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Re:Element (Matrix chat app) suspended from the Google Play ... by Arathorn on Saturday January 30, 2021 @07:34PM (#25974512)
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 [email protected], 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).

Re:Element (Matrix chat app) suspended from the Google Play ... by stjohnswarts on Saturday January 30, 2021 @09:10PM (#25975094)
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.
Re:Element (Matrix chat app) suspended from the Google Play ... by INTPenis on Sunday January 31, 2021 @12:47AM (#25976393)
You could also load the webbased element client in Chrome and use Matrix in Chrome. In theory at least, not sure how it holds up on mobile but you can definitely use it in Chrome desktop browser.
Re:Element (Matrix chat app) suspended from the Google Play ... by ajayyy on Sunday January 31, 2021 @02:11AM (#25976810)
https://hydrogen.element.io/#/login works on mobile. It's their experimental light-weight web client.
Re:Element (Matrix chat app) suspended from the Google Play ... by TheAdamAndChe on Saturday January 30, 2021 @10:57PM (#25975757)
Element, the matrix protocol, and matrix.org are all tightly linked together. Matrix.org is the default server in Element. With them so interconnected, I understand why matrix.org issues would affect Element.
Re:Element (Matrix chat app) suspended from the Google Play ... by shakna on Sunday January 31, 2021 @12:39AM (#25976354)
Not that tightly linked. Whilst the Element client does offer Matrix.org as a signup/login as the first page you see, you're also just one single click from signup/login to any of the other servers. Nothing about that page really feels locked or branded to matrix.org.

I don't see how that makes Element responsible for matrix.org content. Thunderbird offers getting an email address via gandi.net in their new account page. Does that mean that Mozilla is suddenly responsible for all emails (like spam) coming out of gandi?

Re:Element (Matrix chat app) suspended from the Google Play ... by jpetso on Sunday January 31, 2021 @02:19AM (#25976861)
New Vector leadership holding key decision-making positions on both Element and Matrix.org could be seen as a distinguishing factor. It feels subjectively like more entanglement than the Mozilla/Gandi combo.
Re:Element (Matrix chat app) suspended from the Google Play ... by Arathorn on Sunday January 31, 2021 @08:47AM (#25978779)
We’ve very consciously tried to separate The Matrix.org Foundation from Element (previously known as New Vector), despite both Matrix and Element being created by the same leadership (myself, my co-founder Amandine, and the rest of the core Matrix team). To be clear: we started Matrix in 2014 as a pure R&D project, and then created Element (then NV) in 2017 to keep the core team employed to work on it fulltime.

However, the non-profit Foundation (https://matrix.org/foundation) was set up in 2018 with myself and Amandine deliberately in a minority control position (2 of 5 directors, called Guardians) specifically to address this concern - to protect Matrix from Element’s commercial activity, in case we ever went rogue.

As it happens, The Foundation farms out hosting and admin of the matrix.org homeserver to Element (which makes sense, given the Foundation doesn’t have employees and Element was already running the server), but if Element ever went evil, i am very confident that the Foundation Guardians would kick in and make a course correction.

Re:Element (Matrix chat app) suspended from the Google Play ... by lucb1e on Sunday January 31, 2021 @08:40AM (#25978733)
But can you host content with chrome that will get you locked up for life? Because that's the issue here: the official default home server was serving that content. Now, yeah, decentralization but apparently the people handling abuse reports of stuff in the play store don't know what this means, hence GP saying they explained what decentralization is and the relation between Element (open source project) and Matrix.org (the 'offending' service).
Re:Element (Matrix chat app) suspended from the Google Play ... by vxNsr on Sunday January 31, 2021 @11:02AM (#25979727)
I think this is the problem, if you treat every client as a host it becomes the client’s responsibility to police the host which is wrong.
Re:Element (Matrix chat app) suspended from the Google Play ... by hertzrat on Monday February 01, 2021 @02:39PM (#25992704)
Wait until Firefox gets taken down for the same reason and chrome starts blocking things
Re:Element (Matrix chat app) suspended from the Google Play ... by behringer on Sunday January 31, 2021 @12:01AM (#25976141)
A better analogy might be your ISP blocking google.com because of heinous content visible on the search screen. Yeah it would be weird, but I doubt anybody would have a real problem with that happening.
Re:Element (Matrix chat app) suspended from the Google Play ... by mswann on Sunday January 31, 2021 @03:19AM (#25977101)
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.)
Re:Element (Matrix chat app) suspended from the Google Play ... by mxuribe on Sunday January 31, 2021 @10:25AM (#25979457)
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'!!! :-)
Re:Element (Matrix chat app) suspended from the Google Play ... by jhabdas on Sunday January 31, 2021 @06:44PM (#25983830)
> 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)!!

You're suggesting the challenge was created by Google and that so and so managed to navigate it successfully by obeying Google.

But we don't even know what the issue was. And if the issue isn't available to the general public through transparency or something like an FOIA request what is really being celebrated is the power of a corporation to control free speech over a protocol intended to wrest control of free speech back into the hands of people in the first place.

Limiting access to information such that it cannot be independently verified is far more sinister and nefarious — not to mention consitutionally unsound — than the threat of the bad actor sharing the info in the first place.

In the wake of the temporary Parler shutdown all of us need to be paying close attention to how we receive information. These things cannot be left up to anecdotal stories which delve into little to no detail.

Re:Element (Matrix chat app) suspended from the Google Play ... by cbradford on Saturday January 30, 2021 @08:03PM (#25974679)
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.
Re:Element (Matrix chat app) suspended from the Google Play ... by alfiedotwtf on Sunday January 31, 2021 @05:58AM (#25977855)
We have put all of our eggs in the iOS and Android basket. It looks like this year we’ll see a few Linux phone come to market... can’t come soon enough
Re:Element (Matrix chat app) suspended from the Google Play ... by girvo on Sunday January 31, 2021 @08:55AM (#25978826)
While it’s old now, the Nokia N9 proved to me a long time ago that the Linux phone idea has true merit. Harmattan was a brilliant UI!
Re:Element (Matrix chat app) suspended from the Google Play ... by alfiedotwtf on Sunday January 31, 2021 @04:57PM (#25982944)
I think you mean the N900, which I'd still be on if it did all the bands in my area. You're right though... probably the best Linux phone so far in terms of UI (I think the Ubuntu phone was too complex)
Re:Element (Matrix chat app) suspended from the Google Play ... by girvo on Sunday January 31, 2021 @06:00PM (#25983472)
No, I mean the N9 :)

https://wiki.debian.org/Mobile/Nokia_N9

I loved the N900 to, of course, but as a phone the N9 running MeeGo v1.2 Harmattan was superior day to day (for me anyway).

Re:Element (Matrix chat app) suspended from the Google Play ... by xster on Sunday January 31, 2021 @05:17PM (#25983127)
Ironically if they put the app on Huawei's AppGallery, it would have been up the whole time on a very non trivial amount of phones outside China where the AppGallery is preloaded before and after the Google ban.
Re:Element (Matrix chat app) suspended from the Google Play ... by Jabbles on Sunday January 31, 2021 @04:37AM (#25977493)
Did your abuse team email the site that you removed from your home page, explaining your policies and telling them exactly why it was removed?

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

Re:Element (Matrix chat app) suspended from the Google Play ... by sitzkrieg on Sunday January 31, 2021 @04:54AM (#25977590)
this is still a joke you have to post on hn and hope to get high enough up to nastygram someone over 'my app connectsto the internet like yours' level of shit
Re:Element (Matrix chat app) suspended from the Google Play ... by ttt0 on Sunday January 31, 2021 @08:44AM (#25978763)
Exactly. I'm happy that the app was reinstated, but this solves nothing in the long run.
Re:Element (Matrix chat app) suspended from the Google Play ... by jhabdas on Sunday January 31, 2021 @06:51PM (#25983896)
> 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?

Re:Element (Matrix chat app) suspended from the Google Play ... by brmgb on Monday February 01, 2021 @01:14PM (#25991469)
Why should the details of the Matrix.org server moderation be of significance to Element users? We are talking about a decentralized and optionally end to end encrypted chat client.

Anyway, Matrix.org is hosted by a foundation with an independent board. You can ask them if you want but given your post you already know full well why they are not sharing. No one is going to do a press release to say they were involuntary hosting CP or helping terrorists. What good would come out of it?

Re:Element (Matrix chat app) suspended from the Google Play ... by idclip on Sunday January 31, 2021 @12:53AM (#25976428)
Sounds like CP ... cp is a real issue when it comes to crypto.
Re:Element (Matrix chat app) suspended from the Google Play ... by kuschku on Sunday January 31, 2021 @08:18AM (#25978582)
I’ve had to deal with a situation once where a user received spam containing links to CP via a major IRC network. Weeks of paperwork and trouble, caused by a few seconds of work for the spammer. Spammers abuse this imbalance of work to easily take down services, many of which won’t ever come back online (I certainly won’t ever host free IRC bouncers again, it’s definitely not worth it).

This is what truly destroyed the open, federated web: humans being disgusting animals.

Re:Element (Matrix chat app) suspended from the Google Play ... by heatedsubject on Monday February 01, 2021 @03:49AM (#25986828)
CP is a very touchy subject. But if we really wanted to solve the problem we shouldn't focus on someone accidentally seeing (and thus caching) CP on their device.

CP should be removed at the source, by doing everything we can to take care of kids and preventing abuse and related photography. And CP trading rings should be busted.

But individual pedophiles should be helped with their mental health issues before they act and become pederasts. The subject is so toxic that nobody dares go to a therapist with their issues. There was a recent documentary about it: https://www.idfa.nl/en/film/bb3cd43c-169a-48db-9fd6-e4cbae0d...

Coming back to crypto. Who cares if the images are shared using crypto or on paper or on usb sticks? Once you find a pederast, law enforcement should convince (without torture or similar tricks, offering therapy and help will probably be more effective) them to help expose their network. Same with any activity that is using encrypted communications: https://edri.org/files/encryption/workarounds_edriposition_2...

Re:Element (Matrix chat app) suspended from the Google Play ... by buisi on Sunday February 07, 2021 @01:12AM (#26053069)
https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2016/01/can-child... https://www.researchgate.net/publication/299657027_Non-Offen... According to Dr. James Cantor (a world leading pedophilia expert), and The Atlantic here, child sex dolls may be able to serve as an outlet to prevent pedophiles from acting out on their desires.
Re:Element (Matrix chat app) suspended from the Google Play ... by ripdog on Sunday January 31, 2021 @07:37AM (#25978348)
If it was encrypted, it wouldn't have been discovered in the first place. At least, not by google app reviewers.
Re:Element (Matrix chat app) suspended from the Google Play ... by meibo on Sunday January 31, 2021 @07:46AM (#25978408)
You can take screenshots of encrypted content and the whole aspect of encryption is basically defeated if the channel itself is open to the public. This might not have been the case here, but there are people that infiltrate channels like this on purpose to report them to authorities and Google(?).
Re:Element (Matrix chat app) suspended from the Google Play ... by drummer on Sunday January 31, 2021 @09:53AM (#25979230)
Why the lack of transparency about exactly what content triggered this response?
Re:Element (Matrix chat app) suspended from the Google Play ... by einpoklum on Sunday January 31, 2021 @06:16AM (#25977950)
> extremely abusive content

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

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

Re:Element (Matrix chat app) suspended from the Google Play ... by hedora on Sunday January 31, 2021 @05:12PM (#25983088)
To the extent Google can lock you up for life for being inconvenient for their business model, I suppose it could have been innocuous content.

Oh, wait. We’re still a decade away from that particular dystopia, so I’ll guess kiddie porn or actual planning of terrorist attacks.

Re:Element (Matrix chat app) suspended from the Google Play ... by GoblinSlayer on Monday February 01, 2021 @03:57AM (#25986879)
Wait, if CP and terrorist attacks are posted in the open, then what FBI wants to read in e2ee traffic?
Re:Element (Matrix chat app) suspended from the Google Play ... by einpoklum on Sunday January 31, 2021 @06:25PM (#25983679)
> so I’ll guess kiddie porn or actual planning of terrorist attacks.

It seems you guess wrong. The Element guy did not mention any illegality, which is what makes me suspicious.