Google temporarily pulled Element’s Android chat app from the Play Store this week for allegedly hosting offensive content. The decision is especially baffling given that Element is only a customer of the federated chat protocol Matrix and not a service in and of itself. This means that Element can (and does) its own servers, but has no control over what happens on the network that users connect to.
“[J]Since Google has no control over the content on the web, Element has no control over the content on Matrix, ”wrote Matthew Hodgson, CEO of Element a blog post published on Saturday.
Google launched Element on Friday without warning or prior notice from its app store and restored the app late Saturday evening, Element said. On a Saturday morning tweet, the company said they contacted Google and confirmed the suspension “is due to offensive content somewhere on Matrix.” Element’s developers have filed a “detailed appeal” with Google to try to undo the suspension, and it appears to have made a difference.
In a blog update, Hodgson said a Google manager reached out and apologized for Google’s “poor communication.” The suspension apparently related to “very offensive content” on the default matrix.org home server, which is running Element on behalf of Matrix, which had already been identified and quickly dealt with by Element’s moderators.
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“We’ve explained how Element and Matrix work, set up a communication channel about any future moderation issues and expect the app to be fixed soon,” Hodgson wrote at the time.
Hours later, he updated the blog to announce that the app was back up and running and thanked users for their patience.
“Thanks also to Google for its transparent and apologetic attitude and the quick resolution once we made contact,” he said.
But while the app is now back on the Google Play Store, its abrupt disappearance has undoubtedly caused a headache for the dozens of businesses, universities and governments, including the UK, America, France and Germany, that use Element and the Matrix network. . Google previously suspended a third-party client for content over which Google has no control, such as Android police notes. In February 2020Google banned the popular open-source Reddit client Slide for nearly two weeks because a screenshot in the app’s store listing read “ISIS,” as shown in a news-related Reddit post.
Google did not immediately respond to Gizmodo’s request for comment. The incident with Element comes after Google and Apple both cracked down To speak‘s app in the wake of the January 6 attack on the Capitol for alleged hosting of violent content.
With this in mind, it makes sense that Google has shown its hackles about content moderation and is going a bit ban-happy these days. And while this approach may be justified in some cases, let’s not forget that not all apps are bad and some really do their best to fight hateful and violent content.