Ah, yeah. This is more of that western freedom I’ve been hearing aboot.
this post was submitted on 29 Jul 2025
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One of the greatest lies of the last few decades is the idea neoliberalism would improve our lives, while providing a direct line straight to fascism.
They are never going to give up. Ever. Not until the techbros who bribe them to sell more surveillance tech die out, but it's going to be too late then. Nothing makes these assholes more excited than creating a techno-feudal dystopia.
They're not going to die out. They're going to establish hereditary empires.
Surprise?
Maybe more people will start realize that, even more so in our so perfectly democratic societies, digital/online privacy and intimacy have very little future (and that's the very optimistic version).
even more so in our so perfectly democratic societies
This in particular makes little sense, and IMO the whole comment is nihilistic and defeatist and generally not very helpful. Just my opinion.
This in particular makes little sense, and IMO the whole comment is nihilistic and defeatist and generally not very helpful. Just my opinion.
Most modern democratic societies have matured/thrived on a few key notions, including the idea that we, their citizens, had some fundamental rights among which were a few freedoms and at the very least some notion of privacy/intimacy. Those same fundamentals rights and values our actual leaders, so vocal about their unadulterated respect for democracy ad its values, happily are sitting on, when not pooping on.
Hope this makes a little more sense. If not, well, ok next time I will try in French.
As a side note, since you seem to consider comments should serve a purpose (if only, would you imagine what a nice place the Internet could be if it was only populated by useful participation and people willing to contribute to building a better place?), do not hesitate to tell me why this comment of mine made little sense to you (you know, it may help me understand your own comment) instead of just telling me it's useless and nihilistic which, I don't think I'm taking a huge risk here, you did not intend to use as a compliment. But, like you said, that's just my opinion.
It should go without saying that I agree with your description of things. Likely everybody else here does too, it's why we're all subscribed to a "privacy" community. I just don't see the point of telling people what they already know, that's it's all terrible, that they're right to think it's terrible, etc etc. I'd prefer to hear ideas for solutions, personally.
But others will surely vote you up and vote me down, so I guess I'm in the minority.
I just don't see the point of telling people what they already know,
Like I said previously, if the web was only populated by non-redundant content (and books written alike) it would not be the Web we know and our bookshelves would be empty too. Also, the thing is that I'm probably too old to understand the 'needs' of younger generations but I consider repetitions, alongside with failing (aka trying and not doing great, aka spending time trying) as keys to any true learning. So, saying what you seem to consider obvious is not something I'm anywhere ready to stop doing, sorry but feel free to block me if it's too much of a nuisance ;)
But others will surely vote you up and vote me down, so I guess I'm in the minority.
Does it matter? We share our opinions, which could be the start of something interesting, why should we care what bystanders can think about that? Even less so, I already explained that in a couple other discussions (repetitions, always repetitions) that I consider people silently downvoting without making the minimal effort of explaining their motivation/reasoning not worth of my attention. Alas, not only am I stating the obvious, and I'm a useless commenter but it looks like I'm also very mean. Looks like there is not much to like in me.
We agree on more than you think.
trust me bro it's for your safety💀
Damn it
Carrier pigeons didn't have government backdoors. Maybe we ought to go back to them
Would Signal be affected by this?
If yes, what’s the move: Matrix or self host my own chat for my family?
next move? next thing you know, vpn and secure encryption will be banned per se for ordinary citizens.
its all for the kids while UK+EU trade with the pedo king.... biggest bullshit ever
Idk how they could scan e2e encrypted messages
But yeah, if they got their wish it would. More likely, signal would withdraw from Europe.
«As per its first version, all messaging software providers would be required to perform indiscriminate scanning of private messages to look for CSAM – so-called 'client-side scanning'. The proposal was met with a strong backlash, and the European Court of Human Rights ended up banning all legal efforts to weaken encryption of secure communications in Europe.«
Idk how they could scan e2e encrypted messages
This is about introducing legislation to force messengers to scan / give them access to your chats on your device before encryption / after decryption. Afaik, Signal have already announced they would "pull out of Europe" in this case, however that would look.
European Court of Human Rights ended up banning all legal efforts to weaken encryption of secure communications in Europe
This being the case, how can they try to reintroduce the legislation?
It says in the article
These goddamned fucks
Time to use matrix, I guess
Decentralize baby!
I’ve been using Matrix with muh fam for a few years, and it’s been great.
My significant other puts up with my shenanigans and tests out different apps with me, and SimpleX has been pretty decent for a server-less option. I believe you can host your own node if you feel inclined to.
XMPP would be fantastic if the clients were a little better. They’re by no means bad, just not as polished as Element.
Why matrix and not Signal? Genuine question.
Because matrix is decentralised, like lemmy, and is therefore really hard to get compromised.
That's nice.
Technology cannot solve purely political problems.
But, it can prevent political problems hurting my privacy..
And there is nothing they can do against it.
If they force matrix to insert a backdoor, I just use a fork without it.
If they force my Linux distributor to add a backdoor, I just use a fork without it.
If they force a backdoor in iOS and Android, I use a fork of open source android or mainline linux for phones, without it.
If they want to hang me because I do such things, I riot.
These technical workarounds may work for a little while, and are useful to some extent.
But they're not long term solutions for a government that regularly increase its surveillance powers at the expanse of privacy.
China and Russia reached a level of surveillance and repression where people may get arrested for merely using Matrix/VPN/Tor, regarless of what it's used for.
Political action is a better way to address bad politics before it reaches this point. This could include voting, activism, supporting privacy-friendly NGOs...
Waiting until the last moment and then rioting isn't the best option.
Fair argument, which I agree on 😇
I've been hearing a lot of complaints about matrix recently
It is just people who are inpatient and think that a company offering FOSS software has as much resources as a company offering proprietary data collection services which they can sell
It does what I need it to do and even more. All I need is a tool to communicate with my friends in secure way
People who want to use it as replacement for discord are those who complain most, but I use it as replacement of WhatsApp etc.
The guy who wrote that article has been pushing matrix for 5 years or so, and his complaints sound pretty legitimate. Not exactly clueless user bullshit. Did you read the article?
I did not say that the author is clueless, I just don’t see how you can expect fast development in a capitalist world when they don’t really sell anything
Don’t get me wrong, I am frustrated about slow progress as well, but I have the opinion, that only whining about it does not make it better
If you are not happy with the speed of progress, “just” get a team, fork it, and do it yourself
Article was way to long, so I only skimmed it
If you are not happy with the speed of progress, “just” get a team, fork it, and do it yourself
Never understood this argument. Not everybody can be working on everything, and while Matrix is open source it's also got an official company maintaining it, so you'd have an uphill fight from the start. The obvious other choice is to use an alternative, which is what the author did by moving back to xmpp.
This exchange shows a clash of philosophies. While you are not wrong exactly, neither is your interlocutor. The "capitalist" mindset (as illustrated by your good-faith comment) is to treat this like shopping - "we'll just go elsewhere". But the whole point of FOSS is that we do the work, not "them". So while it's true that "not everyone can be working on everything", ultimately that's very much our problem and one that only we can solve.
But in this case, we have a choice between two FOSS solutions, so whichever choice we make, we're still going to be promoting FOSS. It's not like we're discussing leaving matrix for discord or WhatsApp.
OK. So this is just another XMPP-vs-Matrix debate. Assuming that the holy grail is a distributed, federated drop-in replacement for Whatsapp, then, as I understand it, Matrix is a far more advanced on that path. In any case, just as there are not competing protocols for email, the ultimate solution is clearly one protocol. Everyone jumping ship every 3 months will not get us there.
But as long as things remain as they are, I don’t see the general public warming to Matrix.org/Element. The platform is cumbersome for newcomers and lacks user-facing features that people actually want, while simultaneously overexposing complex settings like roles, permissions, and addresses. It’s the ideal enterprise software – and I don’t mean that as a compliment. Even overloaded platforms like Discord ultimately focus on what users want: Dumb emojis and stickers, silly color themes, and intuitive server and friend management. Matrix, by contrast, feels like it was built for compliance departments and bureaucrats, not communities.
Fair. Element X not supporting threads isn't really giving a good perspective on the platform.
Things don’t remain as they are if other services are not encrypted anymore (or have backdoors)