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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

#901

Post by throwaway3699 »

orthecreedence wrote: post #885
throwaway3699 wrote: post #882

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Pure capitalism (anarchy) is just people exchanging things via barter. Government is generally to blame when things get too centralised (either by fiddling the market or by not enforcing antitrust).

> Pure capitalism (anarchy) is just people exchanging things via barter. Anarchy and capitalism are two extremely different things, and also there are methods of free association ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free_association_(Marxism_and_... ) that allow for distributed production without any centralization OR private ownership of production/profit-driven exchange. Granted, we're far off from these things probably…

Ah, I mean the purest form of capitalism is one without any government or monetary system controlling the currency or tax on transactions. I think this is a reasonable statement.

Capitalism, much like democracy it's the least-worst system out there.

I believe most of the problems we're facing with it are challenges of scale. Especially in the US, it's just too big. Maybe breaking everything up back to the state level would be a good idea?

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

#902

Post by kenneth »

UncleMeat wrote: post #867
alex_reg wrote: post #717

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe. But if you always discount such events as coincidences, you risk remaining blind to emerging patterns.

The app is back up and the Element folks agreed that there was what sounds like child pornography reachable from their domain. Overzealous automation perhaps, but obviously not a conspiracy.

Element is not Matrix.org.

You can view child porn on Chrome, or receive it by email, or download it by Torrent. Yet I don't see anyone banning web browsers, email clients, and Bittorrent client.

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

#903

Post by [deleted] »

passerby1 wrote: post #135
eMGm4D0zgUAVXc7 wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> What people and authorities? - Make bank account. - Bank forces you to use their app for obtaining TANs. - App refuses to run because "your phone is rooted", i.e. because you removed Google's crap. - No bank account for you, sorry bro. I have personally been through this shit. Sure, some banks offer using a physical TAN generator - but not all!

Not sure what TANs are, but why not using a separate (SIMless) old/cheap Android device only for that?

[deleted]

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

#904

Post by Jabbles »

Arathorn wrote: post #857
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…

UPDATE: I just got a call from a VP at Google who apologised for the bad communication around this and explained the situation, which related to some extremely abusive content which was accessible on the default matrix.org homeserver. We don't want to go into specifics, but suffice it to say that it's not related to WallStreet Bets or anything like that, but instead is the sort of thing that causes you to get locked…

Did your abuse team email the site that you removed from your home page, explaining your policies and telling them exactly why it was removed?

Did the VP offer any explanation as to why you had not received any communcation from Google?

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

#905

Post by beefield »

burnte wrote: post #809
beefield wrote: post #343

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I don't even trust myself But you trust yourself so much that "advertising DOES work on me, but only insomuch as it alerts me to potential things" That sounds a bit contradictory to me. (I think I could describe myself somewhat like you did in the latter part, and I still have absolutely no illusions that ads would not be able to get me. So I just actively try to avoid them. And I do not need or want anyone to aler…

Well, I stated that it queues my interest, then I research it understanding it's probably not as good as it looks. I'm not sure I agree that's contradictory. I'm not saying they don't succeed in attracting me, I'm saying I don't buy based on ads.

The fact that you do not seem to believe that ads may be able to affect your behavior beyond your analytical research is the thing that is contradictory with you not trusting yourself. Or at least that is something I can't trust myself, even if I also happen to think I am beyond ads. But based on my observations in the society and other people, ads are way, way too powerful for me to trust my non-lizard brain here. So I just try to not give my lizard brain the ad exposure at all.

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

#906

Post by sitzkrieg »

Arathorn wrote: post #857
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…

UPDATE: I just got a call from a VP at Google who apologised for the bad communication around this and explained the situation, which related to some extremely abusive content which was accessible on the default matrix.org homeserver. We don't want to go into specifics, but suffice it to say that it's not related to WallStreet Bets or anything like that, but instead is the sort of thing that causes you to get locked…

this is still a joke you have to post on hn and hope to get high enough up to nastygram someone over 'my app connectsto the internet like yours' level of shit

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

#907

Post by js4ever »

olefoo wrote: post #884
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

In the wake of an unprecedented attack on the core institutions of a democracy; forums and websites that were being used to plot violence against lawmakers are discovering that all available sources of pressure on them to change their behavior are being exercised? The Parler dudes are just lucky that they haven't been arrested for material support of terrorism yet.

Twitter and Reddit where used as well, chrome, internet ... even electricity ... None of them where shutdown. So IMHO shooting element was too much.

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

#908

Post by xorcist »

cxr wrote: post #743
khimaros wrote: post #698

Earlier quoted context omitted.

i disagree. the main repository enforces reproducible builds and restricts trackers. please keep the main repo up to date.

Well, I disagree with your disagreement. Part of the value of F-Droid is that the main repository can host packages that are vetted and maintained by uninvolved parties. Second, if the Matrix-run repository does reproducible builds, then... there's no problem. (That's the nature of reproducible builds.) Third, F-Droid was conceived to be distributed and decentralized. That's why it allows you to add other sources in…

If they provide reproducible builds there's also no need for a separate repository.

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

#909

Post by feanaro »

panarky wrote: post #785
tabbott wrote: post #702

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

If you accept that (1) there is a substantial amount of mal-content that Google should censor, and (2) a key use case for federated messaging platforms is to evade censorship, and that (3) client applications can be functionally part of a federated messaging platform while legally separate from it, then those client applications are fair game to be censored when they deliver mal-content. Now I may disagree with parts…

Why is this disingenuous? The web is decentralized in exactly the same way and browsers play exactly the same role of independent clients for accessing this decentralised network as do Matrix clients for the Matrix network.

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

#910

Post by nobody9999 »

Dylan16807 wrote: post #707
nobody9999 wrote: post #353

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>In theory it's nice, in practice are there phones that you can root without leaving the bootloader in a vulnerable state? I've always just unlocked the bootloader, then installed TWRP[0] (or similar) and then re-locked the bootloader. Once a reasonable recovery partition is in place, you don't need keep the bootloader unlocked. [0] https://twrp.me/

And then how do you actually do the rooting in a way that doesn't make your phone fail to boot? What model of phone?

I'd add that there's a wealth of information (and not just about rooting/unlocking bootloaders) about Android tools, software, development and phone capabilities here:

https://www.xda-developers.com/

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