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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

#911

Post by alfiedotwtf »

cbradford wrote: post #860
Arathorn wrote: post #857

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Very happy for you guys. But do take this as a shot across the bow, if and when it serves Google's agenda to shut you down they will. You have a great service, don't let Google control you and be beholden to them.

We have put all of our eggs in the iOS and Android basket. It looks like this year we’ll see a few Linux phone come to market... can’t come soon enough

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

#912

Post by einpoklum »

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…

> extremely abusive content

This phrasing suggests it was probably not even illegal to publish.

What if this content had been something that Google finds politically or commercially disfavorable to its interests, rather than something we would all think is intolerable? What if it _is_ like that?

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

#913

Post by einpoklum »

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…

> But the details of how Google screwed up here

They didn't "screw up". Or rather, that's not the main problem. The problem is that Google has the power to block the main channel of distribution of a piece of software.

Now, it's true that you can "just" get Element elsewhere, but the effective user lock-in into a single-corporation-controlled download hub ("app store") - that's the problem. And Google has gotten that quite right... for itself.

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

#914

Post by einpoklum »

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…

> If you accept that (1) there is a substantial amount of content that Google should censor

Why would we accept this? We don't even accept the situation in which Google is _able_ to censor anything for the general public.

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

#915

Post by varispeed »

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 wonder if this is some sort of an organised thing. I think there are services that sell a take down service so that they upload questionable content on the competitors apps or websites and then report it.

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

#916

Post by feanaro »

remram wrote: post #844
feanaro wrote: post #783

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not that resource hungry anymore. Hovering stably around 500M RSS and 8% CPU for me right now. That's with ~25 users and a lot of federated, public rooms, some of them quite large.

8% CPU average actually sounds like a lot, unless your 25 users are chatting around the clock.

The federation is chatting around the clock. Remember, joining a Matrix room means that your server needs to handle all of the room's traffic. And 25 users can easily be in a lot of large rooms. However, each room only needs to be handled once, so if more of my users join a room in which my server is already participating, the cost doesn't increase.

That said, this isn't an average but a spot value. It frequently falls below 8% (though typically stays above 5%). Note that this is a cheap and relatively weak VPS.

I'm not saying Matrix is terribly lightweight. I'm saying you can easily run a small personal instance on a cheap machine without any performance problems.

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

#917

Post by ripdog »

idclip wrote: post #891
Arathorn wrote: post #857

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Sounds like CP ... cp is a real issue when it comes to crypto.

If it was encrypted, it wouldn't have been discovered in the first place. At least, not by google app reviewers.

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

#918

Post by varispeed »

usr1106 wrote: post #898
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…

> There needs to be regulatory oversight of the Google/Apple app stores The regularity oversight needs to address a different aspect: google is world-wide de-facto monopoly for people not owning an iPhone. At least for the most part of the freer world, China is different story. Until Google is broken up or fair competition is not achieved, content regulation does not help. As a European I want to care about US regula…

This principle should be applied to all sectors. Basically capitalism is still young and we didn't have situations in the past were small companies could consolidate indefinitely so that they can at some point get so big they have more money than some countries. I think there should be a cap that beyond certain point company will have to be divided, so we never get companies too big to fail and being able to afford buying law to suit them.

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

#919

Post by feanaro »

absorber wrote: post #802
feanaro wrote: post #783

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not that resource hungry anymore. Hovering stably around 500M RSS and 8% CPU for me right now. That's with ~25 users and a lot of federated, public rooms, some of them quite large.

What CPU are you running it on and how many cores are being used? Are you also in really large rooms like Techlore and Matrix HQ? Because I think I'm in all of the largest rooms (and a lot of the smaller ones)

Not those two (and I know those are especially large), but we are in many 5-10k rooms, including bridged Freenode rooms which are known to be some of the worst offenders.

Note that many significant improvements have landed very recently, for instance the chain cover stuff which significantly improves handling of rooms with frequent membership changes (such as the aforementioned bridged IRC rooms).

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

#920

Post by codethief »

chithanh wrote: post #499
walrus01 wrote: post #289

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Signal can at least in principle censor user content, because they control both server and clients. (And they do, for example you can "delete" your messages that are stored on other clients.) With Matrix you have the choice to use whatever server or client you like, which makes it difficult to censor.

> Signal can at least in principle censor user content, because they control both server and clients.

But given E2E and the Sealed Sender[0] functionality, they could only suppress messages based on the recipient's user ID, not based upon message content or the sender's ID. This all or nothing approach is a rather ineffective method of censoring – it basically just amounts to banning a user account. I wouldn't even call it censoring in the first place as that term, at least to me, refers to a more selective and refined approach.

> (And they do, for example you can "delete" your messages that are stored on other clients.)

This has nothing to do with censoring and nothing to do with Signal controlling "both server and clients". The Signal developers simply extended the protocol to include "delete" requests for previously sent messages. The client app still needs to implement the actual deletion, though. You could easily compile the Signal app yourself with that functionality removed and then nothing would get deleted from your message history anymore.

I mean, sure, 99% of users are not going to do this. But this is no different in the case of Matrix, where most people just download the default apps like Element from the app store.

So I don't even understand what your statement

> they control […] clients

is supposed to mean. Yes, they write the source code. So? Someone has to produce and maintain the source code and whoever does it will obviously be in a position of power. Producers are always going to decide what they produce. Consumers don't get a say in this – unless they become producers themselves (and in case of open-source software) adapt the product to their needs. Again, this is nothing new and is the case with Matrix, too.

[0]: https://signal.org/blog/sealed-sender/

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