Meows and replies

Element really just told us if we don't like their direction of selling services to cops we should use another app. This is seriously the direction they settled on.

@liaizon "It's open source, so anyone can use it", is different from, "We support local governments who use it", which is again different from, "We went to a police conference to advertise our services".

@foolishowl @liaizon

OK, so let's have 'em all give our tax money to Microsoft.

It's that, or they give their money to freeloaders building stuff on top of FOSS tools but not contributing back.

These are the only 3 choices available.

@downey @liaizon A major reason for encrypted communications is to keep out police and state security, who have a strong interest in subverting the integrity of encryption. Anyone developing a secure communication tool would be conscious of this. To actively seek to market to police is an implicit betrayal of everyone who supported and relied on the project.

And just in general, you don't collaborate with police.

@foolishowl @downey @liaizon If you're gonna discriminate encrypted free/open messaging tools by "has been used by state" or "its developers have helped the state use it", your list of "good" IMs is going to be a lot shorter than you want to imagine.

@ar @downey @liaizon Basically Signal. Probably.

Another issue with Matrix is how it's de facto centralized under the control of Element, the company.

@ar @downey @liaizon I didn't say it was flawless. Just that it doesn't work with states.

Probably.