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

https://twitter.com/element_hq/status/1355290296947499013

by redsolver • 5 years ago

2009 864 5 years ago

ssivark• 5 years ago

I have no idea whether this is correlated with the other recent de-platforming events, but the rapidly growing list of examples is now getting ridiculous. It’s crazy to imagine that the rug could get pulled out from beneath any of us, any time, under any pretext (or no pretext at all!). I don’t know whether a more apt metaphor alludes to serfs on feudal land, or The Trial by Kafka.

If it turns out this is because of specific discussions/channels then banning the Element app for that makes about as much sense as banning Facebook/Twitter for what some people said, or Google because of what some website says.

DLA• 5 years ago

This is the upside down crazy we are faced with when a tiny number of giant companies make decisions on whims of ever changing policy.

We need to fight back with things like PWAs to bypass the app stores, web socket chats, distributed social platforms, and plain old web pages to publicly document these attacks on free speech. Call/email Congress too. Get friends and neighbors to do the same. They are already alerted to this growing abuse by these monopolistic giants.

Arathorn11• 5 years ago

Good point. https://hydrogen.element.io works very well as a PWA, but doesn’t have push support yet.

Thorentis6• 5 years ago

Banning Element because of channels created on a decentralised network makes as much sense as banning a web-browser because of websites created on a decentralised network (i.e., the Internet). Looking forward to Chrome's imminent removal from the Play Store.

seniorivn• 5 years ago

only if chrome is not censoring internet which google is happy to do

Arathorn11• 5 years ago

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 view abusive material via Chrome, the same is true of Element.

However, we abhor abuse, and on the default matrix.org server (and other Matrix servers the core team maintains) we have a fairly strict terms of use at https://matrix.org/legal/terms-and-conditions#6-play-nice-cl... which we proactively enforce. Meanwhile we have a comprehensive toolset at https://matrix.org/docs/guides/moderation to help folks moderate, and are making good process with decentralised reputation to empower users and admins to filter out stuff they don’t want to see, as per https://matrix.org/blog/2020/10/19/combating-abuse-in-matrix....

So, it’s very unfortunate and frustrating that we’re in this position - hopefully Google will explain what’s going on shortly.

uncoder03• 5 years ago

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.

tmpz22• 5 years ago

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 Element side by side with some very bad company.

walrus017• 5 years ago

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 the lunatic fringe of the alt-right.

ttt09• 5 years ago

People will surely point out the obvious differences between the takedown of Parler and Element and I'd agree that it's not exactly the same thing, since Parler is its own platform and Element is just a client.

However, when looking on a bigger picture of the recent takedowns and trying to make sense of it, it does indeed seem to be connected. The only conclusion that seems rational to me is as follows:

Everyone tries to push their burden of moderation on people below them, because no one can actually keep up with it. And if the moderation is not enforced, they risk being taken down by someone above them. That would explain why everyone is so trigger happy when it comes to censorship. When the WallStreetBets people were taken down by Facebook and Discord, they didn't ban the individuals who were actually violating the policy, but the entire community.

It's also worth to note, that the takedowns can be enforced selectively, as we see here - Google obviously won't take down their own browser or email client, that also allows to access abusive content - assuming that's what Element was taken down for. It's probably selectively enforced on the social media too, but I'm out of the loop on what actually goes on there, so to be fair, I cannot prove it.

If this is actually what is happening, the only solution as far as I see it, is to extend the First Amendment to social media. Another solution could be to convince the people and the media to stop pressuring companies into deplatforming other people, but that's in my opinion definitely not going to happen. So it's either applying the protections of 1A to the internet or the censorship will get worse and worse.

tomstockmail4• 5 years ago

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.

paulcarroty• 5 years ago

Google will explain what’s going on shortly

It's definitely not Google style.

But I hope Matrix will get more promotion in result.

Shorel3• 5 years ago

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

ttt09• 5 years ago

I on the other hand hope that they won't just say "oops, our bad!", reinstate it and sweep the entire thing under the rug like nothing happened, without explaining anything.

There are people here who work on mobile applications. If they depend on Google and Apple delivering their app to their clients, it's still unacceptable that they can potentially put you out of business, just like that. I already saw a couple of people here that claimed it happened to them too. Without any reason, without the ability to appeal, nothing.

GlennS2• 5 years ago

Can we get Elon to tweet?

vector_spaces• 5 years ago

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

edrxty3• 5 years ago

My comment elsewhere got buried but it might be useful to you.

Pattle also appears to have been removed. Ditto and FluffyChat at the moment appear to still be up on the store though. For those unaware, these are all Matrix clients.

kitkat_new• 5 years ago

Afaik Pattle is discontinued

blondin• 5 years ago

sorry this is happening to you guys. i hope this situation gets sorted out.

not saying i agree with the decision here, but hn is sometimes so quick to blame google.

what surprised me though, is that you guys are aware of abusive content on the network and even put a "moderation" guide in place. so much good faith in people here...

ekianjo2• 5 years ago

So are you going to remove email clients from the play store if someone sends offensive emails?

brettwilcox5• 5 years ago

I'm testing Element and Matrix at American Airlines.

There are big players with clout that take issue to instability such as this. How can I rely on my company using Element when it gets pulled? Not cool Google...

To the element team, reach out to me if you can't get the support you are looking for.

yorwba2• 5 years ago

Reach out how? You have no public contact information in your HN profile.

markvdb• 5 years ago

This comment alone should be reason enough for the company behind Element to sue Google.

justaj2• 5 years ago

There are debug version apks available here: https://buildkite.com/matrix-dot-org/element-android/builds/...

Click on "Assemble GPlay Debug version" (or "Assemble FDroid Debug version" if you don't have Google Play Services), then click on "Artifacts" and then choose your apk from there.

volta832• 5 years ago

Can't you just use a web app or any other matrix client if this happens?

If Google were to "ban" slack from their store, their browsers, etc. then you would be quite in trouble.

But with matrix, just pick a different client and move on.

Arathorn11• 5 years ago

Sorry for this :((

walrus017• 5 years ago

Google may be able to control the Element app on the play store, but at least for the server side there's no way to do that with synapse (the official matrix protocol server side implementation), which is fully open source and distributed directly from the developers.

eeZah7Ux• 5 years ago

That's why XMPP has been adopted for military and industrial use.

acatsdream2• 5 years ago

You can use FDroid though.

kevin_thibedeau• 5 years ago

Big players with clout can commission their own closed access app. The C levels just need to take a $0.5M hit among themselves.

ensignavenger• 5 years ago

How can you rely on the app/play store for any app? This suspension has nothing to do with element, it could have been any app.

tormeh• 5 years ago

There are alternative clients: https://matrix.org/clients/

FluffyChat would be the main contender.

enriquto2• 5 years ago

Element is a Matrix client just as Chrome is a Web browser, and just as it’s possible to view abusive material via Chrome, the same is true of Element.
However, we abhor abuse, and on the default matrix.org server (...) we have a fairly strict terms of use (...) which we proactively enforce.

These two sentences are contradictory. Either you are a road or a road restaurant. You can't have it both ways.

Arnavion• 5 years ago

The first sentence is about Element.

The second sentence is about matrix.org

MaxBarraclough2• 5 years ago

Update posted on Twitter:

Morning all. We've had contact from Google confirming that the suspension is due to abusive content somewhere on Matrix; we're working with them to explain how Element works and get the situation resolved.

itronitron• 5 years ago

Maybe someone can let Google know that Element is not a publisher.

Spivak4• 5 years ago

I think it’s funny that they think Google cares at all about the implementation details of your service. The only thing that matters to app reviewers is what the user sees when they use it. If you make your app technically unmoderatable, impossible to remove illegal content, or impossible to respond to DMCA requests you don’t get to just throw your hands up.

Arathorn11• 5 years ago

We received a generic update at 05:31 UTC confirming that the app had been suspended due to abusive content (Sexual Content and Profanity: https://support.google.com/googleplay/android-developer/answ... ); we're following up to explain how Matrix and Element works and get this resolved.

pmlnr9• 5 years ago

This is insane. This jeopardizes every email, xmpp, matrix, etc; basically any 3rd party application.

mysterydip• 5 years ago

Could this be related to all the WSB shenanigans going on? Banning their chat groups makes them move to another, repeat?

Arathorn11• 5 years ago

We've just published an official blog post updating on the situation at https://element.io/blog/element-on-google-play-store/ which we'll keep updated as things progress.

brnt• 5 years ago

Wonder if we can get Facebook, Twitter, WhatsApp off the Play store like this as well. "Side effects include: sexual content and coups."

alex_reg2• 5 years ago

This is probably not a coincidence or an oversight, but rather a "what can we get away with" attempt, similar to previous efforts to remove UBlock Origin.

But why? Matrix is tiny and no threat to Google services.

I'd personally expect three letter agencies to be involved here. The US government has been aggressively going after encrypted communication for years, with extreme tactics like personal intimidation and secret courts. Read this story about a secure email provider if you doubt it. [1]

This doesn't work so well with EU based companies, even though they have been pushing EU governments to do the same. (There recently was a leak that the encryption ban currently discussed in the EU parliament has some roots in Five Eyes efforts and that governments were pressured by the US to support it. Published by FAZ or Sueddeutsche, I'm trying to find the article...)

I also doubt that iMessage and What's App gaining "backdoors" to their encryption is purely motivated by user experience.

At a time where a lot of people want to switch communication platforms, nipping any such efforts early might well be viewed as important.

"Abusive content" is a convenient excuse that can be arbitrarily applied.

[1] https://www.newyorker.com/tech/annals-of-technology/how-the-...

tom_mellior2• 5 years ago

Good luck! I hope you get this resolved soon.

In the meantime, what is the explanation for the F-Droid version lagging behind?

Arathorn11• 5 years ago

F-Droid publish their own builds; part of their mission is to independently build and package the upstream from source to avoid risk of the upstream doing anything unpleasant.

black_puppydog• 5 years ago

Lack of resources, plain and simple. The f-droid folks are operating on a shoestring budget last time I checked, which is shocking for a project of such significance.

patagonia• 5 years ago

How do we get Google Chrome pulled for abusive content?

khimaros4• 5 years ago

please keep F-Droid repo up to date. please don't create your own repo.

tabbott• 5 years ago

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 explain anything.

But the details of how Google screwed up here also don't matter. A sudden Friday night suspension of a popular, legitimate app is insane! That possibility shouldn't be in the flowchart.

I get that for malware/spam/etc., it's important to immediately suspend, but I don't understand why Google doesn't take more seriously the very negative harm caused by doing that to a legitimate app. Some notice and appeal opportunity should be required before suspending a popular app by a legitimate publisher.

I'm upset, and a bit scared, but I can't say I'm surprised. This sort of random/erroneous/arbitrary punishment without explanation happens all the time with Google and other major tech companies. And every app developer I've met has experienced _significant_ disruption to their app publishing efforts due arbitrary/random rejections by an Apple app store reviewer, and this has been the case for years, so we can pretty confident that the vendors won't improve unless they are forced to do so.

There needs to be regulatory oversight of the Google/Apple app stores and the negative consequences for everyone else of their error-prone and ruthless enforcement processes.

jsnell• 5 years ago

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.

panarky4• 5 years ago

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 those precepts in stronger or weaker forms, but it is disingenuous to claim that the client application is exactly as legitimate as a web browser just because the client application is legally but not functionally separate from the federated network.

usr1106• 5 years ago

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 regulation as much as about US tax laws: not at all. The US is not the world-regulator. We elect governments in Europe that have no power to do anything in this sector. I don't say Google should be forbidden in Europe, we are not China. But competition and more choice for users needs to be guaranteed by effective legislation, in practice that against Google and Apple.

einpoklum10• 5 years ago

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.

sneak4• 5 years ago

What is your policy surrounding your push notifications for your apps in the stores, when those notifications are originating from end servers on which people are saying things that you don't like?

tomstockmail4• 5 years ago

There are a LOT of channels unmoderated in the matrix directory that could have been reported, so this isn't surprising. I have abuse complaints emailed to your abuse address that have gone unanswered, so I don't believe that you're taking your terms of use seriously.

You can find my complaints in your inbox. It's good to know Google is taking action - will send the same complaints to them in the future since that seems to get more of a response from the devs.

soupbowl2• 5 years ago

Yeah, we better make sure every corner of the internet is moderated. /s

shadowofneptune• 5 years ago

That's good. I switched away from IRC to Discord back around 2016 because it was tedious to use with mobile networks. Discord has served the community I moderate pretty well, but I am always concerned that the company will go under some day. I've been eyeing Matrix for a while as an alternative and it'd be a blow to have one of its largest clients removed. Here's hoping it gets back soon.

Arathorn11• 5 years ago

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 up for life.

We spent today doing an audit by revisiting recent issues reported to abuse@matrix.org, which had already identified and acted on the content in question. We also took the opportunity to explain how Element and Matrix fit together, what decentralisation is, and the steps we take to mitigate abuse on the servers we run.

As a result, it looks like the app has just been reinstated while I was typing this message: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=im.vector.app.

Thanks everyone for your patience and support while we sorted this out (and huge thanks to the overall Element team who spent their Saturdays on the audit).

cbradford2• 5 years ago

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.

stjohnswarts2• 5 years ago

But I can visit sites and do things in chrome that will get me locked up for life as well yet it's still on my phone.

idclip• 5 years ago

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

mswann• 5 years ago

Thank you for all your efforts. The way you appear to have handled google's unjustifiable action is really impressive. Clearly that's one of the main reasons to be optimistic that matrix has a bright future - if I was in charge it certainly wouldn't. Due to incidents like this I simply ditched google completely. (OK, to be honest I sometimes watch videos on yt but without having an account.)

Jabbles• 5 years ago

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?

sitzkrieg• 5 years ago

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

einpoklum10• 5 years ago

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?

drummer• 5 years ago

Why the lack of transparency about exactly what content triggered this response?

mxuribe• 5 years ago

Challenges - like this google fiasco - really test the merit of a person and org...and you @Arathorn and the rest of the Element team as well as the Matrix org/Foundation team have shown to be really great stewards and leaders for Matrix, as well as great actors for open source and internet-at-large software. Kudos to you and the teams for the great job at managing this challenge (that never should have been created by Google in the first place)!! I've been a fanboy of matrix since the beginning (both the protocol and the teams building it), and it is behavior like yours and the related teams (incljuding all contributors!) that keep me as a fanboy for both the protocol stack and the software. Keep on truckin'!!! :-)

jhabdas2• 5 years ago

We don't want to go into specifics

This kind of language is very wishy-washy and leaves everything to the imagination. 9/10 times the issue is terrorism or CP. So which of the two was it? And why aren't you comfortable enough to share that reason with your prospective users?

varispeed3• 5 years ago

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.

white-moss• 5 years ago

I don't understand what google want to do...Evil.

shash7• 5 years ago

Add a link to the app's website.

lousken2• 5 years ago

https://element.io/

boring_twenties2• 5 years ago

Thank goodness for F-droid.

zeroping• 5 years ago

I totally agree. Last time this happened with an app I use and trust, I rooted my phone and switched to lineageos to allow F-droid auto-updates. Google is not making me want to keep using their services.

https://f-droid.org/packages/im.vector.app

canofbars3• 5 years ago

Until you find out that the app isn't able to use the google notification service so it puts a persistent notification in your bar and uses more battery.

boring_twenties2• 5 years ago

I was able to easily hide my persistent notification, and still get the actual notifications for messages.

I understand it should use more battery, but my phones still last multiple days even with F-Droid versions of Element and Telegram running 24/7.

One real annoyance is that after upgrading the apps, I need to start them again manually. Otherwise I won't receive any notifications until I do. IIRC with the Google Play versions, the push notifications will arrive and cause the app to start.

quyleanh• 5 years ago

Let people decides what is wrong and what is correct. Not big tech, not platform creator.

2pEXgD0fZ5cF2• 5 years ago

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 critique for this decision they can put it back and always blame $error

I believe Element will be back soon, the problem I see here is that it will be framed as an "honest mistake" and then become forgotten until they pull another stunt like this.

Even if these removals are temporary, they can still hurt growth. Let's assume a bit more malice: Couldn't Google just monitor and analyze metrics of an undesirable app (downloads, usage, hype), pick a critical point in its growth then "accidentaly" remove it for a few days, causing damage that isn't immediately apparent, but nonetheless long lasting?

COGlory6• 5 years ago

I don't think this is the case. But in my opinion, the fact that we have no way of knowing and have to rely on Google not to do that is the real issue.

neonate2• 5 years ago

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 that they basically have to rule the world and there's no mechanism for outsiders to have a say.

The real problem is that the policies are not adapting to rapidly changing conditions (i.e. yet another takedown, howls of outrage, calls for regulation), and the big tech companies have become too sclerotic to cope with that. Worse (for them), they're vulnerable to being gamed. Once people figure out that saying "Jehovah" triggers the policy, some will keep saying "Jehovah Jehovah Jehovah" just to fuck with them and grow the popular outrage.

bdefore3• 5 years ago

Very well put. Sympathetic. Yet still culpable even if they can't scale Google scale right?

clusterfish2• 5 years ago

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.

colllectorof3• 5 years ago

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 permanently banned BitChute app. Not app-related, but currently Rumble is suing Google for manipulating video search results in favor of YouTube. Look up the details, they are quite interesting.

Meanwhile, Google has an agreement with all Android hardware providers that forces them to pre-install YouTube and make it non-removable.

colllectorof3• 5 years ago

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...

thoweri234234• 5 years ago

They kicked out Paytm in India because they were offering "lottery" prizes in the same way that their Google-competitor Gpay was.

cma3• 5 years ago

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

ttt09• 5 years ago

And email clients.

ekianjo2• 5 years ago

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

imhoguy3• 5 years ago

Even if these removals are temporary, they can still hurt growth.

I don't think so. A lot of people were not aware of Matrix even, it's geek tech.

Now, just watch how this Streisand effect unfolds over the weekend.

nip1803• 5 years ago

This is a critical growth period for smaller platforms.

foxhop• 5 years ago

Yes, I'm convinced the YouTube algos did this to my channel during summer 2020. Their algos wait in silence until triggered.

Big tech platform who participate in anti-competitive practices (Google, Amazon, Apple, Facebook) know the optimal time to pull the plug to flatten the curve and prevent competition from going exponential.

whichquestion• 5 years ago

Would there be a way to demonstrate that this hurt your growth and could you seek damages for this, despite the terms of service?

And if this is actually a pattern with the Google Play Store, couldn’t someone design an elaborate set of traps to demonstrate this in Court?

zamadatix• 5 years ago

Say you demonstrate it in a fullproof way, what are you seeking damages for? A store kicking your product out according to the agreement?

I.e. the thing you need to show in court isnt that Google stopped selling your app in its store because it didn't like it rather that it's a monopolistic marketplace or the terms are somehow invalid or so on. These are much higher bars, especially with 3rd party stores and side loading being available and used on the platform. It's considered a battle to prove these things in the Apple ecosystem I can't imagine trying to prove them in Play first.

22c• 5 years ago

Is this google starting to test the waters

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trial_balloon

rangoon6266• 5 years ago

Bookmarking this one for when my friends chide me for “still” using iOS.

crumbshot4• 5 years ago

On Android, it's still much easier to install apps from outside Google's app store (just change the "install unknown apps" setting, download the .apk file, and open it) than it is on iOS.

rootusrootus• 5 years ago

As a practical matter, though, only a very small number of people will ever do that. Being kicked out of the play store is almost always going to be a death sentence for the app.

Apple has earned plenty of criticism themselves, but I do appreciate that they curate the app store with humans.

Saris• 5 years ago

The difference is, good luck getting Element installed on iOS if Apple removes it from the app store.

On Android you just grab an APK or use F-Droid and it's a couple taps.

rangoon6266• 5 years ago

Lots of google fans on this website.

Like legit it’s like the inverse of wading through the comments section on macrumors.

kemonocode• 5 years ago

It's trivial to sideload apps on most Android devices. You can't sideload on iOS unless you jailbreak or spend some time and money on a developer account, and even then you're rather limited on what you can do.

rangoon6266• 5 years ago

Side loading is clunky.

If Android were really as free and open as everyone says it is, then there would be a method built into the os to download and install apps directly through the web browser, without hunting through settings and enabling it.

As it is, this is barely better than iOS, and I’m kind of disgusted that everyone thinks it’s fine and normal as a solution.

m-p-3• 5 years ago

F-Droid, or use Element as a PWA.

swiley9• 5 years ago

If you think this isn't coming to iOS next you've got another thing coming.

If you actually do care about privacy and free speech and aren't using an iPhone because they're fashionable in your country then you should check out purism and pine64. They're the only phones I know of that are designed not to run "mobile OSes".

rangoon6266• 5 years ago

It’s not that iOS is safe from this, it’s that in all practicality, Google is not really that different as what my friends popularly suggest. Android is not a free, open OS. Well, it is to a point, but realistically that point is not much further than ios for most users.

As for an alternative mobile OS, I would love to get my hands on Sailfish, but it’s not available for the US.

perryizgr82• 5 years ago

How are you liking the new Fortnite update ;) ?

rangoon6266• 5 years ago

SMH playing games on a cell phone os LMAOROTFLLOLLLLLLLL

dvt• 5 years ago

It's becoming more and more clear that there's a problem with these corporately-controlled "free markets" that are neither free nor are they markets. It's time for Congress to do more than just write strongly-worded letters to large tech conglomerates hoping that these kinds of anti-consumer practices stop. It's funny (or sad) that the meme du jour is "build your own app store, bro." We need: (1) transparency and (2) accountability.

First of all, we can't have stuff getting arbitrarily censored or kicked off stores, because even though it may start with alt-right QAnon nonsense, it will lead to things like Hey, Epic, Fortnite, Robinhood ratings being scrubbed, WSB being banned, or now Element. The slippery slope is not hypothetical. It's here.

Secondly, we can't just have AAPL, GOOG, FB, etc. merely say "oops, our bad" when the shit hits the fan. People get mad, they say "oops" -- even though the app may have lost thousands of customers and reputation -- and everyone forgets the snafu ever happened. This is not okay, and as consumers we should not be okay with it. I promise you Google will release a statement saying "certain groups" on Element "used some poopoo language" and the apologists will, yet again, be totally cool with it.

(I don't feel my comment is particularly controversial, yet I'm being mass downvoted with no counter-arguments.. weird.)

TechnoTimeStop• 5 years ago

The Digital Citizen has rights. And its time to draft them.

boomboomsubban4• 5 years ago

It's a shame nobody saw this coming fourty years ago and devoted his life to the cause.

Grimm1• 5 years ago

It's a mistake to enshrine these companies though. Break out their app store and android division and make them a utility, but don't make google a permanent part of our lives by making them a necessity. I don't want to live in a world where these centralized platforms have a government mandate.

What I want is true competition and laws that make that happen.

will_pseudonym4• 5 years ago

Hear, hear!

For the people who see no issues with any of this, shall we shut off their water and electricity too while we're at it?

1MachineElf• 5 years ago

They can build their own water and electricity!

newfeatureok• 5 years ago

How could this be - I was told our corporate overlords are able to do whatever they'd regarding kicking people off their platforms?

Whatever shall we do?

The funny thing about the whole "do bad things and get kicked off" strategy is that every platform has abusers. Since Big Tech can arbitrarily decide the thresholds and circumstances that lead to being kicked off, this effectively means they can kick anyone off for any reason.

Even on here, on Hacker News, if you dig deep enough I guarantee you can find questionable content (albeit probably downvoted) to justify deplatforming if you were tasked with deplatforming this site anyways.

will_pseudonym4• 5 years ago

FYI your comment was dead, and I vouched for it. You might be shadowbanned? Not sure, but regardless you might look into it.

worik• 5 years ago

Looking for a reason?

From https://element.io/

"Keeps conversations in your control, safe from data-mining and ads"

435243543543• 5 years ago

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 times slower on competing browsers such as Microsoft Edge and Mozila Firefox. He went on to say that:
>YouTube serves a Shadow DOM polyfill to Firefox and Edge that is, unsurprisingly, slower than Chrome's native implementation. On my laptop, initial page load takes 5 seconds with the polyfill vs 1 without. Subsequent page navigation perf is comparable.

Sunspark5• 5 years ago

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.

swiley9• 5 years ago

I worked around this by removing YouTube from my life. I've been making much more progress on my personal projects since.

pmlnr9• 5 years ago

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

4f8fje9frn2• 5 years ago

If I need youtube, I go to an invidious instance first.

throwawayboise3• 5 years ago

Opt out. No Google. No Facebook. No Twitter. No Amazon. You don't need them, you might even enjoy life more without them.

You can't change how they operate. But you can change how you operate.

marcinzm5• 5 years ago

You don't need them, you might even enjoy life more without them.

So I should probably lower the quality of my life to make a statement that will have no impact on them at all?

You can't change how they operate.

Sure you can, by petitioning your government to draft laws and so on.

throwawayboise3• 5 years ago

I don't think it lowers quality of life. YMMV of course.

Petition the government if you like. It doesn't matter. You don't have millions to donate to the next campaign or their personal enrichment. You're not who they care about.

illustriousbear7• 5 years ago

It's sad that your quality of life depends on Google or Facebook services.

I quit Facebook along with most Google services, I feel much happier and more well adjusted than when I was using them. Meeting with family and friends is also much more interesting because I don't have a constant stream detailing their life.

Good luck petitioning the government to act on it... this goes double for US businesses and people who live outside the US.

mastazi7• 5 years ago

I quit Reddit, Amazon, Twitter, Google, Instagram and Facebook. My life has never been better. Minor inconvenience does not outweigh major improvements in my mental wellness.

(Edit: I mention mental wellness because those products, and the ads they carry, are designed to be addictive.)

adventured• 5 years ago

Sure you can, by petitioning your government to draft laws and so on.

Ask the government to do something about it? They're allies, they're in it together.

There is no scenario where they don't take out encryption this decade. It's a top priority and big tech is going to very happily assist them. Big tech will give them what they want, they will act as an arm of tyranny assisting the government in smashing human rights, and in return they'll get to continue to expand (they'll get a light touch regulatory treatment). It now has a lot in common with how China handles their giant corporations (so long as you do what we tell you to, you get to exist and thrive), and big tech in the US looks more like a CCP apparatus by the passing day.

All forms of expression and speech will continue to be restricted more by the passing year. The government won't need to do it themselves, big tech will do the dirty work with a wink and nod. That includes all app stores, all online content and forums, all software.

So, when you can't petition your government any longer because it's hell bent on taking your liberty away, what does that leave? The War on Domestic Terrorism of course. They'll create it, spur it, and then have an excuse to crack down on their own invention (not terribly different from how they ran the war on drugs). The US will be a horrible place to live in the near future. The foreign war on terrorism, in which the US did such unbelievable vicious things to other nations, will now turn inward, and the monster will come home, rolling over human rights as it goes.

falcolas• 5 years ago

Do you expect these companies to stand still and wring their hands while you convince the government to stomp on their cash cows, or are they going to take some of the money you and your data have earned for them and lobby government more effectively than you ever could?

My bet’s on the latter. And so long as we all continue to support them (while claiming “but my boycott won’t do any good”), they’ll continue to use that financial support to ensure the continued non-involvement of the government in their affairs.

Doing nothing costs nothing, but it also changes nothing.

na85• 5 years ago

lower the quality of my life

Quitting Facebook will objectively increase your quality of life.

bordercases3• 5 years ago

You gotta be a man with principles. And why do you think your petitioning the government would make as much of an impact in this case, when opting out of using their services deprives them of revenue and data almost immediately?

coldtea3• 5 years ago

So I should probably lower the quality of my life to make a statement that will have no impact on them at all?

God forbid we "lower the quality of our lives" for such lowly things as principles!

Sure you can, by petitioning your government to draft laws and so on.

Else what, you'll vote for another party? Both parties (in the US) take money from Big Tech, and they vote the same shit anyway. That will "show them" nothing. Especially since their stance on such laws is 1/100 of the things you vote a party/candidate about (so you will still vote for them if you agree on other matters).

zeeone2• 5 years ago

If your quality of life depends on big tech then I suspect your life is of low quality in the first place.

ClumsyPilot3• 5 years ago

'You can't change how they operate'

We used yo have laws..

And opting out is literslly impossible, there are people and authorities i -have-to- communicate with, and its impossible outside those platforms

throwawayboise3• 5 years ago

It's not impossible. You just have to make choices.

illustriousbear7• 5 years ago

What people and authorities?

I stopped using these services and told people to contact me via sms or signal. No problems so far.

The people who won't make that extra step aren't worth my time because clearly I'm not worth their time.

nexthash2• 5 years ago

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 saying that people don't need Google, Facebook, Twitter, and Amazon is ignoring the massive dependence these companies have forced onto users and the cost of leaving, which is not worth the time and money for many.

PostOnce• 5 years ago

"massive dependence"

Switching from gmail to another provider isn't like living without electricity, it takes a couple of days updating some external accounts to reflect your new email; I did it.

Buying shit from somewhere that isn't Amazon isn't exactly trekking through the jungle for 3 weeks. All you have to do is type in another domain. There is no shortage of non-Amazon sellers with similar prices.

Switching from Chrome to Firefox takes 5 minutes, you can import your bookmarks and whatnot. Maybe you'll have to type in a password again. No climbing K2 level difficulty there either.

Android and iOS aren't that different, you can click a browser, camera, or email in either in the same amount of time with the same UI.

Sure it's effort, but it's not a hell of a lot of effort.

COGlory6• 5 years ago

I did it:

- LineageOS + MicroG and F-Droid for mobile.

- NextCloud (and DAV) running on an old laptop for calendar, contacts, and file storage. The mobile app uploads all my photos automatically. It backs up to Backblaze

-ProtonMail with a custom domain for email.

Amazon is pretty avoidable. Shipping has gotten faster and cheaper everywhere else at this point. At least for the rural place I am.

I'm not particularly tech savvy. This took a significant time effort for me. At this point, it's all pretty stable, I don't really have glitches anymore. I imagine the average HN user could easily replicate it, and if this type of setup got more popular, it would invariably get easier to set up.

nabilhat• 5 years ago

I agree that going cold turkey on every trace of these orgs would be unrealistic. There's a lot to be said for locking down phones and shopping locally, but taking control of the assets those orgs hold is where it really pays off no matter who you are.

Migrating email is intimidating, but alleviates the highest cost risk and is actually pretty painless. In my own case, I started a Fastmail account and told it to use my own domain and sync from my gmail account. I didn't have to commit to anything until I felt like it. After a couple of weeks I started lazily updating a few subscriptions as they got forwarded from gmail, and replying to people with 'hey, check it out this is my new email'. Now, Fastmail could vanish and I'd be temporarily inconvenienced for only as long as it took to staple my domain to some other email host. Losing access to my gmail account before making that switch would have been a disaster.

nobody999910• 5 years ago

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?

CyberRabbi• 5 years ago

I’m there. We’re early, everyone else will eventually abandon ship.

gonehome• 5 years ago

Amazon is great, Twitter can be great if you use it well, and the other two are pretty easy to drop.

gjvnq• 5 years ago

Let me get my dusty PDP-11 then... /s

afavour• 5 years ago

You can't change how they operate.

You can, by pressuring politicians to create laws and regulations. It’s just something the US hasn’t tried all that much lately.

neilwilson• 5 years ago

Far better to opt in, recover control of the legislature from the large corporations and Reclaim the State.

There's nowhere to run away to.

meekrohprocess• 5 years ago

If you think about it, a lot of Google and Apple's power comes from their dominance of the smartphone market.

I hope that mobile computing follows the path of desktop computing, and we end up with more viable small-device OS options.

clircle• 5 years ago

What is Element?

baby• 5 years ago

The chat client of Matrix

blhack• 5 years ago

What is matrix? Like the movie? Or the math thing?

(https://matrix.org/)

ArcVRArthur3• 5 years ago

One of many. matrix.org/clients

rottc0dd• 5 years ago

https://matrix.org/docs/projects/client/element

ClumsyPilot3• 5 years ago

'Private company, they do what they want' gang arriving in 3, 2, 1..

dmix• 5 years ago

Just monopolies protecting our democracy, like Adam Smith envisioned.

xxpor• 5 years ago

That's true, but you can also disagree with the decision. It's not iOS where there's no alternative.

2pEXgD0fZ5cF2• 5 years ago

Not if the "Hanlon’s Razor" crew gets here first

arduanika4• 5 years ago

Wouldn't this just not be a problem if they rewrote it in Rust?

young_unixer5• 5 years ago

'Private company, they do what they want'

That's correct, but we can still boycott companies that do this.

honest_guy• 5 years ago

We really can't. Smartphones are practically a mandatory part of modern life. My previous job required me to have one for tons of work-related authentication/software.

There is no choice outside Google/Apple when it comes to mobile devices. None which are fully compatible with a normal person's way of life, or which provides access to the same apps.

It may be technically possible to avoid them, but 'technically possible' and 'competitive alternative' are worlds apart.

onethought7• 5 years ago

Does that make you part of the obnoxiously useless comment gang?

ziftface3• 5 years ago

I'm convinced they think they'll be billionaires one day and so always jump to their defense.

pb72• 5 years ago

No one is convinced of that. Do you only advocate for things because you’re afraid you’ll be in the same position someday?

joshbuddy• 5 years ago

I wonder if there is a way we place these App Store decisions into the hands of a third party. Either that or break Android away from Google and forbid them from colluding.

colechristensen2• 5 years ago

Legislation equating these walled gardens as a new kind of monopoly. Legislation making “terms and conditions” less like laws, and less enforceable.

onethought7• 5 years ago

But wouldn’t that bring down most software companies... terms and conditions have some pretty important legitimate uses...

gremlinsinc2• 5 years ago

Handset makers could start some sort of ... Open Handset alliance, oh wait..that's how we got Android.

Nope. Better alternative would probably be some sort of blockchain thing with reviews baked in and maybe authority nodes (devs with experience) could validate/clear apps from having viruses/etc... or just have a reporting mechanism so apps get pulled when suspicious.

simonkafan• 5 years ago

It would already help if the rules of the app stores were decided by a parliament. And kicking a provider out of the store requires a court ruling.

matbatt38• 5 years ago

That would make legit ban very slow and ineffective tho

hda2• 5 years ago

OEMs and software vendors have been pushing hard towards locking-down and controlling people's computing devices and people have largely been indifferent.

It genuinely seemed all was going to be lost until the tech industry went crazy exercising their control. Their recent (and imo unjustifiable) actions have clearly demonstrated to everyone what it means to hand over control. It remains to be seen whether people will grasp this chance to reverse the course that this rotten industry has charted and is adamant on following.

userbinator4• 5 years ago

A lot of people already know that you can get apps directly as .apks, but the majority of them have been conditioned by corporate "propaganda" that they'll be almost certainly getting malware that way. The term "sideloading" was invented to ostracise and discourage the practice of acquiring software independently --- which was the norm up until Apple and its walled garden appeared.

But now, perhaps when sufficiently large numbers of people realise that what "malware" means to the big corporations is different from what it means to users, we'll have another mini-revolution back to the independent sharing and community trust model that the industry tried to eliminate because it would subvert their control.

I don't want to get too political here, but after seeing the outcome of the US election, and the events from then until now, I knew that stuff like this was going to happen.

simonh3• 5 years ago

Ok, that's some historical revisionism I've not see before. The term sideloading was invented by an internet storage service company to refer to copying files between remote storage buckets without having to do an upload or download. The term then got adopted by the community for copying MP3 files to a player from your computer.

sudosysgen3• 5 years ago

This would have happened no matter the outcome of the US election. The trend towards consolidation of corporate power is really inexorable.

swiley9• 5 years ago

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.

mrec6• 5 years ago

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, so a bit of company would be nice.)

hg35h4• 5 years ago

Stallman was right all along. The Google and Apple play to lock down your devices in order to "keep you safe" was not about malware or data privacy, it's about keeping away what THEY classify as thoughtcrime. It's about keeping you under their shoe. Now feed them your data or else!

Sunspark5• 5 years ago

I wonder if France will have something to say to Google about this in the EU.. France uses Matrix. Google's powerful, but they're not a legislative body.

Iv• 5 years ago

France uses Matrix but not Element. They forked it and called it Tchap.

koalp• 5 years ago

They use their own matrix client : tchap. They also use their own app store (not sure what it's based on) Therefore, French ministry that use matrix may not be affected

dathinab4• 5 years ago

not sure what it's based on

As far as I know it's based on element or at least co-develop by the element so while their "business" should not be affected directly. The secondary affects this will have if it continuous does affect them indirectly I think.

The more worrying think that this is by far not the first time Google (or Apple) have taken down clients to "non http" networks. Sometimes blaming them for content on the network sometimes not saying anything. Which lets be honest is absurd given that they would have to delete all web-browsers using this arguments.

slow_donkey• 5 years ago

If anyone needs a download, you can easily install/sideload via f-droid or the app can be trivially built with './gradlew assembleDebug' (provide your own keys to build a release version)

gremlinsinc2• 5 years ago

What would be funny is if every developer who has an app in android, were to in a single day submit their own "branded" version of matrix/element.

Basically as a protest. This can have far reaching effects for anyone worried about privacy, walled gardens, competing with social networks, etc...

jl2718• 5 years ago

Is there a guide to doing this safely? As in, protected from malware.

sudosysgen3• 5 years ago

Go to the fdroid website, and download the store.

Alternatively, pull the code from git, and follow the instructions to build the apk.

agravier2• 5 years ago

Time to Riot again.

throwaway888abc2• 5 years ago

Not funny. Do you think the riots are leading to better society/life ?

1986• 5 years ago

Riot is the name of another Matrix client

*edited - the old name of Element, apparently.

anuragsoni• 5 years ago

I believe the parent comment is referencing the fact that the Element application used to be called Riot [1].

[1] https://element.io/blog/welcome-to-element/

dbmikus• 5 years ago

Riot is the name of another Matrix client.

ArcVRArthur3• 5 years ago

Element.io rebranded from Riot.

agravier2• 5 years ago

The other comments are right. I found it mildly amusing that this happened after the name change, which was presumably in part motivated by some worries over political correctness.

Sorry for the confusion, throwaway.

makeworld• 5 years ago

That is often what riots aim to do, yes.

ziftface3• 5 years ago

Like the other comments said, that wasn't the meaning, but also yes.

johnisgood5• 5 years ago

According to my country's history, they indeed did.

ycombigator• 5 years ago

Stop using apps whenever you can.

Use your browser.

lawl• 5 years ago

Which one? The one also made by Google, the one paid for by Google, ones of those based on the one made by Google, or the one made by the other smartphone OS owner with a walled garden?

krastanov• 5 years ago

I will bite: Firefox, the one that cares about privacy and open standards, even if it has a lot of income coming from a search bar deal with Google.

swiley9• 5 years ago

Here's a short list of some browser engines that are not based on google's or paid for by google:

Webkit: [1] It's a thousand times easier to compile and was the original base for chromium

Servo: [2] This is much more recent, I haven't looked lately (until today) but it looks to be making rapid forward progress

Elinks: [3] and friends, these are more capable than you'd think (hackernews works, even if you don't build it with javascript enabled.)

Also it's surprisingly easy to write your own engine, it's just keeping up with some of the more political stupidity/abuse is hard.

[3] http://elinks.or.cz/

[2] https://servo.org/

[1] https://webkit.org/

johnisgood5• 5 years ago

I would say the exact opposite. Do not use your browser, use a native application whenever you can.

flipcoder• 5 years ago

It's only a matter of time until they start banning browsers for not blocking certain websites. It's the exact same logic.

canofbars3• 5 years ago

The browser can not do push notifications when the device is locked. Which is kind of a core feature for IM.

ArcVRArthur3• 5 years ago

This is very disruptive to me. Our business chose to use Element because of the privacy and interoperability functions it afforded us through end-to-end encryption and the bridges feature (matrix.org/bridges).

J_tt• 5 years ago

I'm in the same boat here, at least on Android alternatives such as F-Droid exist, however I'm concerned about the repercussions for MDM, as in our case (intune) we go through the Play store.

My largest concern is if Apple follows suit, which could lead to large problems with our employees who use iPhones.

jtbayly3• 5 years ago

Recently I've been seriously considering finally ditching iPhone because I share the same concern. After all, Apple did the same to another company recently... so we know they are willing.

calabin• 5 years ago

We're in the same boat - fortunately we're a small company so it's not going to be brutal to switch if we have to, but we're huge fans of the privacy and encryption features and it would be a disappointment to have to go back to the old standards of Slack or Teams.

4f8fje9frn2• 5 years ago

It's surprising to me you'd switch to a new platform because of this when it still works on the desktop. You could install it via F-droid or an APK, use alternative frontend app or you could even just use the web interface.

Vinnl2• 5 years ago

Does this also affect existing installs, or only (attempted) new ones?

haakon• 5 years ago

Only new ones. At least my installation is still there.

darig• 5 years ago

How can I install Matrix on an android phone without using the Google Play store?

ranger207• 5 years ago

It's on F-Droid.

opan• 5 years ago

F-Droid has Element and a few other Matrix clients available.

nolim1t2• 5 years ago

There is other clients available too.

The protocol is essentially decentralized

colllectorof3• 5 years ago

F-Droid is the best way for open source apps, but also most APKs are available outside of Play Store via websites like https://www.apkmirror.com/. It's a bit of a risk to load apps like that, though.

cft3• 5 years ago

How do push notifications work when it's not intergated with Google Play?

swiley9• 5 years ago

It's a shame EV certs are so hard to get. APK signatures use certificates and we could use the already existing CA infrastructure to make app stores unnecessary but stuff didn't work out that way.

IceWreck• 5 years ago

I don't use any google services other than youtube at all, but this is hard to justify, even for google.

bdefore3• 5 years ago

Again the giants overplay. But when does the hammer come down upon them that they like to so wield?

young_unixer5• 5 years ago

I hope more apps start allowing to directly download an .apk file from their website.

I don't have Google Play Services or the Play store installed on my phone nor do I want to install them. Yes, it's my responsibility to update the app, whatever, just give me the file.

cft3• 5 years ago

Then how do you get instant messaging notifications?

young_unixer5• 5 years ago

I think I don't.

Sometimes I get notifications, sometimes it may take hours for me to get the notification.

I rarely use instant messaging for important things, and when I do, I make sure to check my phone often so I don't miss the messages.

Is this stupid? Maybe, but I'm not going to install Google's closed source crap on a device that I carry almost everywhere. If that means I become a social pariah, then so be it.

hiq2• 5 years ago

Both Signal and WhatsApp work fine. It requires workarounds from the app developers, but it's not impossible to implement.

dathinab4• 5 years ago

Through non-google message brokers.

The problem is that this requires a long running background connection.

And guess what Google tried to kill for battery saving purpose since a long time (long running mostly sleeping background processes). But then on Google in difference to Apple it's still possible (but less reliable) with the right setup and fully possible with a "proper" de-googled phone.

So depending on your setup you might either:

- not get notifications

- get them unreliable

- only get them if the app is open

- get them just fine

Also this might change from app to app, there clearly will be apps which will not have any 3rd party notification broker fallback, but given how Google doesn't have 100% delivicery guarantees they still should have (potential delayed) message syncing when the app is open.

onethought7• 5 years ago

Is there a standard that could verify an apk against a certificate? ... or an I just describing building an alternative play store?

young_unixer5• 5 years ago

Signal, for instance, does this: https://signal.org/android/apk/

AWildC1822• 5 years ago

This is a (mostly) solved problem in linux. Your package manager has a central repo, but also can have 3rd party repos added. You'd add the matrix repo and it would automatically update it with everything else. It means everything still gets updated and verified against the keyring.

JJJollyjim• 5 years ago

Android's has an app signing system which isn't dependent on Google Play. Updates to a given app have to be signed with the same certificate as previous versions.

canofbars3• 5 years ago

You can use fdroid which builds everything and signs it with their own keys.

hiq2• 5 years ago

Where do you get the certificate from? If you get the APK and certificate from the same source, there's no security benefit of verifying the certificate on top of having a proper TLS connection.

If you update the application, Android will check that the certificate of the current version matches the one from the update before allowing you to install it.

LockAndLol3• 5 years ago

Or they make F-Droid more known. Publishing apks yourself means you have to implement an update feature. F-Droid takes care of that

vbezhenar4• 5 years ago

How is F-Droid conceptually different from PlayStore? They can ban anything just as well.

hutzlibu4• 5 years ago

Whats wrong with F-Droid?

duckmysick• 5 years ago

It allows only free and open source apps, which might be a no-go for some.

SubiculumCode• 5 years ago

Mattermost next? Or is Element different somehow?

diragon2• 5 years ago

It actually stands a chance, perhaps.

SahAssar2• 5 years ago

Not sure if it makes a difference in this case, but mattermost isn't federated.

nickysielicki• 5 years ago

A lot of people seem to believe that there’s much more to this than there really is.

Google has hired a bunch of 28 year old kids in HR and PR, that never used Usenet, that never used IRC, that barely remember AIM, that had a smartphone before they had their own laptop, that don’t understand the internet or technology.

And they’re the ones making these decisions. There aren’t rooms full of Google PMs and programmers and engineers debating the implications. It’s 3 or 4 kids in-between the ages of 24 and 34, and that room is increasingly technically illiterate, and increasingly unable to imagine an internet before (or after) FAANG hegemony.

This isn’t Google being evil to protect advertising dollars, or to kill Matrix, etc.

It’s google hiring young, unimaginative, uninteresting social justice warriors. We’ve taken for granted that most of the people working in FAANG have been using computers for longer than these companies existed. That’s no longer really the case, and the attitudes of these companies are going to continue to change further and further from the unique values that the industry used to represent. In ten years it’s going to be worse, and in 30 it’s going to be unrecognizable.

walrus017• 5 years ago

If you want to get away from those sort of 28 year olds - go work in core engineering for an ISP. The sort of persons who are entrusted with admin access on the big, expensive, vitally critical Cisco and Juniper boxes that run a medium to large sized ISP are pretty much the opposite of the raised-on-shiny-GUI persons you describe.

However I think it's unfair to say that people under age 40 are 'social justice warriors'. They've been raised in a bubble of superficial user interfaces and have never been forced to encounter the fundamental underpinnings of the software and Internet.

swiley9• 5 years ago

TL;DR: Google has likely delegated policing everyone's PCs to a handful of incompetent children and that should make you feel less worried.

Smartphones are bad. "Apps" are bad. OS vendors using their position to change public behavior is bad. (this last idea something the courts in most countries agree on.)

You need to get this stuff out of your life, it's beyond coke levels of harmful.

AWildC1822• 5 years ago

I'm in that age bracket, I remember the open internet. I wouldn't get super ageist about it, but I think the point still stands. Google just wants to believe the internet is for megacorps and everyone who isn't on a mega platform doesn't belong connected to it.

shrimp_emoji• 5 years ago

There are plenty of people under 30 more of the "hacker" æsthetic, who independently adopt Linux and have a seething contempt for social media and streaming titans and data hoard and play Dwarf Fortress and roguelikes and what have you.

Some of them are even in the disaffected, alt-right or anti-SJW crowd[0] (but those are generally more like under 20, I think).

The ones who live on their phones and Macbooks and don't understand technology are normies, of which there are more since CS has become much more popularized and pop-culturally embraced, I think. There's plenty of those in their 50s and above, too, just less-so at FAANGs.

0: https://www.youtube.com/c/LukeSmithxyz/videos

johnisgood5• 5 years ago

I am around 25, and I remember all that and loved it. I miss it terribly. I do not like this trend and direction. Quite scary, to be honest.

pnw_hazor• 5 years ago

Not unlike the CCP.

kubanczyk3• 5 years ago

It's a second comment in this thread like this. I'm not a native speaker and it's hard to tell whether CCP is supposed to be:

- CCCP a cyrillic of SSSR?

- CCP, Chinese Communist Party?

- CCP, the cyclic something peptide, which is a top websearch hit for me?

prohobo2• 5 years ago

You have a point, but it's not entirely that. For one, the boomers are the ones who still own everything, and they've never given over leadership roles down to the next generations.

There's a combination of a certain subset of millennials who are like this, and the leadership that doesn't care and wants everything to go their way (as it always has).

A large part is also that the mainstream internet is still so new, and people are so poorly educated that they don't understand that they're the bad guys.

COGlory6• 5 years ago

F-Droid Link:

Element (previously Riot.im) (Secure decentralised chat & VoIP. Keep your data safe from third parties.) - https://f-droid.org/packages/im.vector.app

ncmncm2• 5 years ago

By the way, "Foxy Droid" does the same job as F-Droid but is much less annoying. Available on F-Droid.

mackrevinack2• 5 years ago

i like g-droid as well since it lets you bookmark apps so you can check them out later

berkes• 5 years ago

Off topic, but since you brought it up: what is annoying about f-droid?

readflaggedcomm• 5 years ago

Aren't some Matrix servers, which Element can connect to, considered "free speech zones" where hate speech and misinformation propagates? If so, expect F-Droid to do the needful to Element like they have before[1].

[1] https://f-droid.org/en/2019/07/16/statement.html

nolim1t2• 5 years ago

The fight has started..

Luckily theres other clients available too. Client diversity is important

29athrowaway• 5 years ago

Just a reminder you can install the APK and there's nothing they can do about it.

Not a friendly experience, but not insanely hard either.

swiley9• 5 years ago

Not if you're using outlook with certain configurations that require disabling sideloading. Also they're really torquing down on the API and making it harder and harder to build useful apps outside the play store. I'm not an android developer but my understanding is that notifications are starting to look much more like iOS for example.

perryizgr82• 5 years ago

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.

orthecreedence5• 5 years ago

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

dathinab4• 5 years ago

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.

chaganated• 5 years ago

These actions have been so fast and furious and brazen that you have to wonder: They obviously see people as cattle, but are they right? Or, do they have an ace up their sleeve that makes the answer irrelevant?

js4ever3• 5 years ago

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

petre2• 5 years ago

I wish Google and Apple are going to be hit with fines and regulation in the EU because of this once the comissioners have better things to occupy themselves with other than the pandemic.

AmericanChopper2• 5 years ago

If you look at any legislation that’s been proposed to address this, in the EU or anywhere else, it hasn’t been anything that’s going to make the situation any better. Lots of governments around the world are very upset that these cartels have the ability to restrict people’s access to the internet without any oversight or due process. But that’s not because they think it’s harmful for peoples access to these services to be taken away without any oversight or due process, they just want to be the ones wielding that power.

Thorentis6• 5 years ago

We really are seeing the cultural revolution of technology. The era of open innovation and freedom of expression is over. And because both sides of politics can only see as far as the next election, they will just use this to their advantage to deplatform their opponents. And who loses? The proles, of course.

powersnail• 5 years ago

It might be a possible opportunity for alternative platforms to grow.

Before, network effect makes Twitter/Google Store/AWS etc dominant over alternatives, because everybody could be on there. There is no reason to use XXX, because why not Twitter.

Now that they make it clear that they are not unbiased moderator, and they remove apps/people from their platform, a bunch of people become refuge. Alternative stores and social media become viable, because they could grab those audience. I can see that in the next few years, we will have more fractured platforms.

because both sides of politics can only see as far as the next election, they will just use this to their advantage to deplatform their opponents

Meanwhile, there are other countries.

KirillPanov• 5 years ago

Do you think the CCP is

a) happy about this or

b) unhappy about this

I'll give you three guesses.

js4ever3• 5 years ago

c) not happy nor unhappy, probably they just noticed that US also started to use same recipes to mute any deviant or discordant voices. Next step could be to replicate GFC

jimworm• 5 years ago

They have to be happy on average. It's like being in a race where all the competitors started running in different directions, but eventually finding that the others have turned around to follow your target, effectively giving you a head start.

To spell it out more clearly, here is a great place for one's opponents/competitors to be stuck in - authoritarian enough to eliminate any advantages of liberty, but not authoritarian enough to be efficiently coordinated.

vbezhenar4• 5 years ago

But Google is a private company and can decide who they want to see in their stores. Right?

fendy30022• 5 years ago

It's not that simple. Let's say that Google sell a tv half or even a quarter the price of normal tv, but it can only access channels authorized by google, and the authorized channels can change anytime. Furthermore it can only access consoles and devices only authorized by google.

At first, the authorization is very permissive and the unauthorized channels or devices are very rare. People begin to buy the tv, and channels begin to optimize their content around it. Other tv lose their market share, and begin to adapt "google tv" architecture to sell their own to survive.

After 10 years google begin to unauthorize some channels, in prefer to their own which launched 3 years before, as well as consoles in preference to stadia. The ban is same with these similar cases, where it's framed as illegal content, or error. But it's happening often.

Is google in the wrong here? IMO it's debatable.

kubanczyk3• 5 years ago

Yes, this legal void needs to end. If you have a majority of some market, there need to be additional legal responsibilities.

pessimizer• 5 years ago

No, it started with facebook being myspace with nazis and nudity banned; developed through a few waves of Google search reprioritization and the sanitization of Reddit(i.e. normie 4chan); eventually became open bans of radical Islam, Russian/Chinese political speech and commentary, leading into the Great Youtube Demonetization.

The Trump/Parler ban is largely the chickens coming home to roost; that crowd energetically supported all of this that wasn't personally against them, a lot of the modern US right is second-generation inspiration from the anti-Islam "Ground Zero Mosque" controversy and people like Pamela Geller (long forgotten.) Another anti-Islamic precursor to this has also been the constant anti-Palestinian activism at every university, and a good example of the career direction of the people who energetically participated in that is Bari Weiss, who now cries about cancel culture (which is both real, and responsible for her entire career.)

Now, with all the recently converted lefty Millennials minted over the last two elections still mostly seeing the world through the lenses of Obama Democrats, they've come to agree that the only real problem is that not enough people are censored. That's unanimity from left, right, and center.

Traubenfuchs• 5 years ago

The coordinated banning of the president of the USA across all mainstream platforms was just the beginning. It's like they were afraid, previously. Now they found out they can deplatform everyone they want and no one can really stop them!

olefoo• 5 years ago

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.

js4ever3• 5 years ago

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

tylerjwilk00• 5 years ago

Good bye free speech. Hello unbridled control and censorship.

edrxty3• 5 years ago

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...

ORYDRICA2• 5 years ago

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

feanaro8• 5 years ago

Wasn't Pattle removed for a longer time? I know the developer stopped working on it some time ago.

j_barbossa• 5 years ago

While we have found a way to establish and execute rules in the real world (legislature and jurisdiction) we have completely forgotten that we need something like that in the digital world as well.

And now a few VPs of Google and Apple dictate who's allowed to bring in their apps into their holy app store.

einpoklum10• 5 years ago

While we have found a way to establish and execute rules in the real world

You are assuming that states legislate primarily in the public interest. I disagree. Public pressure can influence legislation, but fundamental interests of ruling classes usually take precedent.

we have completely forgotten that we need something like that in the digital world as well.

We have not "forgotten" something which is a claim, or opinion (and which I do not share).

ORYDRICA2• 5 years ago

Check https://matrix.org/clients/ for alternatives. You cannot take down the matrix network by blocking one app.

tannhaeuser2• 5 years ago

Right now, the only solution to this situation seems to be sticking to SMS and newer non-IP protocols extending and/or replacing it as a service offered in the regulated TelCo market (in EU at least, but practically in most places). Then mid-term extend regulations to IP- and web-based markets as well, forcing checks/balances, appeals, and an open ecosystem of alternative providers in place where there is feudalism right now. Won't work with FAANG providing services "for free"; that is, by bundling and ad-financed offerings. So bundling has to be regulated as well.

mkl95• 5 years ago

Within a day, Google have removed 100k Robinhood reviews and suspended this application. I wonder if these arbitrary actions will become a daily thing soon.

toyg• 5 years ago

They already have been, since the very first day of the Apple AppStore (and hence its copycat Play Store). But they typically hit smaller developers with no recourse. Occasionally they hit the “wrong” crowd and shit flies for a few days, until some bigwig goes “okay, I guess these particular cats deserve a pass, just approve and move on.”

Google and Apple stores are like nightclub bouncers. If they don’t like you, you ain’t gonna dance. “Normies” don’t care until the bouncer picks on them.

jacquesm• 5 years ago

Some normies simply don't like going to those particular nightclubs because it makes the owners even more powerful and puts money in their pockets.

Thorentis6• 5 years ago

This is basically the last straw for me. The past week has made it perfectly clear that Big Tech will close the circle and protect their own. Anything that appears to be censorship resistant, that allows the little guy to get ahead and compete, or that allows individuals to have greater levels of privacy and freedom, will be shut down and de-platformed.

As was predicted in 1948, "hate speech" has just become a smoke and mirrors term. Facebook and Discord used this excuse to deplatform WSB. Twitter uses this to deplatform people left, right, and center. And now Google is using it deplatform one of the few decentralised projects I had a lot of faith in.

eternalban4• 5 years ago

Wait until CBDCs roll out. Right now, it is your speech and communication. Tomorrow, it will be accessing your money. Then they will have their desired perfectly obedient population.

est315• 5 years ago

I've thought CBDCs ensure the opposite? Currently if you have an uninsured account at a bank, and the bank goes bankrupt, your money is gone. With CBDCs it seems to me that the money is truly yours instead of in a currency pegged to the fiat but that can always break.

Shared404• 5 years ago

I had a lot of faith in.

I wouldn't give up faith in Matrix yet. Remember, there are other clients, and there is always the Element web client.

indymike• 5 years ago

I suspect that Google will eventually get Matrix clients right. It's really no different than an email client or web browser. Element is *not* a content community it's a communication client app. As a customer, I do not want Google regulating my communication software clients for content. That is my job as a user.

ike77• 5 years ago

will close the circle

Precisely. Even if they are acting in good faith, their current set of rules would make them ban internet if it was to be created now.

SirensOfTitan3• 5 years ago

From Alex Carey in 1995: "The twentieth century has been characterized by three developments of great political importance: the growth of democracy, the growth of corporate power, and the growth of corporate propaganda as a means of protecting corporate power against democracy”

monopoledance5• 5 years ago

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?

nip1803• 5 years ago

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 website, how do you know if they are going to load an asset from AWS or GApps? Maybe the server loads an asset from AWS and redistributes it to you, so you can’t just blacklist IPs. How do you know if your Bank’s ATMs are using AWS? Or your hospital’s digital records? Eventually someone you do business with will do business with FANG and you’ll be indirectly supporting them.

Thorentis6• 5 years ago

I have been actively trying to distance myself from unnecessary technology, and especially that which is owned and controlled by Big Tech. I now use a "dumbphone". I have begun slowly migrating to ProtonMail. I have already been using Linux as a main OS on desktop. I do still use a Macbook Pro only because the 2015 version I have just won't die (touch wood), but my next laptop purchase would be with the aim of installing Linux (high-end Thinkpad perhaps). I don't use any form of social media, but instead arrange social events through phone calls, texts, and email. None of this has made my life more difficult. On the contrary, I talk to people more often, commit to more social engagements, and feel more in control of my digital life. I highly recommend everybody to at least try some of these things!

at_a_remove• 5 years ago

As always, the Four Horsemen were acted upon first. Only this time around it is "actual Nazis" (not actual Nazis, no matter how much "literally shaking" was done). And who could defend that? (The ACLU, and the left, should have, we all should have) And complaining about it is obviously the slippery slope fallacy (or the camel's nose in the tent) so it can be ignored until it is just too late. And now there's a whole series of well-honed defenses ("it's a private company!" "go make your own!" "freedom of speech is not freedom from consequences") ready to back up these bold moves, along with the handily-set precedent.

Whatever shackles are being forged against your worst enemy, do not be surprised if they end up on your wrists at some later date.

fsflover2• 5 years ago

This is basically the last straw for me.

So are you going to switch to a GNU/Linux phone, Librem 5 or Pinephone?

Thorentis6• 5 years ago

Nokia dumbphone!

pojntfx• 5 years ago

One of the reasons I really like Element is the fact that it runs completely in the browser, no need to install a native app - which, lets be realistic, is really only a viable option (for the average consumer) if you submit to the proprietary App Store or Play Store. Sadly, Element Web is not yet responsive, but I hope that changes soon so that it can be finally free from the constraints of the constraints of proprietary native platforms like iOS and Android.

callahad• 5 years ago

It's still early days, but https://hydrogen.element.io works well on mobile

unnouinceput2• 5 years ago

Quote: "Meanwhile, if it's urgent and you're comfortable installing unsigned APKs, you can grab the latest build from our CI at..."

AFAIK you can still sign it even if you don't publish it via playstore

okso• 5 years ago

Doing this just a week before FOSDEM [1], a very large conference that will run online using Matrix, is scandalous.

https://fosdem.org/2021/

young_unixer5• 5 years ago

And Google is a sponsor.

jgtrosh• 5 years ago

https://fosdem.org/2021/about/sponsors/#google

Uh oh

dest• 5 years ago

The irony is high

ath92• 5 years ago

It's almost as if Google is not one person but consists of many people with different opinions/interests

Erlich_Bachman2• 5 years ago

This is far from ideal, but someone attending FOSDEM is surely able to download an .apk from official site of Element and install it?

est315• 5 years ago

Or from F-Droid: https://f-droid.org/en/packages/im.vector.app/

SirensOfTitan3• 5 years ago

People always mention a workaround when this kind of stuff happens, but censorship can be heavily effective just by reducing access.

If a medium sized business is looking at communication platforms, and element is suddenly not available on the play store, maybe they’ll just Google’s offering instead.

einpoklum10• 5 years ago

Use F-Droid - An app repository ("store") for Free Software apps:

https://f-droid.org/

Naturally, it has the Element app.

arendtio• 5 years ago

Does someone know why f-droid versions tend to be 'few versions behind'?

diragon2• 5 years ago

Push vs pull perhaps. F-droid packagers need to a) notice there's a newer version and b) implement the change of packaging a newer version. Plus whatever additional process they might have to keep things from breaking.

Element's developers just upload a newer version to Play themselves as part of the release.

alangibson4• 5 years ago

Something is being missed in these "Element isn't Parler because..." comments. Distinctions about client vs platform do not matter _at all_ to someone at Google headquarters. Content they find unacceptable is accessible, or it's not. Full stop.

The FAANGs now have a strong incentive to boot anything and anyone making objectionable content available in any way because that's the way public sentiment has shifted. It's really incredible to see how quickly the deplatforming chickens came home to roost. We're now shooting ourselves in the feet at Internet speed.

frivoal• 5 years ago

That's still weird though. By that logic, they should ban all web browsers, and mail clients… Content they find unacceptable is definitely accessible through those.

Banning all applications that enable access to non-moderated decentralized content is simply not compatible with a phone being a smart phone.

cma3• 5 years ago

Apple already does, no real third party browsers. Objectionable content has to go through their webview.

cabirum• 5 years ago

Why, when an app is "suspended", Play Store shows 404 as if it never existed?

Can't Google display the app page with some status banner and a reason for suspension while disabling install button, or allow installing last known "approved" version?

dunefox• 5 years ago

Of course they can. They don't want to.

guerrilla• 5 years ago

It's how they implement the memory hole.

croes3• 5 years ago

“Who controls the past controls the future; who controls the present controls the past.”

orthecreedence5• 5 years ago

Why, when an app is "suspended", Play Store shows 404 as if it never existed?

It's the ever more popular historical revisionism movement.

unethical_ban2• 5 years ago

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.

oji0hub3• 5 years ago

Installing software outside of play store is technically possible, but if something contains enough hurdles, most people won't do it, which results in no users and a meaningless platform.

imhoguy3• 5 years ago

It is not meaningless, but agreed not something for mass use yet. Similarly like 30-40 years ago with personal computing, now also geeks start the paradigm shift into privacy-aware computing.

grishka9• 5 years ago

There aren't that many hurdles.

1. You download the apk

2. When you try to install it, it tells you it's from an unknown source and the installation was blocked to protect you

3. You tap "settings" and flip a switch to allow installing apps from your browser

4. You go back and tap "install". That's it. It's done. And you won't need to go to the settings the next time, it'll just work.

akvadrako• 5 years ago

Only if your users are really lazy. It's certainly easier to install Element from an Apk then it is to set element up from then on.

poisonborz• 5 years ago

The same was said of purchasing stock options.

herewegoagain2• 5 years ago

The other aspect is that Google is now jeopardizing many people who now enable "other sources", making them more susceptible to malware. (Not saying you shouldn't enable "other sources", but many people don't understand what they are doing).

notassigned• 5 years ago

Thanks for sharing F-Droid. Don't know how I've missed this so far

olah_1• 5 years ago

F-Droid bans apps for “hate speech” too[1].

Any mastodon app that refused to blacklist Gab got banned from F-Droid or something like that.

It is the perfect example of why I don’t even bother with federated projects. It’s just “wouldn’t it be great if _I_ were in charge?”

If that’s the situation, I’d rather Big Tech be in charge because at least they have some name recognition and hierarchy for decision making. Nobody cares if pizza-witches wrongfully broke terms. With Twitter at least peoples’ ears perk up.

In other words, there’s no rules in the alley. But there are rules in the town square.

[1] https://reclaimthenet.org/f-droid-bans-gab-app/

Macha4• 5 years ago

This is mostly untrue.

There was no requirement to blacklist gab. Mastodon clients on f-droid are allowed let users use Gab.

What f-droid does not allow is apps preconfigured to connect to Gab, or who's primary purpose is to connect to Gab.

There was even a petition to have fdroid remove an app (fedilab) that had a blacklist to disallow Gab then removed it, claiming that removing Gab from the blacklist was specifically endorsing it, and there were some people who tried to claiming that not apps that were not blacklisting Gab when other apps did meant those apps primary purpose was to connect to Gab, but f-droid weren't having it: https://gitlab.com/fdroid/fdroiddata/-/issues/1736.

However, they did consider an app that was a straight fork tracking another with the only change being the removal of a blacklist to be disallowed.

inshadows• 5 years ago

App Store is about central authority. F-Droid is about freedom to add whatever repositories you deem useful. It's up to operators of F-Droid-the-repository to decide what they want to host. But it's up to you to add another repository to the list. You say there's no other repository hosting Gab? That is not a problem that can't be dealt with. Unless network operator decide to ban routes, it's just a work (setting up a repository and trust) that needs to be done.

EDIT: This is mentality I find hilarious. It's either I can something for free or I can't get it at all. I think freedom in this case is about having something with little expended work.

Zak• 5 years ago

F-Droid is both a client and a repository. The official F-Droid repository has policies that were clarified in other replies, but it's also important to note that you can add arbitrary repositories and manage software from them with the F-Droid app.

The "build your own if you don't like it" answer is often absurdly impractical, but not here. Someone who feels it's important can put up an alternate repo containing clients preconfigured to connect to Gab and even an alternate build of F-Droid preconfigured to use it in an afternoon.

dominotw2• 5 years ago

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.

NullPrefix• 5 years ago

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

unethical_ban2• 5 years ago

There was a time when people did click a download link. Installing APKs are easier than fiddling with most app settings. Think of how Fortnite was distributed via APK when Epic was big enough to tell people how to do it.

I don't deny the utility of app stores. My point was about the freedom of platform at a capability level.

erik_kemp• 5 years ago

Sigh. These kind of things, as well as the Signal outage, are not helping efforts to help people switch to better messaging alternatives. It nicely illustrates the centralisation of power though.

JBiserkov• 5 years ago

in the interim there's https://f-droid.org/en/packages/im.vector.app/ but it's a few versions behind.

Honest question: Why is the F-Droid option a few versions behind?

boudin• 5 years ago

The release process can be quite slow on the f-droid official repository as the signing step is done on an offline machine manually. https://f-droid.org/en/docs/Security_Model

Uhrheber• 5 years ago

Any reason why the F-Droid version is behind the official one?

I mean, you should now have learned that you can't rely on one single distribution channel.

153791098c• 5 years ago

The same reason that software is outdated in many GNU/Linux repositories. F-droid is a repository that builds all software from source on a different schedule than every individual application developer, the google play store is just a platform where the application developer uploads the binary.

GlitchMr2• 5 years ago

I believe that removal of Element from Google Play Store is a violation of EU regulation 2019/1150. Element has legal entities in Britain (which is affected by Brexit but has similar law) and France. Google is LEGALLY required to provide a justification for removal 30 days before application removal.

Anyway, you may try contacting Google using EU regulation 2019/1150 violation procedure, see https://support.google.com/merchants/answer/9969397 for more information. This may be more effective than using a regular contact procedure, as it would show Google that you are aware of this regulation and they are unlikely to win.

Note that I'm not a lawyer.

yorwba2• 5 years ago

Google is LEGALLY required to provide a justification for removal 30 days before application removal.

You mean this?

2. Where a provider of online intermediation services decides to terminate the provision of the whole of its online intermediation services to a given business user, it shall provide the business user concerned, at least 30 days prior to the termination taking effect, with a statement of reasons for that decision on a durable medium.

https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/HTML/?uri=CEL...

Firstly, I'm not sure whether they really terminated "the provision of the whole of its online intermediation services" or just suspended the one app store listing.

Secondly, there are exceptions:

4. The notice period in paragraph 2 shall not apply where a provider of online intermediation services:

(a) is subject to a legal or regulatory obligation which requires it to terminate the provision of the whole of its online intermediation services to a given business user in a manner which does not allow it to respect that notice period; or

(b) exercises a right of termination under an imperative reason pursuant to national law which is in compliance with Union law;

(c) can demonstrate that the business user concerned has repeatedly infringed the applicable terms and conditions, resulting in the termination of the provision of the whole of the online intermediation services in question.

In cases where the notice period in paragraph 2 does not apply, the provider of online intermediation services shall provide the business user concerned, without undue delay, with a statement of reasons for that decision on a durable medium.

So it all comes down to what their reasons for the suspension were.

EDIT: Just saw this update: https://mobile.twitter.com/element_hq/status/135546565011484... So they revealed their reasons within 12 hours, which I'm going to file under "without undue delay". (But did they use a "durable medium"?)

GlitchMr2• 5 years ago

Hm, yeah, I think you are right here.

That said, the reason for removal provided by Google seems to be nonsensical ("abusive content somewhere on Matrix", really?), so mediation should be effective here. This particular reason easily applies to an application like Google Chrome, and EU regulation 2019/1150 requires differential treatment to be documented, which I don't think it is in this case.

MrsPeaches• 5 years ago

Looks like it was indeed due to abusive content:

https://mobile.twitter.com/element_hq/status/135546565011484...

croes3• 5 years ago

Than it would be logical to suspend all browsers too.

cheph5• 5 years ago

And all messengers that support E2E encryption. I just wrote some abusive content on WhatsApp and Facebook Messenger in end to end encrypted chats so I expect Google to remove those now also.

And I used google chrome to access 4chan. So google must ban google chrome also.

mackrevinack2• 5 years ago

at least they are not called 'riot' anymore. i can imagine a lot of people might have thought it was an app for organising riots or something

suizi3• 5 years ago

A name which Google isn't familiar with (Riot, as opposed to Element) is a possible reason they were suspended in the first place.

ksec2• 5 years ago

Every Single Day I am leaning more towards non-App Store distribution model.

aabbcc1241• 5 years ago

I feel like the "App Stores" are kinna on war with the minority recently

bsd44• 5 years ago

I think all this App banning stuff will fuel the interest of open source platforms like Pinephone.

ognarb2• 5 years ago

Now I have one reason more to continue to develop a matrix client for Plasma Mobile.

elkos2• 5 years ago

If I get to work with matrix and element io plasma mobile I'm ordering a device next day.

ognarb2• 5 years ago

NeoChat does work on Plasma Mobile but it is still missing a few features to be production ready. https://carlschwan.eu/2020/12/23/announcing-neochat-1.0-the-...

I'm currently working on encryption support in the base library: https://github.com/quotient-im/libQuotient/pull/443 and once this is done the other big missing feature are notifications.

williamonill• 5 years ago

Perhaps a little cynical but what would stop Google from classifying praising other search engines as "hate speech" and deleting any comments in this direction from their platforms? And when "hate speech" is just a little too absurd then they just classify it as "security risk" and ban it as well.

teekert• 5 years ago

I wonder what stuff like this does for the French government who rely on Matrix (and presumably element?). Sure they have their own servers and maybe another client.

alangibson4• 5 years ago

We've had contact from Google confirming that the suspension is due to abusive content somewhere on Matrix

If this takedown stands, this effectively means that all distributed message systems are banned from the Play store.

croes3• 5 years ago

All browsers too. I've seen a lot of shit it that so called internet.

cheph5• 5 years ago

Does not have to be distributed, can be any E2E encrypted also. Signal should be banned, WhatsApp, Facebook messenger: https://support.google.com/googleplay/android-developer/cont...

Report them all, if you can't find objectionable content on those, write it to yourself, screenshot it and report the apps.

ulzeraj3• 5 years ago

Ironically this move finally made me to consider Matrix. I'm thinking about spinning a server on a non FAANG provider like Vultr or Linode and setting IM services bridges from there. Nowadays I use lots of different communicators to talk to different people and most of these apps track me. If I setup a Matrix server somewhere that allows me to use those networks without having their software installed on my devices that will not only be convenient but also improve my privacy. Not to mention the Matrix network and protocol that can be used to do fun stuff.

Is Dendrite ready for use? I don't have a lot of memory available and I heard Synapse is kinda heavy on resources.

alfyboy• 5 years ago

I'm in the process of setting up a Matrix homeserver myself. It seems like there are some missing features.

From their github:

Is Dendrite stable?

Mostly, although there are still bugs and missing features. If you are a confident power user and you are happy to spend some time debugging things when they go wrong, then please try out Dendrite. If you are a community, organisation or business that demands stability and uptime, then Dendrite is not for you yet - please install Synapse instead.

Does Dendrite support push notifications?

No, not yet. This is a planned feature.

Does Dendrite support application services/bridges?

Possibly - Dendrite does have some application service support but it is not well tested. Please let us know by raising a GitHub issue if you try it and run into problems.

sigwinch28• 5 years ago

Use Synapse.

ulzeraj3• 5 years ago

I got it running relatively easy. Lots of client functionality from Element do not work and the shared secret request between devices timeouts.

I also find hard to debug because of all the errors related to broken federated servers. One thing that I recommend is to set "disable_federation: true" until you get some acceptable functionality before enabling it again.

MayeulC3• 5 years ago

Dendrite is okay for personal use (a few users), matrix-native, using the better-tested clients. IIRC some bridges work with it, but it doesn't implement the whole appservice API, which blocks you from using some of the better bridges.

I do not recommend synapse if you don't have a lot of memory. I put an extra 8 GB stick in my server for it, bringing it to 14 GB.

It routinely likes to take more than 4GB to itself, though it has become a lot leaner lately.

ulzeraj3• 5 years ago

Sadly 4GB is all I have.

On the other hand, I was expecting the bridges to me more like Bitlbee which maps personal accounts to IRC rooms. Matrix bridges seem to be more like syncing the content of a room to another.

onebot• 5 years ago

One take away that this has on me, is that with Google and Apple controlling content on mobile phones, it might be impossible to have a truly decentralized application. I believe that Apple should be required to allow 3rd party installs if the user so chooses. If there is an example of monopolistic behaviour this is one for sure.

alvatar• 5 years ago

This just made me install Element right away and finally get away from Signal (and of course Whatssap) and bring as many people with me as possible

Havoc• 5 years ago

suspension is due to abusive content somewhere on Matrix; we're working with them to explain how Element works

What a joke. Does google remove their own messenger platform and email app too when someone uses them to send something naughty?

cheph5• 5 years ago

Report it, and report their browser, and all E2E encrypted messaging apps (Signal, WhatsApp, Facebook): https://support.google.com/googleplay/android-developer/cont...

acatsdream2• 5 years ago

You can use fdroid to install it. Maintained there by Matrix itself as it is free software.

jariel• 5 years ago

This notion that your business can evaporate without notice overnight has to stop.

We absolutely need clear legislation on this, this is causing harm and the power asymmetry is monumental.

Also - consider the conflicts of interests: Google Apps would never, ever get treated the same way.

I think it's time to separate app distribution from the devices themselves.

someonehere• 5 years ago

So what happens if people start flagging Google chat products as abusive? Will Google pull its own apps? Probably a big fat no.

I was so close to proposing moving off of Slack and onto something like Element/Matrix. Unfortunately this will be a harder sell to my management considering Google or Apple can just shut down any chat client businesses use.

This is ridiculous.

TimMeade• 5 years ago

I have never used element, but i just went to the apple app store and downloaded it before they strike it also. it was on my "when i get around to it" list. Well seems like now is the time to get around to it. Seem that i do that more and more often these days.

Causality1• 5 years ago

It's incredible that they still host web browsers and email clients with these kinds of policies in place.

fblp• 5 years ago

Hi there, if you're a small business impacted by this please comment how below, i can raise the issue with congressional representatives via the national small business association. I've seen a couple posts about this already.

From my perspective, decentralized, free and open source software enables and supports a range of small businesses. The replacements for tools like Element are big-tech tools ranging from Whatsapp (Facebook) to Slack (Salesforce).

gameswithgo2• 5 years ago

Quit taking part in monopoly stores

nabla9• 5 years ago

Instead of putting some money into good service in two sided markets, Google is fine with automatized or low effort curation. High visibility post in Hacker News seems to be how errors can be corrected.

Monopoly power in action. There is little pressure to fix this.

seaourfreed• 5 years ago

Facebook & Twitter found that they must trap people there. The flood to Parler that caused Parler to the top of Apple/Android App Stores made them block free speach.

Matrix app. Discussions on what to do about Telegram / Signal. Blocking Parlor.

Citizens can only challenge the establishment around a rigged economy if citizens have a place for free speech. FB/Twitter enable censorship.

danaugrs• 5 years ago

Why is Element suspended but not Signal? Is Signal compromised?

mensetmanusman2• 5 years ago

Remember,

Competitors on youtube do this all the time to take down competitive content.

E.g. false flags of inappropriate content or copyright to take down videos or channels.

This is a good situation for big players, because there will always exist a real or fake excuse to take down any potentially competitive threat.

Also, unfortunately this system aligns with the goals of our political system that wants to have a one stop shop for surveillance of ‘law breakers’.

pimeys3• 5 years ago

Oh wow, this chat has blown up with messages and I doubt anybody will see this message at this point, but here we go.

During these weeks of being at home and having lots of free time after work, I've been doing _projects_. For a while, I've been reading how people rant about Matrix always on HN, and I finally decided to suck it, install my own home server and try it out by myself.

The installation for sure requires a bit of understanding about DNS and you kind of (if you want things to be simpler) need two servers: one for your root domain and other for your matrix server. If you nail these two things correctly, can wait a bit for the DNS records to spread out in the network, you'll get the matrix federation working quite nicely.

I highly recommend using some of the automated tools, such as the ansible playbook[0] to help you out maintaining the server. It makes setting up the bridges for other chat platforms very easy.

I have to say, having one application for all my chats. The same interface, no need to install five apps to talk with people, this all is so nice. It's definitely worth the trouble, even when with Synapse you need a bit more powerful server, like four gigs of RAM is a good minimum for a server and all the bridges. Now we only need to have an easy way to install the clients, so we can help our not so technologically advanced friends to join. I think Google knows this; how in 2021 people are forming their own communities, outside of the power of the big corporations. Now Matrix is quite technology oriented, it feels like IRC back in the 90s which I really enjoy!

afkqs• 5 years ago

I highly recommend using some of the automated tools, such as the ansible playbook[0] to help you out maintaining the server

You forgot to link the Ansible playbook you're talking about :)

pimeys3• 5 years ago

Of course I did https://github.com/spantaleev/matrix-docker-ansible-deploy

Ericson2314• 5 years ago

I am going to install Element with F-droid or manual APK load on principle now. Fuck this.

zupreme• 5 years ago

This is an unfortunate example of a core danger of the app store (or Play Store, in this case) business model.

With devices, by default, configured to make it difficult to install apps directly, the store becomes the single point of failure.

And we engineers know, all too well, the dangers of single points of failure in any business-critical solution.

What well-run fortune 500 company, or government agency, would fully embrace and build a key business process around apps which can be made to vanish on the whim of an Apple or Google employee who takes issue with how someone fully disconnected from your organization (and maybe even in a different country) uses the same app you have rolled out to thousands of staff members?

In my opinion, the next logical step in “decentralization” of technology is to give mobile device users the same application control, logging, and monitoring powers over their devices that desktop, server, and notebook users have always enjoyed.

Does anyone else here see another logical path?

kgin• 5 years ago

This seems like a perfect use case for a PWA

amelius• 5 years ago

Question: did this action "only" stop the sales of apps, or did it also break already-installed or even running apps?

lousken2• 5 years ago

would be interested to hear from googlers what's going on

Sunspark5• 5 years ago

A thought.. the Samsung Galaxy app store never removed the game Fortnite when Google and Apple both did for financial reasons. Perhaps Element could also become one of the apps there.. there's a lot of Samsung devices out there in the world.

iamleppert• 5 years ago

Google invested billions into the development of Android when no one else stepped up to do it. They are fully within their rights to protect their investment and fully control the Android ecosystem to their own benefit.

mchusma• 5 years ago

Google Play Store takedown and appeals process is so embarrisingly bad and so easy to fix. 1) give people notice and the chance to respond in most cases before the takedown or put the app back up if an appeal is filed until the appeal is reviewed. 2) allow attachments on the appeals form. They only allow 1,000 characters, which is just not enough for most cases. 3) staff the team so you can reply within 48 hours. Currently, the average seems to be about 10 days. 4) Have a way to see the takedown reason I'm the developer portal. If you appeal, see the appeal was received and is in process.

None of these things take materially more resources from google. Some junior PM should be able to make this better, and it would save google a lot of antitrust concerns. Something like 1M a year would probably do it.

elkos2• 5 years ago

The Element app is back in the Google Play Store: https://twitter.com/element_hq/status/1355677158174322688

davidinosauro• 5 years ago

I wonder, would there be value in publishing a separate incarnation of Element that does not provide any default Matix servers? It would require you to type the server URL or follow a link from the browser

outloudvi• 5 years ago

Good to see Element back.

I want to mention that Fedilab [1] and Subway Tooter [2], two famous apps used for Mastodon (or ActivityPub), a decentralized social network, had also been taken down by Google Play with the same reason.

1. https://qoto.org/@freemo/104765288863293481

2. https://mastodon.juggler.jp/@tateisu/104761652569820793

sli• 5 years ago

The fact that Google needs to have Matrix explained to them is, frankly, appalling. I would expect an organization the size of Google would have someone there who's familiar with these not-uncommon federated networks. Or, you know, just stuff that's trendy in general within the tech crowd.

suizi3• 5 years ago

Google is so big that one head doesn't know what the other is doing. Some people probably do know what Matrix is, but that doesn't mean the right people do.

It's still a big problem that Google isn't even making the effort to investigate big apps on their own platform to get familiar with them (before letting the AI loose on them).

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

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