Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

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

twitter.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

291–300 of 988 posts

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

#291

Post by clusterfish »

neonate wrote: post #173
2pEXgD0fZ5cF wrote: post #13

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.) I might of course be exaggerating a bit here, keep that in mind. - Element and Matrix are growing but still not equipped to fight back at large against this, so it is unlikely to create too much negative press - If Google starts to catch too much…

I think the situation is probably more interesting than deliberate anticompetitive evil. I bet that there was indeed some policy violation, and some minor bureaucrat is reasonably applying the policy, but in a way that misses the big-picture impact of doing so, for example threads of outrage high on Hacker News. The policies back them into being a monopolistic heavy whether they mean to or not, because they're so big…

> The policies back them into being a monopolistic heavy whether they mean to or not

That only happens because they deliberately put themselves in a position of market power. If they didn't have such crazy amounts of power nobody would care about their "policies" misfiring. None of this is accidental in the big picture, we're well past any window of plausible deniability with Google. They can't perpetually claim incompetence.

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

#292

Post by 0x10c0fe11ce »

zepto wrote: post #177
jtbayly wrote: post #169

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think it started with a P. Paler, maybe? or Parter?

Google ditched that app too. If you move from iPhone, where would you go?

I’m seriously considering ditching my iPhones for any Nokia dumb phone. But what we really need is a mobile OS that is really free with no marketing BS, ideally BSD derived.

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

#293

Post by emayljames »

mrec wrote: post #228
swiley wrote: post #215

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People on here think that most "normal" people are going to figure out how to sideload apps. No. I visited my parents church at the beginning of this year and very few people were talking about that. What they were talking about is giving up on smartphones and social media altogether which is probably not a bad idea.

> What they were talking about is giving up on smartphones and social media altogether That's incredibly encouraging to hear. It seems to be a common feature of "I quit Facebook/Twitter/whatever" accounts that once you break the immediate addiction there's no real urge to go back, so if this does happen it should have a decent chance of sticking. (And as a mobile refusenik I sometimes feel like the last holdout left,…

Yeah, I totally get the enjoyment of not being "always available". I have had lengthy periods without a phone, and it teaches you that; no, you don't have to be always available, and no the world will not end etc.

The only "social media" I use is Reddit, but it isn't/I don't use it as they person centric networks like boomerbook/twitter.

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

#294

Post by ORYDRICA »

edrxty wrote: post #260

It appears they've also removed Pattle, but Ditto and FluffyChat are still available at this time. Odd that they'd only remove half of the Matrix clients available...

Is it maybe because FluffyChat is developed by a German company, Famedly GmbH?

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

#295

Post by Un1corn »

walrus01 wrote: post #288
colllectorof wrote: post #246

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 f…

I'm not sure how Linphone is doing it but all the apps I used that required to run in the background were required to show a notification at all time.

This is a terrible UX, my notification center is useless because I always have those apps in there (KDEConnect and Syncthing for example)

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

#296

Post by throwaway3699 »

mrec wrote: post #228
swiley wrote: post #215

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People on here think that most "normal" people are going to figure out how to sideload apps. No. I visited my parents church at the beginning of this year and very few people were talking about that. What they were talking about is giving up on smartphones and social media altogether which is probably not a bad idea.

> What they were talking about is giving up on smartphones and social media altogether That's incredibly encouraging to hear. It seems to be a common feature of "I quit Facebook/Twitter/whatever" accounts that once you break the immediate addiction there's no real urge to go back, so if this does happen it should have a decent chance of sticking. (And as a mobile refusenik I sometimes feel like the last holdout left,…

Assuming from the subtext that GP means they're wanting to give up because of (app)(?) censorship. Having a whole strata of society no longer participating in the conversation is not healthy. Politicians are now looking to these platforms to guide policy decisions, so anybody not on them has no voice.

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

#297

Post by Dylan16807 »

nobody9999 wrote: post #248
nexthash wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Personally, I heavily rely on Google and Amazon. All my emails, purchases, photos, and browsing goes through them. Opting out would mean uprooting gigabytes of data to other services, which takes time to research, backup, and transfer. And even then you can't fully get rid of them, because switching to Apple from Android costs money, and I am not willing to root Android. This is merely my personal situation, but sayi…

>I am not willing to root Android. Why is that? I'm not being snarky, I just don't understand why. The difference between a rooted and non-rooted android is like the being in the wheel group or sudoers file on unix/linux and not being in them. Personally, I like to have full control of my own property. What reason do you have for not wanting that?

In theory it's nice, in practice are there phones that you can root without leaving the bootloader in a vulnerable state? And it looks like the future is a situation where it's impossible to prevent software from detecting unlocks and refusing to run.

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

#298

Post by ekianjo »

cma wrote: post #236
2pEXgD0fZ5cF wrote: post #13

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.) I might of course be exaggerating a bit here, keep that in mind. - Element and Matrix are growing but still not equipped to fight back at large against this, so it is unlikely to create too much negative press - If Google starts to catch too much…

Seems like the first step to kicking out competing web browsers, if the browsers don't moderate what you browse.

"Don't Be Evil" - Looks like the roots of Google are far behind them now.

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

#299

Post by buzzerbetrayed »

tmpz22 wrote: post #249
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.

Parler curated the content on their platform for months including shadowbanning new accounts until they had been approved by volunteer moderators. Accounts on Parler called for and planned violence against elected officials for months. Executives at the company spoke often and publicly supporting that content. If your going to argue with a straight face the this new situation is the same as Parler, your putting Eleme…

> If your going to argue with a straight face the this new situation is the same as Parler

Just go reread what gp wrote. He basically said the exact opposite of this. You are putting words in his mouth and interpereting his comment in the least charitable way possible.

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

#300

Post by avereveard »

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…

should have built your own phone with your own store

- hn hivemind

Post reply on HN