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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

#761

Post by monopoledance »

nip180 wrote: post #696
monopoledance wrote: post #648

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> This is basically the last straw for me. Now you're just out of straws, or pulled the trigger on some decision? What's the implication?

I imagine if you wanted to 100% stop buying or using products from FANNG (+Microsoft & Twitter) it would be impossible without doing anything short of living completely off the grid. Imagine, you ditch your smartphone. You switch to Linux. You stop using _search engines_ because all of them use Google or Bing in the backend. You abandon Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, YouTube, GitHub, and Gmail. Before you go to a websi…

I don't believe in "vote with your wallet" kinda dogmas. I mean watch the news right now..

We need regulation and government investment in open tech and software. The App/Play Store are anti-competitive, but Apple and Google have a Duopoly in the mobile market. There can and should be rules regarding this. I don't see how they should be even allowed to profit off these markets. Like at all. Every app there increases the value of their platforms by itself.

Even if you use F-Droid, you then have to compromise on security deeply embedded into the Android OS.

Platforms should be allowed to be repairable, open and documented and users should be allowed to do whatever they please with them.

The market won't fix this. You need to become politically active.

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

#762

Post by tomstockmail »

uncoder0 wrote: post #240
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…

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.

I don't agree with OP here but I've found a lot of people from the Parler/Gab crowd have found Matrix lack of content moderation appealing and have been in channels on the Matrix directory that have all the same content as Parler/Gab. I would recommend the Matrix team start taking content moderation more seriously as my experience is they do not take it seriously. They may want to disable room creation on matrix.org in the meantime.

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

#763

Post by coldtea »

burnte wrote: post #141
coldtea wrote: post #119

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. They use highly optimized and self-optimizing techniques and psychological tricks (including A/B testing, consulting experts in cognition, using dark patterns, and everything) to get you hooked…

It's very possible I AM different. I have an insanely high tolerance for alcohol and most drugs (legal and otherwise). I've had situations where I was prescribed vicodin for months at a stretch, and when the pain was gone, half a bottle sat in the drawer until I threw it out (TMJ neuralgia and gallstones leading to gallbladder removal). If I don't look at FB for a day or two, I feel no compulsion to look at it. Somet…

You might or might no be that different.

But it's worth to note that most people are delluded in this regard, thinking they're different. Besides "different in tolerance" and "hookable" are not entirely contradictory. One might resist Vicodin and fall for social media echo- bubbling for example, the same way some can resist alcohol, but fall for drugs or food at obesity-level, and so on. In other words, some are different in the set of tolerances, but still human, in that they have their soft spots.

>But, you didn't actually answer my question. I asked how they affected YOU, not what the goals of these platforms are.

That would still be asking the wrong question. We don't live in isolated fishbowls. What negatively affects others also affects me (that's not even to mention the direct harm to my family, relatives, and friends, I'm speaking in more general community terms).

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

#764

Post by iggldiggl »

Macha wrote: post #694
thu2111 wrote: post #651

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The main hurdle is that (without rooting) there doesn't seem to be a way for alternative app stores to silently update software. Does this actually matter? On the desktop it's normal for apps to update themselves. Is there some fundamental reason an Android app cannot do this too?

Yes. The application's executable is not writeable to the app. You need to go through the package installer. This requires a system controlled prompt for the user to confirm an installation, and requires a seperate permission to even ask which is not allowed for third party apps published to the play store ( https://developer.android.com/reference/android/Manifest.per... ).

Er, not quite. The permission required to trigger the app install prompt for an APK is REQUEST_INSTALL_PACKAGES, which is available to third-party apps.

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

#765

Post by NullPrefix »

dominotw wrote: post #693
unethical_ban wrote: post #399

Don't forget that F-Droid is a thing, and Android still has at least that much freedom - to install your own software. Who would have thought 30 years ago someone would be saying "People can run any code they want on their computer" as a shocking thing.

I use the app to chat with my mom. My mom is not going to install F-Droid or whatever. This comment reminds me of the famous dropbox comment on HN.

Care to share the famous comment for those not in the know?

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

#766

Post by johbjo »

conradev wrote: post #676
zaroth wrote: post #666

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> But why? Matrix is tiny and no threat to Google services. There is an absolutely unprecedented shift going on as we speak, one of those groundswell events that have the potential to shift usage habits of hundreds of millions of people. We got a taste just recently with the shift away from WhatsApp based on a TOS update . Imagine arguing last year that ten million users would jump ship based on a TOS change? Matrix,…

Google has no (competitive) horse in the messenger race, so while that theory might fit your ideological point of view, I don’t understand why Google itself would have any incentive (or grounds) to remove an open source chat app. How is Matrix a threat to Google?

> How is Matrix a threat to Google?

A matrix user identity will eventually compete with a google account.

When google accounts are considered as important as myspace accounts, then much of their surveillance loses relevance.

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

#767

Post by anderspitman »

grishka wrote: post #527
spians wrote: post #493

Earlier quoted context omitted.

These are still four more steps then what it takes to directly install from the Play Store. Most people would view any of these four steps as hurdle. > And you won't need to go to the settings the next time, it'll just work. You will still have to find the apk when there is an update, download it and confirm install. There are still three steps to update the apk compared to Play Store's one tap (or even zero clicks i…

It's possible to build self-update functionality into an app, just like many apps do on desktop. An app can open that installation prompt to update itself.

Not on the latest versions of Android, unless you're only updating interpreted code like Python. You can no longer execute files that weren't packaged with the original APK.

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

#768

Post by jsnell »

tabbott wrote: post #702
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…

I'm really upset that this happened to you folks, and it's scary, because incident could just as easily have happened to us at Zulip (or any other OSS app that connects to self-hosted servers!). I expect we'll never get a useful explanation from Google for why this incident happened -- abuse teams, like fraud teams, are worried about the bad guys using the explanations to tune their tactics and so tend to never expla…

Legitimate app yes, but was it actually popular? The cached copy of the Element store page says 100k installs, <2k reviews. Compare to e.g. Signal at 50M installs and 1.2M reviews. Or WhatsApp with 5B installs and 130M reviews.

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

#769

Post by anderspitman »

Un1corn wrote: post #295
walrus01 wrote: post #288

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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)

Don't forget that turning off the screen can wildly affect service behavior even for foreground services, and these effects vary across vendors:

https://developer.android.com/training/monitoring-device-sta...

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