PS. With all the Discord stuff, in case you wonder why you never see me promoting Matrix, it’s not because it’s a usability nightmare (which it is) but because it’s made by the kind of people who’d be happy to call ICE a customer.

@zzt @aral @element
what's the crux? we see all kinds of genius open source solutions cropping up, what's the thing about messenger?

@aral Note how @element is not saying what ”is not the case”, while linking to a page clearly and explicitly stating that they’re selling to ”police”.

@zzt @aral @element "No backdoors are included, because none are needed."

@element Bro, this you? Don’t piss in my face and tell me it’s raining.

@ahltorp @element Oh it’s ok, they only sell to white fascists apparently.

@aral@mastodon.ar.al What is exactly your problem here? Matrix is an encrypted messaging standard - as a maintainer of an Internet standard quite natural to sell consulting services to commercial clients, including your government. This is exactly the same case with HTTP or SMTP, which are widely used by governments and law enforcement, so why single out IM?

@element@mastodon.matrix.org

@kravietz @element Yeah, the path to fascism is paved with one “quite natural” after another.

@aral@mastodon.ar.al

Don't you think you've gone a bit too far with your chain of extrapolated fallacies? You've build a whole chain of hype that goes from "we offer paid consulting to corporate clients including governments" through "we sell to ICE" up to "we only sell to white fascists". Since Matrix is mostly used by edu in Germany and gov in France, how did you make this "white fascist" extrapolation, granted that plenty of government officials in Europe are black or of other non-white origin, e.g. minister Sarah El Haïry, Rima Abdul Malak or Fadila Khattabi in France?

@ahltorp@mastodon.nu @element@mastodon.matrix.org

@aral@mastodon.ar.al

For reference, here's a sample of your typical "white fascists" from the French government. So I think you've gone a bit too far with equating any government in the world with US ICE, and then with "white fascists".

@element@mastodon.matrix.org

@aral @element @LukefromDC there is also @delta which seems pretty cool.

@aral@mastodon.ar.al @element@mastodon.matrix.org You can also read about the "white fascist" legislators of Germany here https://ukandeu.ac.uk/diversity-bundestag/

@aral this looks like a promising solution that might work for some people https://peergos.org/
I haven't fully research it but might test it soon.

@zzt @aral @element This was posted out of spite in case it wasn't obvious, I really wish something better than irc (maybe matrix, maybe something else) is the future.

There clearly are usecases that Signal doesn't fulfill.

@aral @fuckfetish @element Zulip is a better alternative.

@ahltorp @aral @element Personally I think it's a big difference between selling to police, so they can be independent from US oligarchical tech companies, which will give all their data to the fascist US government if asked, and to sell to the Gestapo.

You don't have to agree with me, of course, but I don't see for example my own country disbandoning its police force any time soon, and I'd rather not have them reliant on MS Teams or the like. So imo Element having this distinction is good

@kravietz
I'm french, and I wouldn't dare say that our past governments don't love authoritarianism at the very least (the people you mention are tokens, they do not care about their skin color, they help white supremacy anyway because they belong to the same class, and they've had terrible policies), and they drive us right into the hands of fascists...
sorry for this example you picked, it doesn't fit I think
@aral @element @ahltorp

@couscous@mamot.fr

Okay but would you say that deploying Matrix to French government is actually "white fascism"? You live under that government, so what would you like to use on daily basis so that it's not "fascist" - WhatsApp? Telegram? Paper letters?

@aral@mastodon.ar.al @element@mastodon.matrix.org @ahltorp@mastodon.nu

@forteller I don’t necessarily agree completely with @aral, but I think Element should be really clear here. They posted a non-denial denial while referring to a policy that suggests ICE would be a welcome customer. I don’t have any other information on who they’re actually selling to, I’m only judging their behaviour.

@aral Your position implies that the police is an enemy and that states shouldn't have any kind of law enforcement called "police". But can you pledge that you will never, ever call the police, nor expect any police intervention or involvement, no matter what?

States are human super-organisms and their existence is both necessary and unavoidable in our world. And states need a police force to be effective. @element

@element

• Is there a public list of the governmental & police entities that are your customers?

• Also, some clarification is needed what you mean by »We don’t sell to governments who are under investigation by the #UN for international atrocities«. Which organs or specialized agencies of the UN do you mean? You seem to be referring to the Special Adviser on the Prevention of Genocide, who doesn't investigate, but merely creates reports, within an early warning system.

• Also, you're saying »We don’t sell to organisations who are committing human rights abuses (i.e. abusive organisations within a government, even if the wider government itself isn’t in scope).« Who is performing that assessment, and according to which criteria? Which potential customers have been rejected so far, after this assessment?

• You're also saying »We don’t sell to governments with poor human rights, to avoid risk of harm to their population. This is currently defined as countries scoring 20 or less« in the Freedom House ranking. Among others, this allows e.g. #Qatar, #Algeria, #Turkey, #HongKong, #Serbia or #Israel to become your customers. Are they?

Without specifics, especially evidence, verifying that you abide by your policy becomes impossible, and it stays yet another text.

@aral

#atrocities #genocide #police #HumanRights