this post was submitted on 16 Jun 2025
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I did not know this. I've seen people recommend SimpleX on lemmy too, but probably they didn't know.
So happy the article linked to the Fediverse post, immediately liked and boosted it.
Never used SimpleX much really but will be immediately uninstalling it. Saw the guy's tweets, he's fucking insane, and retweets RFK Jr 🤢. Will do my best to inform others.
Me neither, this is actually disgusting, immediately uninstalled, a founder that has these views most likely shouldn’t be trusted with your data, anyway.
This should be an awareness post on some tech communities
Thank you so, so, so, so much for saying this!
Is that it? We stop using better programs because we disagree with the creator's views?
What a disgusting, childish world some of these people live in.
"I was going to buy that house, but the owner's views made me reconsider. I decided to go with something worse."
Yes, unfortunately that is the current reality. Note also the subtle hints this article points to: if you disagree with any of the tenents of our clique, you're evil. In this case, Matrix uses capitalistic toolsets, which implies it is evil, and you should rather use an unfinished alternative because it's made a by a trans person which is virtuous.
Although I don't totally oppose judging people because of their views (shaming has been and can be a very useful for improving societies), I wonder if software written by such people should be. Seems to me that we don't have the abundance of software yet that would allow doing that.
Especially I'm wary of judging people for being dumb in applications like Twitter that use dark patterns to entice them into being dumb. In some way it feels to me like punching down, like blaming the victim.
This attitude has worked so well for allowing the current crop of tech billionaires to grow and cement their influence over the entire world. If people would just stop using their platforms when they hear the CEO's batshit views then they would be nobodies.
The SimpleX Chat is AGPL. If the founder is problematic, one can fork it and avoid reinventing what has already been made.
go on then
Are you asking if I insist that the minds behind my secure private chat have some moral standing and common sense? One would hope so. I wouldn't trust encryption made by anti-vaxer more than I would trust a plane put tougher by flat-earther. I don't want to be the hero of the next leopard eat my face song.
My understanding of encryption is that the point is that you don't have to trust the people doing it. You just have to trust the security research community that proved that the algorithms/protocols work. Or if you're a hardcore security guy yourself, you can review it yourself.
Also, my understanding of people is that what they seem like is no evidence for what kind of people they really are.
It's a tricky line. On one hand, I agree that you don't need to trust the person—just the code and the cryptographic model. But at the same time, if the dev is actively pushing misinformation or has a history of hostility toward marginalized groups, it erodes my confidence in their ethical choices about security and privacy. Trust isn’t just technical.
On the other hand, when people show they who they really are... you should believe them. There are some views that are either ignorant or bad will. I think evidence of those is a reasonable deal-breaker. And it's perfectly ok if you have your line drown somewhere else as well.
You can use a perfect algorithm and still be insecure because the implementation was bad. You are trusting the SimpleX Chat devs to a degree.
Important to note: SimpleX Chat has gone through two security audits.
Views that seriously harm or endanger other people are dangerous.
If the founder would have opposing views in e.g. should we narrow down the car roads in cities and widen the pedestrian walks - ok. I think there's a lot to this question, I think pedestrian walks should be wider, cars are dangerous, etc. But this is not as dangerous as:
"Do you deny scientific evidence that COVID is real and a real danger to a lot of humans"
Fuck... Is there an alternative? Can't use telegram cus banned, won't use signal because usa and for a while they got very buddy-buddy with the zucc, matrix requires me hosting and it isn't exactly private... So what's left?
Well... Matrix. I don't think it requires self-hosting? It's E2EE and there are plenty of public servers.
The write-up I'm referencing has some at the end. Maybe Delta chat?
Honestly, I get why one would be discouraged by signal, but as long as your threat model is not "NSA and mossad have a price on my head", I think it is still the best non-federated alternative. I'd rather take a flawed messenger with well regarded encryption than a beta version that nobody with time and crypto knowledge ever looked at.
XMPP? The clients not supporting things can suck, but it's worked well for me.
That last part is the "problem", I just need something to text and send memes and files, but convincing the people around me to leave animations and stickers behind would be impossible.
That's very fair. Better start contributing I guess.
I've been using Keet for a couple of months now, really like it. Still in beta, but you can ask questions to the devs in the open chat rooms and they actually give you sound answers
Also there's Jami which looks good, but haven't tested it
Which one of those is closer to what Telegram brings to the table?
Mostly pretty stuff like gifs/mp4/webm with alpha, stickers, animated stickers and handling things like webp/webm, self-destructing multimedia, chats that dissapear after X time, sending huge files, the option to send something as a file if it can't be played internally, a desktop version that I can use simultaneusly... maybe groups and channels too, adding people by alias instead of phone number (maybe qr, but not a huge link like the one SimpleX uses).
You know, things that could help me to bring my "friends" and family on board or at least to give it a try.
Just try and see for yourself. Like I said, only tried Keet. Features
why does matrix require you self hosting? There’s a bunch of free open-signup servers available
Because Matrix isn't exactly private since it's meant to be a Discord clone and I share piracy among my friends and family, or for the sexy times with my friends, I need something that at least has self-destructing messages and chats where messages dissapear after some time.
I could trust it if I could self-host, but I lack the hardware (disk space, mostly) and the availability (I can't leave my pc on all the time [also I live in México, the internet is terrible and I tend to hog it if I'm downloading something]), so I'd have to trust some random yahoo with my stuff but it wouldn't have what I'm looking for anyway.
Electric is not a discord clone and element has a customer base more similar to slack. And to end encrypted direct messages have been the default for years now in Matrix.
matrix isn’t meant to be a discord clone, the matrix project is actually older than discord. the chats in all major clients are end-to-end encrypted now, too. are you maybe thinking of revolt?
Take a look at Delta chat? I can’t find a fault with it yet..
It is forkable if necessary. I do think SimpleX is a great piece of software that shouldn't be reinvented because of the founder.