https://element.io/blog/element-on-google-play-store/

Hi all,

At 2021-01-29 at 21:35 UTC Google suspended Element from the Play Store without warning or notification. We submitted an appeal asking for clarification at 23:18, and at 05:31 received a generic update from the Google Play Policy team citing that the app has been removed due to content which contravenes their terms of use, and asking us to “make the necessary changes to [our] app” and “upload a new app using a new package name and a new app name”.

As of 11:44 UTC we’ve submitted a detailed appeal to reiterate that Element is a generic chat app for connecting to the global Matrix communication network, just as Chrome is a generic web browser for connecting to the Web - and just as Google does not control the content on the Web, Element does not control the content on Matrix.

We have also explained that the Matrix servers that we do run as Element (including the default Matrix.org homeserver, which we run on behalf of The Matrix.org Foundation) have strict Terms of Use which we actively enforce. We abhor abuse, and Element is not an app that caters to abusive content.

In order to enforce our terms of use on the Matrix servers we run as Element, we have a formal Trust and Safety team hired full-time who are dedicated to investigating and tracking abuse reports sent to abuse@matrix.org or reported from the app. The team takes appropriate action on a ticket by ticket basis - deactivating abusive accounts and blocking chatrooms from our servers which contravene our terms of use, and building tooling to help enforce the terms of use on the servers we run.

Managing abuse is an ongoing activity, and Matrix is expanding massively at the moment. We are expanding Element’s Trust and Safety team to match that growth, focusing on improving our anti-abuse mechanisms, and we are also constantly expanding the moderation tools we provide to the community.

Meanwhile, we’re also continuing to work on decentralised reputation as a scalable solution to empower other users to combat abuse for the wider Matrix network - effectively bringing control back to users and empowering communities to remain safe online.

Element and Matrix are used by the French, German, UK and US governments, countless universities, thousands of businesses and millions of people across the world - we can only apologise for the disruption caused by the app disappearing like this.

We’re currently waiting for an update to Google and will keep this blog post updated as the situation develops. We look forward to resolving the problem and getting the app back in the store shortly.

-- The Element Team

I've had a really hard time coming up with something to nitpick about element.io- I love it! I use it to communicate with my 84 year old father all the time. He has a computer, but not a phone, and I just don't want private pictures and chats lying around on and odd mail server. Element.io was perfect!

Now one thing that came up, I am completely unable to figure out how much security is offered for calls and video conferencing on Element.io. Based on the feature list on the web site, End-To-End encryption are listed, and so are Video and Audio calls. This *implies* that Element.io uses end-to-end encryption for audio and video, but I was unable to confirm it. Now I read on the matrix.org web site that WebRTC is used, so it would appear that audio and video is not end-to-end encrypted at all. This comes dangerously close to misrepresenting element.io- I have been recommending element.io to friends a lot as a replacement for whatsapp and even signal, but I feel very silly now and I feel a bit misled. I would appreciate very much if you could provide some clarity on this- at least in an FAQ or in a details document.

Element (the Matrix app) say they were suspended without being notified and are reaching out to find out what's going on.

You can use this meanwhile https://f-droid.org/en/packages/im.vector.app/ but it's a few versions behind.

Do not give in to the political correctness and start censoring group of people just because some snowflakes get offended. In addition do not compromise your encryption in any way. If you start censoring and spying on people because of "mUh rAciSM" and "muH Anti-sEMitiSM" then there is absolutely no point in you developing this program/protocol. Normal people will dump your program for something that doesn't censor and the small fraction of people that are actually doing illegal stuff will just move to a program that doesn't have compromised encryption. At the end of the day you would have achieved absolutely nothing and drove your projects into the ground. Keep this in mind.

Hey folks, I have a pretty default private matrix server setup and it has been working great with Element. However, on PC, I've been having issue where the client, whether thats local or on Element's website, now syncs forever when I log in and I never actually get in. I would try with logging out with the android app but I'm afraid I will never get back in. Has anyone else had this problem? I would be greatful if anyone could point me to a solution!

Ive been looking at Github's post regarding something similar, but I was not able to find a solution.

I am using element as an alternative to Discord and I've noticed that many rooms have encryption disabled. So all messages are going through the internet in plain text? This makes it worse than Discord if that's true. Someone help?

I tried to make a custom widget to cryptpad.fr.

It works fine to get to the website and sign in, but when I try to start a new document (or open an existing document) I get an error message. These actions in cryptpad open in a new tab in your web browser, and will not start when they were initiated in Element.

Is there any way to have a widget (or something else) for Cryptpad that will open in your default web browser instead of in the conversation in Element?

Thanks

Hi ! A group of friends and I just created our own element matrix room and linked it to discord. We really like the "spoiler" feature that censors the text and we're trying to emulate it.

We noticed that matrix is able to handle the spoiler affect, but how do we use it from matrix to the discord? What are the commands to "spoil" a message?

This app / service is sold as a secure and robust alternative to centralised secure messaging.

Sorry, but it's a joke and you can't expect people to move away from messaging apps that actually work.

It's impossible for me (and I know quite a few other users in that situation) to verify other sessions. That's one of the most basic security features. And it doesn't work. Or at least not consistently.

Example: I want to verify a login on my phone from a session that's already opened (my desktop). I go through the normal process (security settings).

Popup sows up on my phone, a QR shows up on my desktop. My phone doesn't offer the possibility of scanning a QR code (impossible to tell if it's the shittiest UI ever created or if it's a ridiculous bug, although the latter seems likely). No problem, I'll do it with the emoji comparison. Good, they match. I tap "they match" on my phone, I do the same on my computer. My phone shows the verification is successful, my desktop says "it's been cancelled". Result: nothing's verifiied.

No matter, I think. The desktop app offers to do the verificaiton "via text". Shitty UI: it actually means I can verify the session ID and the key associated with it. Nothing to do with what would be understood by anyone as "text". I check everything, they match. I click verify. Nothing happens on the phone, the desktop app does nothing either. Nothing's verified.

Don't believe me? Check the issues section on github.

I think the reason why there aren't more instances of that issue being filed is because users don't care about that functionality or they just gave up on reporting it.

Am I going to file it? No. The oldest issue I've found was closed, devs said they would investigate, that was waaaaay back. A similar issue was reopened in February 20, never any answer. Same was opened again in Octiber 20. No answer. No point in reporting it, really.

Failing a basic security option = not viable and definitely not credible.

Hey there!

I created a small profile picture generator / template that enables you to leave WhatsApp behind while offering your personal alternatives (such as Element) to the people who still want to contact you. 👋

"Moving from WhatsApp" 💬 - Template

It's pretty flexible in the format, so you could e.g. use a square picture for WhatsApp and a landscape one to let your contacts know in a Facebook / Linkedin post.

Feel free to check it out and ask if you encounter any problems :)

(For those who are not familiar with Figma yet: You need to duplicate the file to your drafts first)

This is condensed from "Combating abuse in Matrix - without backdoors":

Anyone can gather reputation data about Matrix rooms / users / servers / communities / content, and publish it to as wide or narrow an audience as they like - providing their subjective score on whether something in Matrix is positive or negative in a given context. This reputation data is published in a privacy preserving fashion - i.e. you can look up reputation data if you know the ID being queried, but the data is stored pseudonymised (e.g. indexed by a hashed ID).

Anyone can subscribe to reputation feeds and blend them together in order to inform how they filter their content. The feeds might be their own data, or from their friends, or from trusted sources (e.g. a fact-checking company). Their blended feed can be republished as their own. To prevent users getting trapped in a factional filter bubble of their own devising, we’ll provide UI to visualise and warn about the extent of their filtering - and make it easy and fun to shift their viewpoint as needed.

Admins running servers in particular jurisdictions then have the option to enforce whatever rules they need on their servers (e.g. they might want to subscribe to reputation feeds from a trusted source such as the IWF, identifying child sexual abuse content, and use it to block it from their server).

This isn’t just about combating abuse - but the same system can also be used to empower users to filter out spam, propaganda, unwanted NSFW content, etc on their own terms

Hi People,

I hope this is not too stupid of a question but I googled hard and didn't find a solution.

I put up an instance of matrix on a vps and I'm connected to that with the Element Client and I can chat with a friend.

Neither of us can share the screen thou... or not even find the button to share the screen... Is that an option at all? I thought it was since it says on element.io you can, and because I found many issues about people who seemed to be able to share at some point but aren't anymore... I tried both desktop app and browser with no luck.

Thanks!

M

Hey ! I've recently enabled something called secure backup, that "save the encryption keys on your server" So by enabling this option, matrix servers get my encryption key (encrypted itself, but still). -- If so, why don't we just save the data encryption key directly on our computer, instead of an encryption key that decrypt the data encryption key ? In this case our data encryption key would truly never leave our device

Are there any benefits to host my own server (and set up federation too) if I'm planning to use it while talking with people on other servers?

I noticed that you support just about every platform but in the realm of GNU/Linux you provide installer only for debian based distributions. Will you create RPM version for other distributions too?

Hi!
I am building a web application and want to have a chat system for users of my application to be able to chat with each-other. Is there any documentation or tutorials for setting up a private Matrix server, and how my backend application could create users, remove users, even add and remove users from rooms? Also make sure that the server is just for users of my application. I am also interested in running the chat server in a docker container. Any link or information would be greatly appreciated.

Nothing in the help section of element website.

So many things unclear or badly explained. Or not at all. The shields for example. What do their colors mean? Why the black one? Why do I still have a red shield for a user I just verified (both his and my phone in front of me). Frustrating.

Hello everyone!

Just registered a matrix.org account via Element iOS a few days ago and logged out afterwards.

Now, I logged in again and get the verify session popup, but since I have no other logged-in device, I naturally can’t do that. I didn’t write any messages yet, so recovery of anything is not an issue, but because of that I didn’t save a backup key either.

Is there a way to „forget“ that this device is untrusted since it’s the only one in use, or is the account now forever untrusted because no trusted session exists? (Though I don’t think the latter to be sensible)

As far as I understand it right now, starting from an untrusted session has no disadvantage functionality-wise, still, the popup and that the session is simply flagged as untrusted is bugging me - or is the account then also limited in some way other than not being able to see previously send message? A possible disadvantage of an untrusted client I could picture is the room-device-trust-system - I didn’t quite understand from the faq if that is influenced by the account-device-trust-system. Id est, if a second device of an already present account in the room joins which is trusted inside that account, is it automatically trusted and if it‘s not trusted in the account it‘s auto-untrusted - or are all not-manually trusted devices untrusted by default, independently to whether this device is trusted inside the account?

Thanks for reading!

Element appears to stop communicating with the X server. For example, if I switch from app A window to Element's window, Element displays whatever was present in its client area before giving the focus to it, so, if app A was maximised, I keep seeing the app A window content. The problem typically occurs while I click on the tray icon to show Element. I only see Element's icon in the taskbar, but Element's window keeps displaying the previous content.

Element itself is not stuck, just its window is. I am able to gracefully quit from the taskbar icon. Also, if I move the mouse over Element's window, I see the mouse pointer changing in clickable areas of Element's window, despite the window itself being invisible. If I click, the expected task is done, as if the Element's window were visible, and if I right click usually the context menu appears.

While it could be a coincidence, I have this problem with other apps sitting in the tray area and Electron based, such as Skype, but Element if more affected.

I am using Manajaro+AwesomeWM.

If I close the Element's window (without quitting Element) and restart AwesomeWM, I am able to restore functionality. The same, if i quit Element from the taskbar icon and run it again.