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.
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).
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.
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.
It's definitely not Google style.
But I hope Matrix will get more promotion in result.
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.
> 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.
Incidentally I was always kinda surprised that the upgrade nag links in Riot Android redirected to Play store instead of f-droid
In the meantime, what is the explanation for the F-Droid version lagging behind?
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.
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...
> 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.
- 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?
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.
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.
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.
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?
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.
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.
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"?)
>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.
I have become accustomed to using multiple browsers and OSes simply because of all the issues surrounding video playback.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Is Dendrite ready for use? I don't have a lot of memory available and I heard Synapse is kinda heavy on resources.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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).
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.
The Parler dudes are just lucky that they haven't been arrested for material support of terrorism yet.
a) happy about this or
b) unhappy about this
I'll give you three guesses.
My largest concern is if Apple follows suit, which could lead to large problems with our employees who use iPhones.
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.
Element (previously Riot.im) (Secure decentralised chat & VoIP. Keep your data safe from third parties.) - https://f-droid.org/packages/im.vector.app
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.
Banning all applications that enable access to non-moderated decentralized content is simply not compatible with a phone being a smart phone.
From https://element.io/
"Keeps conversations in your control, safe from data-mining and ads"
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.
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!
You forgot to link the Ansible playbook you're talking about :)
Honest question: Why is the F-Droid option a few versions behind?
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?
It's the ever more popular historical revisionism movement.
https://mobile.twitter.com/element_hq/status/135546565011484...
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.
I hope that mobile computing follows the path of desktop computing, and we end up with more viable small-device OS options.
What a joke. Does google remove their own messenger platform and email app too when someone uses them to send something naughty?
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.
Odd that they'd only remove half of the Matrix clients available...
Monopoly power in action. There is little pressure to fix this.
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.)
What I want is true competition and laws that make that happen.
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?
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.
If this takedown stands, this effectively means that all distributed message systems are banned from the Play store.
Report them all, if you can't find objectionable content on those, write it to yourself, screenshot it and report the apps.
Basically as a protest. This can have far reaching effects for anyone worried about privacy, walled gardens, competing with social networks, etc...
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?
Naturally, it has the Element app.
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.
I wouldn't give up faith in Matrix yet. Remember, there are other clients, and there is always the Element web client.
Now you're just out of straws, or pulled the trigger on some decision? What's the implication?
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.
So are you going to switch to a GNU/Linux phone, Librem 5 or Pinephone?
Whatever shackles are being forged against your worst enemy, do not be surprised if they end up on your wrists at some later date.
Not a friendly experience, but not insanely hard either.
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’.
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.
Use your browser.
Element's developers just upload a newer version to Play themselves as part of the release.
AFAIK you can still sign it even if you don't publish it via playstore
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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).
And now a few VPs of Google and Apple dictate who's allowed to bring in their apps into their holy app store.
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).
I mean, you should now have learned that you can't rely on one single distribution channel.
Luckily theres other clients available too. Client diversity is important
You can't change how they operate. But you can change how you operate.
