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.
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.
> But why? Matrix is tiny and no threat to Google services.
There is an absolutely unprecedented shift going on as we speak, one of those groundswell events that have the potential to shift usage habits of hundreds of millions of people.
We got a taste just recently with the shift away from WhatsApp based on a TOS update. Imagine arguing last year that ten million users would jump ship based on a TOS change?
Matrix, and services of its ilk, are absolutely an existential threat to Google in the next 20 years.
Don’t forget that Google has all the threat intel you could possibly imagine from their existing analytics platforms. They will see the shift coming before anyone.
I can absolutely see them acting now to try to disrupt the initial rumblings of a seismic event that has the potential to go totally viral and popular sentiment shifts against megacorps.
Killing them gets exponentially harder over the next 6 months if there were a successful campaign across the internet to switch to these services, and 2021 is very close to seeing a very significant grassroots campaign like that truly take off. Certainly the time has never been better and the populace never been more primed to make the move out of the walled gardens.
Google has no (competitive) horse in the messenger race, so while that theory might fit your ideological point of view, I don’t understand why Google itself would have any incentive (or grounds) to remove an open source chat app.
Google counts up every minute users spend using their electronic devices.
In their world view, every single minute per day spent looking at screens that don’t have Google ad targeting is a minute that a competitor is stealing value from Google.
Facebook (24%) and Google (32%) compete pretty intensely for mobile ad spend. While we don’t know how much Facebook uses Google ads, that theory isn’t particularly satisfying because they compete so intensely.
> Facebook (24%) and Google (32%) compete pretty intensely for mobile ad spend. While we don’t know how much Facebook uses Google ads, that theory isn’t particularly satisfying because they compete so intensely.
Discord, a huge chat software, is hosted on Google Cloud. This might help explain why they tried to kill Element, a client for Matrix, a competing chat software with similar targeted user base.
This seems like a classic case of Hanlon’s razor and I don’t see any evidence to the contrary (yet).
An NSL would be handled a lot differently than removing an app from a single app store for sexual content. Every indication so far points to it being a mistake by Google.
The pattern is that their reviewers are really bad and the appeal process is almost nonexistent. Improving the quality would probably be a huge cost and they have no real reason to do that.
The app is back up and the Element folks agreed that there was what sounds like child pornography reachable from their domain. Overzealous automation perhaps, but obviously not a conspiracy.
You can view child porn on Chrome, or receive it by email, or download it by Torrent. Yet I don't see anyone banning web browsers, email clients, and Bittorrent client.
Did you think to maybe give your article a more self-explanatory title? It's harder to spread the message when the primary qualified source for this is titled "Element on Google Play Store" instead of maybe "Element (Matrix chat app) banned on Google Play Store".
FYI, unless you're providing reproducible builds to F-Droid signed by your key (which doesn't seem to be the case), that APK is going to be signed with a different key. So it's either uninstallable over top of a Play Store-derived APK, or if someone does install it who doesn't currently have Element installed, they won't be able to install a Play Store-derived APK later – at least not without uninstalling first, and unless they do that with the right adb option, they'll lose any app data they have.
Ideally you could set up reproducible builds and make sure that the version in the default F-Droid repo stays up-to-date, but reproducible builds may not be practical for you right now (I'm not sure). Barring that, as you mentioned in the blog post, setting up your own F-Droid repo with self-signed APKs is a good option.
I haven't yet played with Matrix nearly as much as I would like, but I love the vision. Thanks for your efforts!
Also nice plug for F-Droid; they're doing good work as well.
Well, I disagree with your disagreement. Part of the value of F-Droid is that the main repository can host packages that are vetted and maintained by uninvolved parties. Second, if the Matrix-run repository does reproducible builds, then... there's no problem. (That's the nature of reproducible builds.) Third, F-Droid was conceived to be distributed and decentralized. That's why it allows you to add other sources in the first place, there's even a feature baked in that lets you get/share apps (including F-Droid itself) in-person with people around you, and under the hood the whole thing uses a DVCS-style model where the package index is "dead" data and your device manages a copy. Fourth, an app author choosing to run their own repository means that they're invested in F-Droid, moreso than instances where F-Droid's role is to achieve "mere availability" for the package.
What's more, this incident is evidence that we need more decentralization, not less. In instances where decentralization is either already working or is up for consideration, we should encourage it, not try to eradicate it.
The main repository also signs everything with f-droid keys, not the original developer's. This means any compromise in f-droid compromises everything.
"Publishing signed binaries from elsewhere (e.g. the upstream developer) is now possible after verifying that they match ones built using a recipe. Publishing only takes place if there is a proper match."
sounds like a problem to solve. build in both places, verify build hashes agree, upstream dev infra signs and sends signed build to f-droid, f-droid verifies hash against its own build, verifies upstream signature, signs and then lists. apks can have more than one signature.
Being suspended for user generated content has been a rite of passage for third party reddit clients. It's crazy how this happens again, again and again.
There is a significant difference there though: reddit is still a single, central entity. Matrix, XMPP, email, (and activitypub based systems, ssbc, and anything federated) could be connecting to one's own server. It could be a machine in my basement.
I don't see the difference. "Sync for reddit" a custom client for reddit. It was suspended for "hate speech". Then why isn't the official reddit app not suspended?
1. I install synapse (a matrix server) on my own machine. I install Element on my own phone. I connect one to another, and via the server to other servers.
2. I install a client that connects to reddit. Same reddit as everyone else. Same reddit as the reddit website.
There is a rather significant difference, isn't there?
EDIT addressing the 'hate speech' part, you are correct. If one reddit client is banned, all should be banned. But that is not true for communication apps, like Element.
> This jeopardizes every email, xmpp, matrix, etc; basically any 3rd party application.
Except of course Google's own applications. Gmail, Hangouts/Meet/whatever-it-currently-is, Chrome.
Luckily it's not possible to display illegal content with Google's own apps /s
I remember when my nephew got groomed on Google Plus, I was way to naive to think that this would not be occurring in Google's walled gardens. But in there, it turned out to be quasi-public.
I pointed this out not long ago. When will it comes to Email? How is mailing list any different?
And what about Chrome or Web Browser? Or they going to have built in Filter for website? Although without the reach of Google Search Engine having a filter or not makes no difference anyway.
But it is great they are doing it, the more the better. People were extremely supportive on HN not long ago about banning speeches they dont like on Internet. Hopefully they finally learned something here. They opened the Pandora Box and there is nothing anyone could do until the Pendulum swing to its limit before swinging back.
For all the chaos, the Internet continues to be surprisingly consistent with one set of rules for BigTech and friends and another set of rules for the rest.
It’s largely based on who has more lawyers. Google would never suspend Twitter because they would be instantly sued... like within 24 hours... and by a top tier law firm.
Update: from what I read, the reasoning can probably only effects systems where history is stored - slack, matrix, to name two. IRC most probably not, XMPP only if configured. Email: unlikely, it's a very different system.
Those might be the exceptions, at least for now. Ever since Firefox's crusade against IE the majority of people seem to still know there are different ~programs~ apps to access the internet with. As long as Chrome is not the default in the overwhelming amount of the operating systems, this might even stay like this, which is why I'm extremely unhappy that Android ships with Chrome these days and not with a thin gui on top of the system webview, like it used to.
EDIT: this ties in to the conversation I had on different platform recently, that it's getting arduous to make people understand that an app is not necessarily the same as the system behind it. Choosing an email client used to be a thing (Thunderbird, The Bat!, Outlook Express, mutt, etc; to name some across contrasting needs) not even too long ago. I despise that we came to a world where even the tech moderation fails to understand an app != protocol.
> As long as Chrome is not the default in the overwhelming amount of the operating systems, this might even stay like this, which is why I'm extremely unhappy that Android ships with Chrome these days and not with a thin gui on top of the system webview, like it used to.
That is also why I was rather sad when Microsoft announced
that they won't develop their own browser engines any more.
I disliked IE as much as anybody else, but what I did like
was the competition. With Edge switching to Blink,
essentially becoming yet another partially-degooged
Chrome, part of that competition is gone.
A little polemical, but there's some truth here. We've become so fixated on left-right as the only dimension that whenever you advocate for something clearly in the centrist-ish public interest, all anyone wants to know is which side you're on so that they can reduce you to a caricature.
Which prompts the question, who is responsible for all this vitriol? What people or corporations are driving us further and further into these two filter bubbles?
It used to be that if you even uttered the words "freedom of speech" here you'd be instantly downvoted and jumped on by five people saying that censorship is only when it's done by the government. Some people still double down on supporting the censorship, but at least no one even mentions that free market argument anymore.
Let me get this straight - you're saying "true libertarians" are people who decide to stop caring about advancing libertarian causes because someone else exercised their right of free speech, and now cheer for the loss of liberty of people they don't like?
No, I'm saying true libertarians have been getting ostracised by polite society for years now.
I'm a massively left leaning libertarian, if it weren't for its consistently proven failures in practice I would be a commy.
But here I am, over the years of commenting online I've been labeled a trump supporter, a Republican, alt right, white, male privileged, white privileged, racist, pseudo intellectual, biggoted, transphobic, and a Nazi.
Aren't libertarians all about the absolute sanctity of private property over all other concerns?
How is a pro-business ideology remotely justifying government intervention in the practice and moderation decisions of a private company? Wouldn't the rectification involve the government specifically dictating their business behaviour?
Libertarians seek to maximize autonomy and political freedom, emphasizing free association, freedom of choice, individualism and voluntary association. Libertarians share a skepticism of authority and state power, but some of them diverge on the scope of their opposition to existing economic and political systems.
If you want to get specific on the economic front I diverge a bit and fall somewhere along the mutualism line of things where I'm more interested in a pragmatic free market socialism. Basically just do what you feel like but don't be a prick about it, and yes, we'll organise some free healthcare and education.
Robin hood investors disliked a move by management and voted with their feet to place one star reviews.
Google removed them all.
You can but ma private companies if you want but you're only pointing out how monopolistic these platforms are. Good luck with antitrust Google. You gonna get fucked over a barrel. People are waking up.
Google is not a monopoly in the App Store market, but even if it were - how are you going to stop it? Google's property is it's property - it is entitled to do as it pleases. At what point in libertarian ideology is the government supposed to step in? And when it does: and do what? (while still being plausibly a libertarian movement).
> Aren't libertarians all about the absolute sanctity of private property over all other concerns?
They divide themselves on left-libertarians and right-libertarians. What you're thinking about is right-libertarians, so anarcho-capitalists, minarchists etc.
There needs to be a term for otherwise libertarian-minded people, who also understand that the platform should revolve around correcting the power imbalances between large wealthy organizations and individuals, whether those large organizations are governments or corporations. I don't see why we can't restrict the ultra-rich billionaires while still protecting the small-to-medium rich who actually did bust their ass to gain their fortunes.
No need to wonder. The Facebook and WhatsApp apps are why people buy phones. If a phone/platform can't run Facebook/WhatsApp, people will buy different ones that can.
That would be absurd but compared to everything that happened in 2020, that could be very likely. A lot of $ billions are being lost which very well may impact a large amount of expectant people.
After Discord banned their server, they moved to Telegram and the chat currently has more than 100k members. They would've banned Telegram if they wanted to shut WSB down
