India Continues Its Attacks On Free Speech By Banning Element

The Indian government really is showing the world what government censorship is all about lately. The country used to be somewhat better about speech issues online, but for years now we've been following the country's descent towards censorship. Things really ramped up with the Modi government, where he seems ridiculously thin-skinned and unable to deal with even mild criticism. Under Modi, India has passed a series of increasingly draconian laws that have increased censorship online.

These new laws have been used repeatedly to silence content that is critical of the Modi government.

The country has also led the way in completely banning apps that people use to communicate with each other, starting with TikTok, which the country banned back in 2020.

However, now it has also banned... Element? Element is the flagship" app used to access the decentralized, encrypted Matrix chat system. If you're unfamiliar with Matrix, it's kind of a decentralized, encrypted, protocol based version of... Discord or Slack or IRC. The people who created Matrix also started a separate operation, Element, which provides the most popular reference app for using Matrix (Element used to be called Riot). There are many other apps that can also be used to access Matrix chats, however, so banning Element" seems like Indian regulators having no clue how any of this works.

We assume that this ban on Element is a result of a misunderstanding around decentralised and federated services such as Matrix (an open standard for real time communication). The Element app is just one of many apps that give access to the Matrix network. A simple parallel is that banning Element because it gives access to the Matrix network is the equivalent to blocking Google Chrome because it gives people access to the web, or Gmail because it gives people access to email.

Some governments see undermining encryption as the most effective way to combat the ills of terrorism or other illegal behaviour. That approach is completely flawed; it just removes ordinary people's ability to communicate in private which leaves them vulnerable to all types of surveillance, crime and subjugation.

In actual fact, end-to-end encryption strengthens national security which is why Element has various parts of the French, German, Swedish, UK and US governments as customers.

The folks at Element say they have no idea why it's been banned, and received no notice. They note that they received no explanation, and are only basing this on press reports. They also point out that they have responded to the Indian government when the government has reached out in the past, so they're even more perplexed at this just coming out of the blue:

That is a bit of guesswork on our part, because we did not receive any prior notice of the decision; clarification from the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology would be most welcome.

While Element never compromises end-to-end encryption or user privacy, we have been contacted by Indian authorities in the past and addressed them in a constructive fashion (typically responding same-day). Indeed our Trust & Safety team works with governments to build safer secure communications for everyone; while ensuring user privacy and protecting end-to-end encryption.

As much as people in India will be able to trivially circumvent the blocking of the 14 messaging apps, we want to resolve this situation and be available as usual in India. That resolution will have to be, of course, in a way that respects our users and understands our commitment to everyone's right to private and secure communications. We look forward to talking with the Ministry about how to make that happen.

Of course, assuming this is not about anything logical, but rather childish lashing out that people can speak via Matrix, combined with technological illiteracy in failing to recognize that Element is not Matrix, it's not clear what there is to talk about.

However, it is yet another reminder of how authoritarian governments are increasingly scared of the fact that people can speak with each other freely online, and why things like US officials wishing to ban TikTok" only gives these authoritarian censors more cover for their actions.