voice to text, etc is disabled).
I tried SimpleX, lost the family within 48 hours of trying. Kept it for people on here, but then it got bad enough I didn't actually receive about half of what was going on in those chats, so I discontinued it about a month or two ago after an announcement here so people weren't trying to get up that ID anymore.
I also have a few peeps on Threema, which is my preferred privacy messenger. I would be very interested in hearing a professional opinion on Threema if you have one though. 👀
Would this apply to Mint Mobile users as well, who use the T-Mobile network? I'd image not.
i can't imagine it would
regulation and censorship are not necessarily the same thing. and business communications are 100% already regulated in many contexts. for example, there are whole industries in America that aren't allowed to advertise. oddly enough, America is one of the few, if not only, countries where you can advertise medicine directly to consumers.
They will probably start assuming all my VPN traffic is just hate speech.
They need the budlight boot.
If this is true and takes off, this just might finally convince people to stop using SMS/MMS.
Which is great, I guess.
FWIW this appears to be coming from a company called Bandwidth (?)… I know nothing about them, but it seems like it might be directly exclusively (for now) at mass messaging services. Still way too much subjectivity possible for service that is broadly used by the public.
So, I did a little digging and this doesn't seem as bad as it sounds. From the sounds of the hacker news thread looks like the company bandwidth was passing along a notice from T-Mobile that handles corporate things and this would only effect ad campaigns and cororate mass messages. So while a corporation could get a "fine" for advertising liqour in a marketing campaign, this policy has no effect on your standard cell phone customer.
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38761131
Can't be 100% sure that this is fact since it's just "some people are saying it on social media" kind of a reference, but it makes sense espcially since it's being shared by a third party company that works on that sort of stuff.
The story is widely misreported.
They are levying fees against automated bulk messaging platforms (sms spammers, basically)
This is not a free speech thing. It’s a pay-to-spam in bulk thing.
The SMS spam is indeed out of control.
Good morning. Calling me a spammer when silent is embarrassing.
😂
This is how I now understand it after reading it a few times. They’re business-to-business fines for platform abuse. But it should still be a cautionary message to everyone that large companies can and will silence you if they see a reason to.