Inactive[edit]

All Whonix ™ chat channels are currently inactive, read-only. Please use https://forums.whonix.org ^[archive] instead.

Reasons:

It has been an experiment and determined failed.
Has lead to reduced activity in forums.whonix.org.
Duplication of chat and in forums.whonix.org leading to duplicate support effort.
Repetitive, circulation, off-topic, endless discussions.
Spam.
Legal liability.
Volume.
Many contributors only participating in forums.whonix.org but not in Whonix ™ chat.
Unproductive in terms of improved Whonix ™ Documentation and development progress, bug fixes, source code enhancements.
Distraction from development progress.
The format is not suitable to find previous (or even recent) discussions.
No separation by topic as in forums.
Previous existence of read-write whonix.org chat, experiment does not create a perpetual liability, legacy, responsibility be it kept supported forever. Decisions are sometimes revisited under the viewpoint "If this were not the case now, based on what we know today, would it be a good decision to do so now?"

Therefore decision was made to set all Whonix ™ chat channels to read-only.

Gratitude is expressed to all contributors to Whonix ™ chat!

Can the chat remain active (read-write) as user to user support without moderation and active contributors? Unfortunately not due to legal liability, volume.

Why not delete these chat channels? To avoid impostors from re-creating it and pretending it is the official chat, attempting to scam users.

Users are welcome to use the official https://forums.whonix.org ^[archive] Support where admins and contributors are active as well as to idle in the existing chat channels as news updates will continue to be forwarded there as well as might be useful in the future if there was a 24/7 moderation/support team or for potential special occasions.

Whonix ™ News Announcements Channel will remain up to date.

Whonix ™ Telegram Chat[edit]

No Media Whonix ™ Telegram Chat[edit]

Currently inactive, read-only.
everyone who can use telegram can join (both iPhone and Android)
posting links is forbidden
posting screenshots is unsupported

Whonix ™ Project Chat (everyone, limited) ^[archive]

Better Whonix ™ Telegram Chat[edit]

Currently inactive, read-only.
iPhone users might not be able to join unfortunately.
"some countries" might not be able to join unfortunately.
Posting links allowed if relevant to Whonix ™.
Posting screenshots allowed.

Whonix ™ Project Chat (posting links and screenshots allowed) ^[archive]

Reasons for Two Telegram Discussion Groups[edit]

This is what happened. A spambot joined the "normal, main" Whonix ™ chat ^[archive] and posted pornographic content (video). It was quickly deleted by an administrator. Telegram, @AbuseNotifications ^[archive] sent a private message to all channel administrators.

Our users reported some of the content posted in your group @Whonix ™ as pornographic, and our moderators have confirmed this. For this reason, we had to restrict access to your group from iOS devices and from some countries. We’ll be glad to lift the restrictions, if you remove pornographic content from your group and pledge to take reasonable care of moderation in future. Please notify us here as soon as the group is free from porn again. If all the offending content is already removed please send us the following command: /unblock_group1336747164@AbuseNotifications

This happened to other chat groups on telegram too. See: https://www.reddit.com/r/Telegram/comments/9ifp7s/group_blocked_because_of_pornographic_content/ ^[archive]

Telegram is probably adamant about this because apparently there is a strict ban on pornography required by Apple policy for iPhone's AppStore. Telegram doesn't want to be kicked out of iPhone's AppStore because then less users would use telegram.

Apple iPhone restricts freedom of its users and consists of mostly non-freedom software. Therefore Avoid Non-Freedom Software. See also this essay by the GNU project Apple's Operating Systems Are Malware ^[archive].

Telegram has a bad way to deal with spam.

Option would have been to disable all media in Whonix ™ main telegram discussion channel but that would be dull because many users post screenshots.