I wonder if there is a way we place these App Store decisions into the hands of a third party. Either that or break Android away from Google and forbid them from colluding.
Element (Matrix chat app) suspended from the Google Play Store
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Re: Element (Matrix chat app) suspended from the Google Play Store
#32I got banned here for saying this but I'll continue to say it nevertheless. We are already in the Censorship Era. This is an Orwellian Nightmare. The quicker this is brought under control the better. The last thing we need is Corporate Overlords controlling what we say or do online. This includes Hacker News as well.
In dictatorships at least there is a clear authority with clear rules. Here we have multiple aithorities makiblng it up as they go
Re: Element (Matrix chat app) suspended from the Google Play Store
#33'Private company, they do what they want' gang arriving in 3, 2, 1..
Just monopolies protecting our democracy, like Adam Smith envisioned.
Re: Element (Matrix chat app) suspended from the Google Play Store
#34Earlier quoted context omitted.
On Android, it's still much easier to install apps from outside Google's app store (just change the "install unknown apps" setting, download the .apk file, and open it) than it is on iOS.
As a practical matter, though, only a very small number of people will ever do that. Being kicked out of the play store is almost always going to be a death sentence for the app. Apple has earned plenty of criticism themselves, but I do appreciate that they curate the app store with humans.
They should kick Facebook out of the play store. See what happens. Facebook can then pivot to paying OEMs even bigger sums of money to bundle it with their devices.
Re: Element (Matrix chat app) suspended from the Google Play Store
#35OEMs and software vendors have been pushing hard towards locking-down and controlling people's computing devices and people have largely been indifferent.
It genuinely seemed all was going to be lost until the tech industry went crazy exercising their control. Their recent (and imo unjustifiable) actions have clearly demonstrated to everyone what it means to hand over control. It remains to be seen whether people will grasp this chance to reverse the course that this rotten industry has charted and is adamant on following.
Re: Element (Matrix chat app) suspended from the Google Play Store
#36I wonder if France will have something to say to Google about this in the EU.. France uses Matrix. Google's powerful, but they're not a legislative body.
Re: Element (Matrix chat app) suspended from the Google Play Store
#37I wonder if there is a way we place these App Store decisions into the hands of a third party. Either that or break Android away from Google and forbid them from colluding.
Legislation equating these walled gardens as a new kind of monopoly. Legislation making “terms and conditions” less like laws, and less enforceable.
Re: Element (Matrix chat app) suspended from the Google Play Store
#38Opt out. No Google. No Facebook. No Twitter. No Amazon. You don't need them, you might even enjoy life more without them. You can't change how they operate. But you can change how you operate.
'You can't change how they operate'
We used yo have laws..
And opting out is literslly impossible, there are people and authorities i -have-to- communicate with, and its impossible outside those platforms
Re: Element (Matrix chat app) suspended from the Google Play Store
#39Earlier quoted context omitted.
The Digital Citizen has rights. And its time to draft them.
It's a shame nobody saw this coming fourty years ago and devoted his life to the cause.
The infrastructure is run by private parties -- but since the advent of encryption it ought be possible to lay down some basic principles or precepts of the online denizen. "The Right to be Forgotten" is a strong step in the right direction, but anonymity sometimes makes people act rashly -- which reminds me of the need for Nettiquette. I believe the difficulty comes in guaranteeing backdoors for law-enforcement and crime-deterrence while still affording a strong level of privacy. It's unlikely that law enforcement will simply "get used to" the fact that encryption works and is difficult [and in the case of ECC likely intractable] to decipher. The alternative is state-run applications and tech-companies with cross-sectional presence of politically inclined people, or some weird tryst of tech companies, lobbying, legislation, and law-enforcement that effectively elevates tech companies to governance level without the primary oversight of elections to place them there. If there is a third option I'd love to hear it.
Re: Element (Matrix chat app) suspended from the Google Play Store
#40What is Element?
The chat client of Matrix