Technology

I read the Wires article for the first time just now to try and understand this article. I don’t really think it attacks SimpleX at all. I think it states the fact that nazis have moved to the platform, the fact that SimpleX is a very private platform, the fact that SimpleX claims to prevent extremist content and growth, the fact that extremist content is being spread and growing, and the fact that SimpleX is unaware of claims. As someone who has been following this discourse for decades, this is the kind of thing that gets published. There is a balance between privacy and extremism. Privacy-focused individuals like myself will always focus on the privacy provided there are tools to combat the extremism (where applicable).

I feel like SimpleX is being defensive because their claims are not panning out. Their response calls out all of the things I feel were said in support of them while ignoring the actual critiques of their system. Not adding a backdoor? Great! That’s law and smart! Supporting groups of over a thousand posting extremist content?

We never designed groups to be usable for more than 50 users and we’ve been really surprised to see them growing to the current sizes despite limited usability and performance

SimpleX will remove such content if it is discovered. Much of the content that these terrorist groups have shared on Telegram—and are already resharing on SimpleX—has been deemed illegal in the UK, Canada, and Europe.

This is the stuff that needs response, not the privacy stuff Gilbert is arguably a fan of.