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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 a

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-clauses 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 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-without-backdoors 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.

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uncoder0 6y 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 6y 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.
  - manquer 6y ago
    Op said they there is nothing else in common. They are in the same boat as parler in the sense that another communication platform not owned by a big corp is being targeted and removed. Matrix likely will come back for some of the reasons you mention . But fact is google and apple arbitrarily without warning or notice remove apps from their store. The stores should be considered utility like electricity google should not able to refuse service randomly.
    - flunhat 6y ago
      > parler in the sense that another communication platform not owned by a big corp Parler is owned by the Mercer family, of Renaissance Technologies fame, one of the most successful hedge funds in existence. They are personally worth tens of billions of dollars.
      - manquer 6y ago
        Still not even close to the trillon+ worth of google or apple. Also just cause they worth billions means they will back parler with billions. Parler itself is pretty small fish financially speaking
  - buzzerbetrayed 6y ago
    > If your going to argue with a straight face the this new situation is the same as Parler Just go reread what gp wrote. He basically said the exact opposite of this. You are putting words in his mouth and interpereting his comment in the least charitable way possible.
    - deleted 6y ago
      [deleted]
  - cheph 6y ago
    > Accounts on Parler called for and planned violence against elected officials for months. Executives at the company spoke often and publicly supporting that content. Did not know this, you have a source for this?
- walrus01 6y 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.
  - throwaway3699 6y ago
    lol, Parler was just right wing Twitter. There's extreme content on both those websites. Calls for violence and death threats galore. If Parler called for an insurrection then you must also hold Twitter accountable for the violence it propagated. Matrix is probably not coming back for exactly the reason Parler was nuked, because it provides a free speech platform to "undesirables". I hope they double down on PWAs after this incident. Edit: Please have a conversation instead of drive by downvoting.
    - patrickaljord 6y ago
      Don't count on PWAs. Once these free speech platforms start embracing PWAs and they become super popular, Chrome and Safari will simply censor them directly. When you will try to visit these PWAs, you will get a message that says "this website contains hate speech and has been blacklisted as it doesn't respect our terms of services for a safe and friendly browsing experience we thrive to offer our users". Any browser that allows accessing these PWAs will be banned from the app/play store. Let's not kid ourselves this isn't what's coming next.
      - dextralt 6y ago
        This is exactly what's going to happen, not just with PWAs but with all websites. The mechanism ("Google Safe Browsing") is in place, precedents are being set, the number of hysterical ideologues who will support that is growing. But on the bright side, I think if it was Mozilla with 90% of the browser market and not Google, this would've happened already.
- ttt0 6y 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.
  - laumars 6y ago
    > If this is actually what is happening, That’s a big “if” though. The “abusive content” angle is just a working theory. It could just as easily be Goodge taking a dislike to a website link offering donations outside of the Play store (or something equally mundane). The problem is, until Google respond, we have no idea why the takedown happened. And here lies the real problem: without Google being transparent about their takedowns it leaves app developers in a difficult position where they can’t really support their uses. The one slight good thing from all this is that at least with Android you can side load apps (which is more than can be said for iOS).
    - ttt0 6y ago
- tomstockmail 6y 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.
  - soupbowl 6y ago
    Can you give me an example of the things you have seen on matrix that should be moderated? Should matrix devs limit the amount of people that can use their open federated network so they can afford to moderate every e2ee group chat around the globe?
    - tomstockmail 6y ago
      So to clarify, these are rooms that are on matrix.org. I'm not following your statement on limiting opening federated network. I am suggesting that matrix.org stop users with the name "kikedestroyer" on their own instance from connecting to matrix.org rooms and talking about exterminating jews. What KD does on their own instance of matrix is not of my or matrix.org concern.
paulcarroty 6y 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.
- Shorel 6y ago
  Newsflash: there is a chat system so secure, Google doesn't want you to know it exists.
  - walrus01 6y ago
    I don't think that can be the full rationale behind whatever got it removed, if that were the case, they'd absolutely have removed Signal quite some time ago.
    - 0df8dkdf 6y ago
      the difference is Signal is NOT federated, and matrix is. Which make it more like email, harder to censor.
      - walrus01 6y ago
        Not necessarily, I run a non-federated synapse (matrix protocol) server for intranet type use. It's in an environment where it has no connection to the wider internet at all. The default matrix.org servers are federated. In terms of what the default Element install presents to the user upon launch in its GUI, I think it does offer the 'official' matrix.org servers as a place to create an account and sign in, start browsing 'rooms'.
        est31 6y ago
        Your users still benefit from less centralization. The main matrix.org instance might ban them for whatever reason, but their access to your internal server is not touched. It's different if all of you used Signal or Discord and their account got banned e.g. for using an alternative client.
vector_spaces 6y 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
avereveard 6y ago
should have built your own phone with your own store - hn hivemind
- m12k 6y ago
  Can we just please pass some legislation to break Google and Apple's app installation monopoly already? Sure, they built the phones, doesn't mean we can't demand more rights than they decide it's profitable to give us (or put another way, just because the king's ancestors founded the country doesn't mean we shouldn't demand freedom and democracy).
  - dexen 6y ago
    Can we just please pass some legislation to break Google and Apple's app installation monopoly already? No, we can't solve the problem that way: the very same problem wound remain: EU and 5/9 Eyes want e2ee backdoored or gone. If you start legislating which apps are allowed, you're putting yourself even more at mercy of gov regulation. And the regulation would be blanket, with little to no way of sorting things out through unofficial channels as it can be done with Google. It'd be "backdoor or jail", not even sideloading apps to help you.
    - xenophonB 6y ago
      They can't practically do that, you're just making up a course of events that can't happen (people can develop things anonymously and be paid anonymously, and it's absolute nonsense to say that governments are going to be arresting the general public for the "crime" of privacy. And in America at least it's almost certainly unconstitutional.
  - feanaro 6y ago
    And while we're at it, let's disallow Google from mandating the exclusive use of their own service for push notifications.
  - ChuckNorris89 6y ago
    >Can we just please pass some legislation to break Google and Apple's app installation monopoly already? Agreed, but then Apple/Google and the fans of their walled gardens will argue that without this heavy censorship, grandma will install some malware on her phone that will empty her bank account or that their kids will install some malware that will spy on them (other than the social media apps that already do that).
edrxty 6y 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 6y ago
  Afaik Pattle is discontinued
  - edrxty 6y ago
    Dunno, it's still listed as an official app and links to the play store.
    - feanaro 6y ago
      It's discontinued, the links are stale.
blondin 6y 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...
- ekianjo 6y ago
  So are you going to remove email clients from the play store if someone sends offensive emails?
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echelon 6y ago
Deplatforming is the story of the year. If we're not careful, they'll come for our individual rights next. Be it companies or the government. We need to remain vigilant and develop distributed platforms. We also need to demand that the government takes control away from corporate interests. This shouldn't happen.
- pmlnr 6y ago
  > We need to remain vigilant and develop distributed platforms They are there already. Matrix, XMPP, email, activitypub based systems, (secure) scuttlebutt, IPFS, and so on. This is more a people and their conformist attitude problem, like "eh, my friends use X, I'm too lazy to convince them otherwise", "but everyone is on Y, I'm not willing to be the odd one out on Z", and so on.
- eeZah7Ux 6y ago
  Do not paint deplatforming as unequivocally bad thing. Most decentralized platforms (mastodon, IPFS, XMPP, Matrix...) have mechanisms to block and defederate unwanted accounts/contents/servers: racism and hate speech, CP, spam, malware Many people don't want government-driven censorship but are very happy with community-driven policies and guidelines.
  - cbradford 6y ago
    Once you throw in "hate speech" you are just saying that censorship of things you don't like is ok.
    - ezrast 6y ago
      Censorship of things I don't like is okay when performed at the level of an actual community that nobody is forced to be a member of.
      - ezrast 6y ago
        I realized this comment carries more pith than meaning, as it were, and thought I'd expound. Communities censor in benign ways all the time. Most successful online forums regularly remove posts that are spam, self-promoting, or flamebait. They also remove contributions that are off-topic: completely harmless posts that just don't happen to be what the community wants to focus on. Celebrity gossip on a tech site, say. Some places are more wild-west than others and that's fine. The point is that while the word "censorship" has a negative ring to it, most censorship is mundane and unobjectionable. It's not okay (in USA culture) for the government to set community standards, not because standards are bad, but because the organization that controls guns and prisons is already terrifying enough without it being able to control speech too. Google and Apple (and Facebook and Twitter) are in an in-between space. Their platforms are much too large to be a "community" in the traditional sense, but as private organizations they're still obligated to moderate. And when they get it wrong, the results can be devastating to the individuals affected, both in false-positive cases like this one, and false-negative cases where their cold machinery fails to protect victims of real harassment. With more, smaller networks, there's no such tension. You can visit a network that lets you post all the hate speech you want. I can visit one that blacklists yours and every one like yours. And neither of us has to give two bits how odious we find each other's spaces.
brettwilcox 6y 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.
- yorwba 6y ago
  Reach out how? You have no public contact information in your HN profile.
  - brettwilcox 6y ago
    We've already had conversations and I reached out personally.
- markvdb 6y ago
  This comment alone should be reason enough for the company behind Element to sue Google.
- justaj 6y ago
  There are debug version apks available here: https://buildkite.com/matrix-dot-org/element-android/builds/latest?branch=develop&state=passed 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.
  - dewey 6y ago
    How is that a solution to the problem? Of course there's other ways to install software, just like you could build your own iOS app and sideload it with a certificate. If an app is gone from the store it's basically dead.
    - justaj 6y ago
      If I were to test the implementation of an app in my enterprise, then it would benefit me to cut down on the unnecessary dependencies. Being dependent on the Google Play Store has shown to be a liability in the past because there were moments where it became a single point of failure (as demonstrated in this thread)
enriquto 6y 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 6y ago
  The first sentence is about Element. The second sentence is about matrix.org
  - enriquto 6y ago
    It seems to me that it is the other way round, isn't it? Although having matrix.org be an Element client is extremely confusing. If "matrix.org" is moderated it would seem that the whole protocol is moderated (and thus, not a neutral carrier).
    - dkarp 6y ago
      Matrix.org is just one server deployment that implements the matrix protocol. You can deploy your own server or even your own implementation, and moderate it how you want. It has nothing to do with element. The apology is apt, as just like a browser speaks http, element speaks matrix.
    - feanaro 6y ago
      Element is just one of many Matrix user agents and matrix.org offers just one of many Matrix servers. Each server has the freedom to enforce its own policy. Given that the matrix.org server is a kind of a public face for the protocol, it makes sense that its policies are more mainstream. There is nothing in the protocol itself (nor in the official Element clients) enforcing any kind of content policy.
    - HereBeBeasties 6y ago
      In web terms: - Element is like a browser - matrix.org is like a bulletin board In e-mail terms: - Element is like a mail client - matrix.org is like a given community of mailing lists In IRC terms: - Element is like an IRC client - matrix.org is like an IRC server/network e.g. Freenode.
MaxBarraclough 6y 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 6y ago
  Maybe someone can let Google know that Element is not a publisher.
  - Spivak 6y ago
    No but Matrix.org will likely be considered one. I mean the Twitter app isn’t a publisher but Twitter sure it. If Matrix only facilitated private communications then they could probably tell Google to piss off but they became a social network when they included public chatrooms.
    - waheoo 6y ago
      So when's twitter getting its take down?
- Spivak 6y 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.
  - MaxBarraclough 6y ago
    > The only thing that matters to app reviewers is what the user sees when they use it. If that were true, web browsers would be in trouble.
    - 6y ago
Arathorn 6y 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/answer/9878810 https://support.google.com/googleplay/android-developer/answ... ); we're following up to explain how Matrix and Element works and get this resolved.
- pmlnr 6y ago
  This is insane. This jeopardizes every email, xmpp, matrix, etc; basically any 3rd party application.
  - ignoramous 6y ago
    History repeats over and over again: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3597025 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3597025 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.
    - api 6y ago
      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.
  - kreeben 6y ago
    All web browsers that are not Chrome, beware. You're next.
    - pmlnr 6y ago
      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.
tom_mellior 6y ago
Good luck! I hope you get this resolved soon. In the meantime, what is the explanation for the F-Droid version lagging behind?
- Arathorn 6y 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.
  - lukeramsden 6y ago
    Can they not automate that? That would probably put them _ahead_ of the Play Store
    - codethief 6y ago
      It's not their goal. They want to be able to check the source code and verify it does what the developers claim it does. The Matrix developers could, however, set up their own F-Droid repository and publish their own (automated) builds there.
  - tom_mellior 6y ago
    Got it, thanks for the info. I donated 100 dollars via https://f-droid.org/en/donate/ https://f-droid.org/en/donate/ in the hope it helps them. Thank you and everyone working on Element and Matrix as well!
- black_puppydog 6y 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.
tomp 6y ago
Parler was a warning shot. But you didn’t listen. In fact,you probably supported it.
sneak 6y 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?
patagonia 6y ago
How do we get Google Chrome pulled for abusive content?
khimaros 6y ago
please keep F-Droid repo up to date. please don't create your own repo.
tabbott 6y 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.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
- NoOneCaresAtAll 6y ago
  > the bad guys With a mindset like that, you should stop paying taxes since the bad guys benefit from federal government as well.
- jsnell 6y 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.
  - 6y ago
tomstockmail 6y 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.
- soupbowl 6y ago
  Yeah, we better make sure every corner of the internet is moderated. /s
  - tomstockmail 6y ago
    These are rooms that are on matrix.org directory list. So yes, they should be moderating this content. If you don't have anything to contribute other than a sarcastic comment that misses the point of my statement then consider not contributing at all.
shadowofneptune 6y 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.
Arathorn 6y 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 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).
- cbradford 6y 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.
  - alfiedotwtf 6y ago
    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
    - girvo 6y ago
      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!
      - alfiedotwtf 6y ago
        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)
varispeed 6y 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.

deleted 6y ago

[deleted]

uncoder0 6y 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 6y 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.
- manquer 6y ago
  Op said they there is nothing else in common. They are in the same boat as parler in the sense that another communication platform not owned by a big corp is being targeted and removed. Matrix likely will come back for some of the reasons you mention . But fact is google and apple arbitrarily without warning or notice remove apps from their store. The stores should be considered utility like electricity google should not able to refuse service randomly.
  - flunhat 6y ago
    > parler in the sense that another communication platform not owned by a big corp Parler is owned by the Mercer family, of Renaissance Technologies fame, one of the most successful hedge funds in existence. They are personally worth tens of billions of dollars.
    - manquer 6y ago
      Still not even close to the trillon+ worth of google or apple. Also just cause they worth billions means they will back parler with billions. Parler itself is pretty small fish financially speaking
- buzzerbetrayed 6y ago
  > If your going to argue with a straight face the this new situation is the same as Parler Just go reread what gp wrote. He basically said the exact opposite of this. You are putting words in his mouth and interpereting his comment in the least charitable way possible.
  - deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]
- cheph 6y ago
  > Accounts on Parler called for and planned violence against elected officials for months. Executives at the company spoke often and publicly supporting that content. Did not know this, you have a source for this?
walrus01 6y 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.
- throwaway3699 6y ago
  lol, Parler was just right wing Twitter. There's extreme content on both those websites. Calls for violence and death threats galore. If Parler called for an insurrection then you must also hold Twitter accountable for the violence it propagated. Matrix is probably not coming back for exactly the reason Parler was nuked, because it provides a free speech platform to "undesirables". I hope they double down on PWAs after this incident. Edit: Please have a conversation instead of drive by downvoting.
  - patrickaljord 6y ago
    Don't count on PWAs. Once these free speech platforms start embracing PWAs and they become super popular, Chrome and Safari will simply censor them directly. When you will try to visit these PWAs, you will get a message that says "this website contains hate speech and has been blacklisted as it doesn't respect our terms of services for a safe and friendly browsing experience we thrive to offer our users". Any browser that allows accessing these PWAs will be banned from the app/play store. Let's not kid ourselves this isn't what's coming next.
    - dextralt 6y ago
      This is exactly what's going to happen, not just with PWAs but with all websites. The mechanism ("Google Safe Browsing") is in place, precedents are being set, the number of hysterical ideologues who will support that is growing. But on the bright side, I think if it was Mozilla with 90% of the browser market and not Google, this would've happened already.
ttt0 6y 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.
- laumars 6y ago
  > If this is actually what is happening, That’s a big “if” though. The “abusive content” angle is just a working theory. It could just as easily be Goodge taking a dislike to a website link offering donations outside of the Play store (or something equally mundane). The problem is, until Google respond, we have no idea why the takedown happened. And here lies the real problem: without Google being transparent about their takedowns it leaves app developers in a difficult position where they can’t really support their uses. The one slight good thing from all this is that at least with Android you can side load apps (which is more than can be said for iOS).
  - ttt0 6y ago
tomstockmail 6y 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.
- soupbowl 6y ago
  Can you give me an example of the things you have seen on matrix that should be moderated? Should matrix devs limit the amount of people that can use their open federated network so they can afford to moderate every e2ee group chat around the globe?
  - tomstockmail 6y ago
    So to clarify, these are rooms that are on matrix.org. I'm not following your statement on limiting opening federated network. I am suggesting that matrix.org stop users with the name "kikedestroyer" on their own instance from connecting to matrix.org rooms and talking about exterminating jews. What KD does on their own instance of matrix is not of my or matrix.org concern.

paulcarroty 6y 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.

Shorel 6y ago
Newsflash: there is a chat system so secure, Google doesn't want you to know it exists.
- walrus01 6y ago
  I don't think that can be the full rationale behind whatever got it removed, if that were the case, they'd absolutely have removed Signal quite some time ago.
  - 0df8dkdf 6y ago
    the difference is Signal is NOT federated, and matrix is. Which make it more like email, harder to censor.
    - walrus01 6y ago
      Not necessarily, I run a non-federated synapse (matrix protocol) server for intranet type use. It's in an environment where it has no connection to the wider internet at all. The default matrix.org servers are federated. In terms of what the default Element install presents to the user upon launch in its GUI, I think it does offer the 'official' matrix.org servers as a place to create an account and sign in, start browsing 'rooms'.
      - est31 6y ago
        Your users still benefit from less centralization. The main matrix.org instance might ban them for whatever reason, but their access to your internal server is not touched. It's different if all of you used Signal or Discord and their account got banned e.g. for using an alternative client.

vector_spaces 6y 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

avereveard 6y ago

should have built your own phone with your own store - hn hivemind

m12k 6y ago
Can we just please pass some legislation to break Google and Apple's app installation monopoly already? Sure, they built the phones, doesn't mean we can't demand more rights than they decide it's profitable to give us (or put another way, just because the king's ancestors founded the country doesn't mean we shouldn't demand freedom and democracy).
- dexen 6y ago
  Can we just please pass some legislation to break Google and Apple's app installation monopoly already? No, we can't solve the problem that way: the very same problem wound remain: EU and 5/9 Eyes want e2ee backdoored or gone. If you start legislating which apps are allowed, you're putting yourself even more at mercy of gov regulation. And the regulation would be blanket, with little to no way of sorting things out through unofficial channels as it can be done with Google. It'd be "backdoor or jail", not even sideloading apps to help you.
  - xenophonB 6y ago
    They can't practically do that, you're just making up a course of events that can't happen (people can develop things anonymously and be paid anonymously, and it's absolute nonsense to say that governments are going to be arresting the general public for the "crime" of privacy. And in America at least it's almost certainly unconstitutional.
- feanaro 6y ago
  And while we're at it, let's disallow Google from mandating the exclusive use of their own service for push notifications.
- ChuckNorris89 6y ago
  >Can we just please pass some legislation to break Google and Apple's app installation monopoly already? Agreed, but then Apple/Google and the fans of their walled gardens will argue that without this heavy censorship, grandma will install some malware on her phone that will empty her bank account or that their kids will install some malware that will spy on them (other than the social media apps that already do that).

edrxty 6y 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 6y ago
Afaik Pattle is discontinued
- edrxty 6y ago
  Dunno, it's still listed as an official app and links to the play store.
  - feanaro 6y ago
    It's discontinued, the links are stale.

blondin 6y 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...

ekianjo 6y ago
So are you going to remove email clients from the play store if someone sends offensive emails?

deleted 6y ago

[deleted]

echelon 6y ago

Deplatforming is the story of the year. If we're not careful, they'll come for our individual rights next. Be it companies or the government. We need to remain vigilant and develop distributed platforms. We also need to demand that the government takes control away from corporate interests. This shouldn't happen.

pmlnr 6y ago
> We need to remain vigilant and develop distributed platforms They are there already. Matrix, XMPP, email, activitypub based systems, (secure) scuttlebutt, IPFS, and so on. This is more a people and their conformist attitude problem, like "eh, my friends use X, I'm too lazy to convince them otherwise", "but everyone is on Y, I'm not willing to be the odd one out on Z", and so on.
eeZah7Ux 6y ago
Do not paint deplatforming as unequivocally bad thing. Most decentralized platforms (mastodon, IPFS, XMPP, Matrix...) have mechanisms to block and defederate unwanted accounts/contents/servers: racism and hate speech, CP, spam, malware Many people don't want government-driven censorship but are very happy with community-driven policies and guidelines.
- cbradford 6y ago
  Once you throw in "hate speech" you are just saying that censorship of things you don't like is ok.
  - ezrast 6y ago
    Censorship of things I don't like is okay when performed at the level of an actual community that nobody is forced to be a member of.
    - ezrast 6y ago
      I realized this comment carries more pith than meaning, as it were, and thought I'd expound. Communities censor in benign ways all the time. Most successful online forums regularly remove posts that are spam, self-promoting, or flamebait. They also remove contributions that are off-topic: completely harmless posts that just don't happen to be what the community wants to focus on. Celebrity gossip on a tech site, say. Some places are more wild-west than others and that's fine. The point is that while the word "censorship" has a negative ring to it, most censorship is mundane and unobjectionable. It's not okay (in USA culture) for the government to set community standards, not because standards are bad, but because the organization that controls guns and prisons is already terrifying enough without it being able to control speech too. Google and Apple (and Facebook and Twitter) are in an in-between space. Their platforms are much too large to be a "community" in the traditional sense, but as private organizations they're still obligated to moderate. And when they get it wrong, the results can be devastating to the individuals affected, both in false-positive cases like this one, and false-negative cases where their cold machinery fails to protect victims of real harassment. With more, smaller networks, there's no such tension. You can visit a network that lets you post all the hate speech you want. I can visit one that blacklists yours and every one like yours. And neither of us has to give two bits how odious we find each other's spaces.

brettwilcox 6y 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.

yorwba 6y ago
Reach out how? You have no public contact information in your HN profile.
- brettwilcox 6y ago
  We've already had conversations and I reached out personally.
markvdb 6y ago
This comment alone should be reason enough for the company behind Element to sue Google.
justaj 6y ago
There are debug version apks available here: https://buildkite.com/matrix-dot-org/element-android/builds/latest?branch=develop&state=passed 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.
- dewey 6y ago
  How is that a solution to the problem? Of course there's other ways to install software, just like you could build your own iOS app and sideload it with a certificate. If an app is gone from the store it's basically dead.
  - justaj 6y ago
    If I were to test the implementation of an app in my enterprise, then it would benefit me to cut down on the unnecessary dependencies. Being dependent on the Google Play Store has shown to be a liability in the past because there were moments where it became a single point of failure (as demonstrated in this thread)

enriquto 6y 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 6y ago
The first sentence is about Element. The second sentence is about matrix.org
- enriquto 6y ago
  It seems to me that it is the other way round, isn't it? Although having matrix.org be an Element client is extremely confusing. If "matrix.org" is moderated it would seem that the whole protocol is moderated (and thus, not a neutral carrier).
  - dkarp 6y ago
    Matrix.org is just one server deployment that implements the matrix protocol. You can deploy your own server or even your own implementation, and moderate it how you want. It has nothing to do with element. The apology is apt, as just like a browser speaks http, element speaks matrix.
  - feanaro 6y ago
    Element is just one of many Matrix user agents and matrix.org offers just one of many Matrix servers. Each server has the freedom to enforce its own policy. Given that the matrix.org server is a kind of a public face for the protocol, it makes sense that its policies are more mainstream. There is nothing in the protocol itself (nor in the official Element clients) enforcing any kind of content policy.
  - HereBeBeasties 6y ago
    In web terms: - Element is like a browser - matrix.org is like a bulletin board In e-mail terms: - Element is like a mail client - matrix.org is like a given community of mailing lists In IRC terms: - Element is like an IRC client - matrix.org is like an IRC server/network e.g. Freenode.

MaxBarraclough 6y 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 6y ago
Maybe someone can let Google know that Element is not a publisher.
- Spivak 6y ago
  No but Matrix.org will likely be considered one. I mean the Twitter app isn’t a publisher but Twitter sure it. If Matrix only facilitated private communications then they could probably tell Google to piss off but they became a social network when they included public chatrooms.
  - waheoo 6y ago
    So when's twitter getting its take down?
Spivak 6y 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.
- MaxBarraclough 6y ago
  > The only thing that matters to app reviewers is what the user sees when they use it. If that were true, web browsers would be in trouble.
  - 6y ago

Arathorn 6y 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/answer/9878810 https://support.google.com/googleplay/android-developer/answ... ); we're following up to explain how Matrix and Element works and get this resolved.

pmlnr 6y ago
This is insane. This jeopardizes every email, xmpp, matrix, etc; basically any 3rd party application.
- ignoramous 6y ago
  History repeats over and over again: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3597025 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3597025 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.
  - api 6y ago
    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.
- kreeben 6y ago
  All web browsers that are not Chrome, beware. You're next.
  - pmlnr 6y ago
    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.

tom_mellior 6y ago

Good luck! I hope you get this resolved soon. In the meantime, what is the explanation for the F-Droid version lagging behind?

Arathorn 6y 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.
- lukeramsden 6y ago
  Can they not automate that? That would probably put them _ahead_ of the Play Store
  - codethief 6y ago
    It's not their goal. They want to be able to check the source code and verify it does what the developers claim it does. The Matrix developers could, however, set up their own F-Droid repository and publish their own (automated) builds there.
- tom_mellior 6y ago
  Got it, thanks for the info. I donated 100 dollars via https://f-droid.org/en/donate/ https://f-droid.org/en/donate/ in the hope it helps them. Thank you and everyone working on Element and Matrix as well!
black_puppydog 6y 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.

tomp 6y ago

Parler was a warning shot. But you didn’t listen. In fact,you probably supported it.

sneak 6y 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?

patagonia 6y ago

How do we get Google Chrome pulled for abusive content?

khimaros 6y ago

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

tabbott 6y 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.

deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
NoOneCaresAtAll 6y ago
> the bad guys With a mindset like that, you should stop paying taxes since the bad guys benefit from federal government as well.
jsnell 6y 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.
- 6y ago

tomstockmail 6y 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.

soupbowl 6y ago
Yeah, we better make sure every corner of the internet is moderated. /s
- tomstockmail 6y ago
  These are rooms that are on matrix.org directory list. So yes, they should be moderating this content. If you don't have anything to contribute other than a sarcastic comment that misses the point of my statement then consider not contributing at all.

shadowofneptune 6y 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.

Arathorn 6y 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 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).

cbradford 6y 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.
- alfiedotwtf 6y ago
  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
  - girvo 6y ago
    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!
    - alfiedotwtf 6y ago
      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)

varispeed 6y 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.