Elon Musk’s X blocks links to Signal, the encrypted messaging service
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They also block any content, even private messages that contain Bluesky for example.
I think we need laws against platforms censoring discussion of their rivals, particularly with shadow bans and shadow delistings.
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You know, for a free speech supporter, he sure seems to hate it when people speak freely.
"Free speech absolutist"*
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Didn't Signal get big after Musk endorsed it? What gives?
Not really. It's still not big. It definitely got bigger after he supported it though.
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Here are some workarounds:
- Don't use Xitter
- Use your phone number
- Use a URL shortener
He's not doing anything except getting more bad press for himself.
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He wants to speak freely, but he doesn't want to afford anyone else the same right.
It's not an uncommon stance, but it's a hypocritical one.
Not really true. His supporters are allowed to speak freely as well.
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You know, for a free speech supporter, he sure seems to hate it when people speak freely.
He absolutely wants to support the speech he agrees with. The rest can get fucked.
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Yes, but then last year he started saying it had known vulnerabilities that weren’t being fixed, around the same time Telegram was attacking Signal’s credibility. I seem to remember him outright endorsing Telegram but have only done a quick search and that hasn’t popped up.
saying there are unspecified "known vulnerabilities" within Signal
His source: Trust me bro
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So what’s the opinion here between Signal and SimpleX?
Signal gets all the attention, and seems more approachable but ties to a phone number which can be a big deal.
SimpleX ties to nothing but I could absolutely see people I know fucking it up and wondering where their “account” went.
So, Signal as an common man’s adoptable compromise and SimpleX to nerd out with full “opsec” and disposability? That about right?
I'm trying to use simplex, mainly for the instance's chat. 2 things to say:
- notifications work perfectly even without play store
- every device has a separate account - I can't reuse the same one. Not the end of the world, but it's really annoying
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@cyrano The "problem" (actually, the feature) with those censorship algorithms is that they rely a lot on the "exact contents" of the message ("Scunthorpe Problem"), so X is probably programmed to detect the Signal's domain and block due to the presence of such link (similar to how Facebook was/is blocking links to the largest PixelFed instances, and then they also decided to block links to DistroWatch and official websites from various Linux distros), so it's not programmed (yet) to censor just the "hexadecimal/base64/whatever" portion of the link alone. And there's where Tox could shine: a handle is literally a hexadecimal sequence, without Tox's domains, without URI Schemas, just a bunch of digits and letters from A to F.
I don't know why Tox isn't mentioned as a "instant messaging platform for whistleblowers": it got Onion (Tor) tunneling possibility (as well as tunneling it through I2P outproxies because it actually accepts any kind of SOCKS5 proxy), it's registration-less (even Matrix needs registration) so it's effectively anonymous IMO.
SimpleX seems to be that, too, although I didn't have the opportunity to use it more than I used Tox. But from the little I've used it, it's similar to Signal in the sense that it's a link (and a large link) and not simply a hash/hex sequence.
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@cyrano The "problem" (actually, the feature) with those censorship algorithms is that they rely a lot on the "exact contents" of the message ("Scunthorpe Problem"), so X is probably programmed to detect the Signal's domain and block due to the presence of such link (similar to how Facebook was/is blocking links to the largest PixelFed instances, and then they also decided to block links to DistroWatch and official websites from various Linux distros), so it's not programmed (yet) to censor just the "hexadecimal/base64/whatever" portion of the link alone. And there's where Tox could shine: a handle is literally a hexadecimal sequence, without Tox's domains, without URI Schemas, just a bunch of digits and letters from A to F.
I don't know why Tox isn't mentioned as a "instant messaging platform for whistleblowers": it got Onion (Tor) tunneling possibility (as well as tunneling it through I2P outproxies because it actually accepts any kind of SOCKS5 proxy), it's registration-less (even Matrix needs registration) so it's effectively anonymous IMO.
SimpleX seems to be that, too, although I didn't have the opportunity to use it more than I used Tox. But from the little I've used it, it's similar to Signal in the sense that it's a link (and a large link) and not simply a hash/hex sequence.
Interesting, I did not know about that app https://tox.chat/index.html
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So what’s the opinion here between Signal and SimpleX?
Signal gets all the attention, and seems more approachable but ties to a phone number which can be a big deal.
SimpleX ties to nothing but I could absolutely see people I know fucking it up and wondering where their “account” went.
So, Signal as an common man’s adoptable compromise and SimpleX to nerd out with full “opsec” and disposability? That about right?
SimpleX sounds like herpes.
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I think we need laws against platforms censoring discussion of their rivals, particularly with shadow bans and shadow delistings.
like anti-competitive laws? We have those. They tend to rely on certain people enforcing them though
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I think we need laws against platforms censoring discussion of their rivals, particularly with shadow bans and shadow delistings.
You wish. It's not gonna happen with these douchebags in power.
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You wish. It's not gonna happen with these douchebags in power.
That's the sad truth.
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Only the cool kids know where to get FOSS.
Is signal foss?
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Is signal foss?
Yeah look: https://github.com/signalapp
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SimpleX sounds like herpes.
So now we know what he kid's nickname will be when he gets herpes in high school
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Yeah look: https://github.com/signalapp
Their backend is closed source.
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I'm trying to use simplex, mainly for the instance's chat. 2 things to say:
- notifications work perfectly even without play store
- every device has a separate account - I can't reuse the same one. Not the end of the world, but it's really annoying
From the looks of it, the variety of ways you can purposefully or accidentally destroy your local database, and the several options to automatically delete messages, really gives me the feeling SimpleX is intended to be extremely disposable and deniable.
After playing with it I just don’t see it being used for anything expected to be convenient or ongoing. Regarding the one device per account thing, I think the whole point is you just protect your one app, nobody is sneaking in your laptop or tablet, no remote leaks possible from a sync engine. On iOS you can link to a desktop app, but your phone must remain not just on, but in the app and on the pair screen. One twitch out, PC disconnects.
Feels like something for journalists, whistleblowers, protesters, and all the bad ones. It’s a burner app for your burner phone.
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Their backend is closed source.
https://github.com/signalapp/Signal-Server
On Wikipedia it says the servers are open source but spam prevention is proprietary.
