> isn't Matrix based out of the UK and primary hosted instances on AWS in the UK?

It doesn't matter what country you run your server in or where your company is based; if you're providing public signup to a chat server then the countries (UK, AU, NZ etc) which require age verification will object if you don't age verify the users from those countries. (This is why Discord is doing it, despite being US HQ'd). In other words, the fact that The Matrix.org Foundation happens to be UK HQ'd doesn't affect the situation particularly.

(Edit: also, as others have pointed out, Matrix is a protocol, not a service or a product. The Matrix Foundation is effectively a standards body which happens to run the matrix.org server instance, but the jurisdiction that the standards body is incorporated in makes little difference - just like IETF being US-based doesn't mean the Internet is actually controlled by the US govt).

> Their solution is for everyone to pay for Matrix with a credit card to verify age.

Verifying users in affected countries based on owning a credit card is one solution we're proposing; suspect there will be other ways to do so too. However: this would only apply on the matrix.org server instance. Meanwhile, there are 23,306 other servers currently federating with matrix.org (out of a total of 156,055) - and those other servers, if they provide public signup, can figure out how to solve the problem in their own way.

Also, the current plan on the matrix.org server is to only verify users who are in affected countries (as opposed to try to verify the whole userbase as Discord is).

Whether it matters depends very much on what sort of organization you are.

Discord is a multinational for-profit corporation planning an IPO. It takes payments from users in those countries, likely partners with companies in those countries, and likely wants to sell stock to investors in those countries. Every one of those countries has the ability to punish Discord if it does not obey their laws, even if it does not have a physical presence there.

The situation is likely quite different for most of the 23,306 Matrix servers that federate widely. The worst thing Australia, for example could do to one of their operators is make it legally hazardous for them to visit Australia.

It does not actually need to be configured in a federated state and frankly scales better when it's not. The login can be tied to anything or use it's own. From a modern SAML SSO to an old school forum.

You can run one for a few friends and it scales just as well as a private discord for a few friends. Just need persistent storage for media uploads if people are sharing video a lot.

This matrix discussion here is missing the point - many people don't want ubiquitous tracking of everything we do on the internet. You and matrix are seemingly not honestly addressing that point, because matrix doesn't seem different discord (in the requirements).

The difference with Discord is that Matrix is a protocol, not a service. It's made up of thousands of servers run by different people in different countries. Public instances may choose to verify users in affected countries to abide by the law; others may choose to run a private instance instead.

tldr, means for American firms to sue due to burdonsome regulations, also some contitution stuff.

We need more stuff hosted through obfuscated channels (Tor, I2C, etc) and more user friendly access to those networks.

It was all fun and games while it was a few geeks and early adopters having (mostly) fun. Now it is corporations making billions while destroying the mental health and productivity of their "users".

At some point you don't have a business model if you don't have users.

[0] https://europeannewsroom.com/to-ban-or-not-to-ban-eu-countri...

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_media_age_verification_...

Have any of the Matrix/Element teams seriously considered taking advantage of current events by offering a gamer-focused class of premium account, for Discord refugees who want to redirect their Nitro budgets to fund Matrix gaming features? (Perhaps on a separate homeserver, to avoid the lag during times when matrix.org is overloaded.)

If it were positioned as Patreon-style crowdfunding rather than selling a finished product, and expectations were set appropriately, I wonder if it could end up a nontrivial source of income with which to develop features that Matrix deserves but corporate/government customers won't pay for.

The problem is more that Element team is seriously stretched (particularly after the various misadventures outlined here: https://youtu.be/lkCKhP1jxdk?t=740) - so even if there was a pot of money to (say) merge custom emoji PRs... the team is more than overloaded already with commitments to folks like NATO and the UN. Meanwhile, onboarding new folks and figuring out how to do the Discordy features and launch a separately Discordy app under a Discordy server would also be a major distraction from ensuring Element gets sustainable by selling govtech messaging solutions.

So, we're caught in a catch-22 for now. One solution would be for other projects to build Discordy solutions on top of Matrix (like Cinny or Commet), or fork Element to be more Discordy (and run their own crowdfunders, perhaps in conjunction with The Matrix Foundation). Otherwise, we have to wait for Element to get sustainable via govtech work so it can eventually think about diversifying back into consumer apps.

Right, but also the US isn't far behind on the same legislation wave. It's a lot less likely to be US federally regulated in the same way that the EU is debating EU-wide legislation, but a handful of US States have a version of this legislation already on the books and about to be enforced, or considered about to be on the books (some of which like South Carolina's partially passed bill written to be enforceable Day 1 with no grace period).

The US landscape is shifting rapidly on this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_media_age_verification_...

Did you mean ~15,000 servers and ~2000 federating? Because those are the numbers on etke.cc's matrixrooms.info (still really good in my opinion and keeps going up over the weeks), but I can't find your numbers anywhere! Would be great to have a source to point to if that's actually the case!

Thanks!

The stats of the matrixrooms.info instance is what matrixrooms.info instance sees - it is not whole Matrix Federation. Here is the documentation in the MRS repo about that endpoint: https://github.com/etkecc/mrs/blob/main/docs/stats.md

Also, at the moment of writing, there are ~15k *federated* online servers visible by matrixrooms.info, and from them, ~4k servers publish their rooms directories over federation ("indexable").

You can read more about the MRS project (matrixrooms.info is just a demo instance) in the repo: https://github.com/etkecc/mrs/blob/main/README.md

This makes sense, but is there any reason MRS would see such a drastically smaller number compared to, what I assume to be, matrix.org instance numbers? My understanding based on the documentation provided is that MRS seeks federation-enabled, published rooms to index, and is the initiator of the connect. It doesn't expect other servers to reach out to it.

Or would this difference essentially be from servers that decided to disable indexing BUT still federate with matrix.org?

Whereas I literally select count(*)'d from the destinations table on matrix.org, filtered on servers which had been federating in the last week(?) in order to get the specific stats above. (And then count(*) of all time for the 150K figure).

Clueless lawmakers will see this app called Element full of kids chatting without restrictions and tell it to add a filter. When the app says "we can't", the government says "sucks to be you, figure it out" and either hands out a fine or blocks the app.

There are distinctions between the community vibe Discord is going for (with things like forums and massive chat rooms with thousands of people) and Matrix (which has a few chatrooms but mostly contains small groups of people). No in-app purchases, hype generation, or kyhrt predatory designs, just the bare basics to get a functional chat app (and even less than that if you go for some clients).

I'd say being based in the UK will put matrix.org and Element users at risk, but with Matrix development being funded mostly by the people behind matrix.org that implies an impact to the larger decentralized network.

This won't save Matrix.org if legislators throw stupid at it, of course, but Matrix.org has the opportunity (though maybe not the resources) to engage with UK legislators to ensure they feel respected and that honest efforts are being made to comply.

This is why to this day torrenting of copyrighted material is alive and well.

More likely, it just won't become popular enough for lawmakers to notice because the UX is a little rough, and people have very little patience for such things anymore.

https://gagadget.com/en/671314-no-more-apk-google-will-block...

The walls are closing in on us all

https://android-developers.googleblog.com/2025/11/android-de...

Seems we lack a nail-on-the-head term for this "but of course you'll still be able to ..." frog-boiling. We collectively fall for it every time!

That might happen here, but I don’t think that principle holds generally. If that were true, wouldn’t every component of the service provider chain be sued for people e.g. downloading pirated or illegal stuff? The government cracks down on e.g. torrent trackers and ISPs, but they haven’t seriously attacked torrent clients or the app stores/OSes that allow users to run those clients. Why not?

Apple and Google have both been forced to take down apps and ISPs block IP ranges all the time. Usually without much of a fight. Apps for reporting ICE, for instance, have been taken down without any clear legal precedent and without much judicial challenge. The entire chain is already being threatened, sued, and censored.

The trick is usually to escape the jurisdiction of countries that care by hosting serves in foreign countries, to host app executables and such off-platform, and maybe adding a CDN like Cloudflare to the mix to protect against getting arrested too easily. For this to work for Matrix, the company developing Matrix needs to leave the UK and move to a place where this age verification bollocks isn't necessary. I don't think that kind of behaviour is good for a company currently financed in large part by government contracts.

I thought it was both and their hosted service is in the UK. Is it not? I know people can host their own but I have had very little success in getting people to host their own things. Most here at HN will not do anything that requires more than their cell phone. Who knows maybe Discords actions will incentivize more people to self host.

You're just talking to the wrong ones :-)

I do hope you are right. Governments have more than enough low hanging fruit to go snatch up and then pat themselves on the back.

Bittorrent actually has fewer real uses than Matrix. The former is useful for Microsoft and others trying to roll out big patches, but the latter is used by NATO, the German Armed Forces, and the French government

Whether or not authorities with jurisdiction over you would notice your instance (homeserver) or bother you about age verification is an issue you'd have to consider for yourself.

The spirit of the law is definitely not against chatting with friends, but it is against the idea of connecting minors with strangers, so while federation is generally not codified (or, IMO, understood well by legislators) and you're probably not going to be bothered by authorities about it, I reckon sooner or later the law will come for federated networks.

(Since we all seem fine just taking some uncertified random third party's word for it that their AI face recognition definitely didn't see a thumb with a face drawn on it, maybe it'd be adequate for Matrix.org to add an "18+ user" flag to the protocol and call it a day?)

I honestly have no idea. As much as they love money I am not paying my lawyers to research AI this one. I would probably wait for others to get made example of.

Matrix is basically labeled "adults only" everywhere, so restricting certain servers/rooms due to possible innocent eyes is likely out of scope.

It went down as well as about you would think it would.

[1] https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2017/07/australian-pm-calls-en... (2017)

https://www.forbes.com/sites/kionasmith/2018/02/05/indianas-...