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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

#281

Post by Dylan16807 »

bordercases wrote: post #115
burnte wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So let me ask you a question, how were they negatively impacting your mental wellbeing? I ask this genuinely, because I have a tendency to feel these tools only negatively impact people who use them in stress-creating ways. That, however, feels like victim blaming. There's a difference between a using a circular saw dangerously and a circular saw that is MADE with electrical failures that shock you. Let me give the e…

Google reads your e-mails to develop its ads. Psychological profiles are collated from every click you take on each of these platforms and pulled into ad brokerships. The people that are hired to do this profiling often have crossovers into government sectors, as this is just another form of surveillance. I am personally shocked (not necessarily appalled) at anyone feeling OK with this level of scrutiny being applied…

That's creepy and all but I thought we were talking about mental well-being?

Re: Element (Matrix chat app) suspended from the Google Play Store

#282

Post by sbierwagen »

walrus01 wrote: post #276
js4ever wrote: post #238

It seems all those deplatforming started really recently with trump/parler and turned into a witch hunt. It's now totally out of control and we start to look like CCP

Element and Parler are nothing alike. Element is a chat client. It's an empty piece of software for use with your own choice of server. Element is to a chat server, as Thunderbird is to an email server. It's basically a glorified IRC client. It contains no content of its own. Parler was basically a curated, centrally run, Facebook-message-board-replacement for neonazis, antisemites, qanon conspiracy theorists, and th…

You posted an identical comment here? https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25967058

Copying and pasting posts is generally discouraged.

Re: Element (Matrix chat app) suspended from the Google Play Store

#283

Post by vector_spaces »

Arathorn wrote: post #3

So we got notified by the developer console at 21:45 UTC that the app had been suspended, but still haven’t had an email to explain why - it’s 02:24 now. Our assumption that this is due to someone reporting abusive content in Matrix to Google, and Element catching the blame — although this is currently speculation. To be clear: Element is a Matrix client just as Chrome is a Web browser, and just as it’s possible to v…

That really sucks. Here's to hoping they don't end up using this to pressure you into compromising your feature set somehow.

Incidentally I was always kinda surprised that the upgrade nag links in Riot Android redirected to Play store instead of f-droid

Re: Element (Matrix chat app) suspended from the Google Play Store

#284

Post by walrus01 »

sbierwagen wrote: post #282
walrus01 wrote: post #276

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Element and Parler are nothing alike. Element is a chat client. It's an empty piece of software for use with your own choice of server. Element is to a chat server, as Thunderbird is to an email server. It's basically a glorified IRC client. It contains no content of its own. Parler was basically a curated, centrally run, Facebook-message-board-replacement for neonazis, antisemites, qanon conspiracy theorists, and th…

You posted an identical comment here? https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25967058 Copying and pasting posts is generally discouraged.

Yes I did, and I intend to leave it up. I don't really have any personal compunctions about a mild breach of the rules when calling out apologists of Parler and the Mercers.

Re: Element (Matrix chat app) suspended from the Google Play Store

#285

Post by dathinab »

orthecreedence wrote: post #261
perryizgr8 wrote: post #224

Huh! That's unfortunate. But in the end it's Google's platform and they have the right to kick you out for any or without any reason and/or recourse. If Element doesn't like it they can just make their own Android, play store and sell billions of phones around the world. It's a non-issue.

Agreed! This is just the free market in action. This is a good thing.

> This is just the free market in action.

It's not free marked at all.

Free marked is about having a competition between companies where the user decides who wins by buying the best products.

The concept of a free marked was invented before there had been massive marked limiting factors like "lock down" of digital devices and similar.

Somehow a lot of people still take all the original arguments why a free marked is good but then use them to argue for a marked which is neither free nor has the marked dynamics anymore which make a free marked a potential "good" marked strategy.

In the end a free marked needs to have proper competition. Weather that is limited by the government or by companies abusing a change in technological landscape which gives them powers which originally at best governments had doesn't matter, it's no longer a free marked at all and no of the reasons why it's supposedly good do uphold then.

Re: Element (Matrix chat app) suspended from the Google Play Store

#286

Post by pmlnr »

Sunspark wrote: post #30
435243543543 wrote: post #23

If there's a backlash, it will just be explained as an "oops," like when Firefox devs catch them doing stuff like this: > https://www.neowin.net/news/mozilla-executive-claims-that-go... >In a thread on Twitter, Mozilla's Technical Program Manager has stated that YouTube's Polymer redesign relies heavily on the deprecated Shadow DOM v0 API, which is only available in Chrome. This in turn makes the site around five tim…

I worked around this problem in Firefox by changing the browser useragent for the YouTube site to an older version # though the fix won't last forever. I have become accustomed to using multiple browsers and OSes simply because of all the issues surrounding video playback.

I simply accepted it loads slower. It's long bad if I don't have 5s to wait.

Re: Element (Matrix chat app) suspended from the Google Play Store

#288

Post by walrus01 »

colllectorof wrote: post #246
colllectorof wrote: post #181

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Is this google starting to test the waters when it comes to arbitrarily kicking out software they personally don't like? (open source, decentralized, privacy oriented etc.) Absolutely. They've done similar things with similar apps. You just have to pay some attention to see the pattern. Let's take video for example. They Kicked LBRY client off Play store not so long ago. (It eventually got reinstated.) They permanen…

And then you occasionally see more subtle stuff like this: " Since Android 8.0 Oreo, Google doesn't allow apps to run in the background anymore, requiring all apps which were previously keeping background connection to exclusively use its Firebase push messaging service." https://github.com/Telegram-FOSS-Team/Telegram-FOSS/blob/mas...

how is this handled for SIP softphones that can run persistently in the background, in a direct SIP or SIP-over-TLS connection to a server? for instance:

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=org.linphone&h...

that's just a random example I thought of since I use it, but I can also think of a lot of other Android apps that I'm fairly sure aren't using any client-server communications mediated through google firebase, yet they continue to function while backgrounded on android 10 and 11.

Re: Element (Matrix chat app) suspended from the Google Play Store

#289

Post by walrus01 »

Shorel wrote: post #272
paulcarroty wrote: post #243

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Google will explain what’s going on shortly It's definitely not Google style. But I hope Matrix will get more promotion in result.

Newsflash: there is a chat system so secure, Google doesn't want you to know it exists.

I don't think that can be the full rationale behind whatever got it removed, if that were the case, they'd absolutely have removed Signal quite some time ago.

Re: Element (Matrix chat app) suspended from the Google Play Store

#290

Post by throwaway3699 »

walrus01 wrote: post #278
uncoder0 wrote: post #240

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You, like Parler, have been targeted by the powers that be. You may have nothing else in common other than that but, you're in the same boat it seems.

Element and Parler are nothing alike. Element is a chat client. It's an empty piece of software for use with your own choice of server. Element is to a chat server, as Thunderbird is to an email server. It's basically a glorified IRC client. It contains no content of its own. Parler was basically a curated, centrally run, Facebook-message-board-replacement for neonazis, antisemites, qanon conspiracy theorists, and th…

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