Image: Element / Protocol
Google banned a decentralized messaging app, and it’s complicated

Good morning and happy February! (Or, in COVID years, happy March 337th.) This Monday, Google banned a decentralized messaging app (and everything's complicated), what HBCUs want from Google, regulation is coming for the fintech world and Elon Musk's Clubhouse experience.
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Google booted an app called Element off the Play Store late Friday night, due to what Element said was "a report of extremely abusive content accessible on the matrix.org server." Confused? So was Google, it seems: Element promised to "explain how Element works and get the situation resolved," and soon after the app was back in the Play Store.
OK, quick catch-up: Matrix is a decentralized protocol that has become popular among a new set of messaging apps, such as Beeper, which we wrote about recently. Element is a Discord-ish app that runs on Matrix, and is built by the same people who maintain the Matrix protocol.
Matrix and Element are a way to circumvent companies such as Google for some people. But that protection doesn't amount to much when Google can just boot an app off the Play Store.
By Saturday, the app was back. But the whole episode raises complicated questions: What should Google do in a case like this? Who's responsible for what happens on a decentralized, private network? What if it's nobody? Is that the whole point? And it seemed to convince even more people that they need to wrestle control of the internet out of Big Tech's hands. That's an awfully tall order.
Anna Kramer writes: Five HBCU presidents met with Sundar Pichai on Friday to talk about Google's "culture" problems. They told us beforehand they wanted to understand how Google was investigating the allegations of discrimination that followed the firing of AI ethics researcher Timnit Gebru and diversity recruiter April Christina Curley, and whether execs were making sure their grads are treated with respect.
Dismissal appears to be exactly what's happening. This weekend, Google engineering director Leslie Miley shared a document that former Googlers made while at Twitter to explain their recruiting review process, which shows exactly how much power a certain set of elite schools and their graduates have in tech:
As for the Friday meeting? Both sides said the meeting went well, but the school presidents canceled the interviews they'd set up beforehand and gave only a blandly positive statement. Harry Williams, the Thurgood Marshall College Fund CEO who helped set up the meeting, said that Curley and Gebru's firings were not discussed. "That's a personnel matter," he told CNN.
We're not going to talk about GameStop all week, I promise. Even if I can't stop reading about how apparently silver is the next meme stock? Anyway, the more interesting long-term question here is what the Biden administration is going to do about regulating fintech.
Protocol's Tomio Geron tackled that very question, and found a few likely priorities:
Related:India might ban some cryptos. Proposed legislation would set a framework for a national digital currency, and ban "all private cryptocurrencies" in India. It's unclear if Bitcoin would be affected.
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On Protocol: Epic VR storytelling is coming, said Within's Chris Milk, but the bar is really high:
Ray Dalio's thoughts on Bitcoin were a popular subject of conversation this weekend:
The argument against tech's data collection has gone too far, Facebook's Nick Clegg said:
Reddit has an internal metric for antisocial users, Steve Huffman said, and it's got a fun name:
The GameStop games continue. With a weekend of closed markets, everyone's had time to think through what happens next — and we'll be watching to see what happens on Reddit, how Robinhood and others respond, and whether politicians and regulators are ready to step in.
Kuaishou is set to list on Friday at a reported valuation of $61 billion. Protocol's Hirsh Chitkara has everything you need to know.
The virtual Sundance Film Festival is still running this week, and there's lots of good stuff you can watch. (Including in VR.) Apple already broke the Sundance record by splashing out $25 million for the film "Coda."
Earnings season week three! Google, Amazon, Qualcomm, Spotify, Snap, Pinterest, eBay, Alibaba and a bunch of others all report this week.
You know a story's really made the rounds when it makes the SNL cold open. That's what happened with GameStop this weekend. If you haven't seen the skit, which also features chin-bearded Jack Dorsey and one of the more delightful Mark Zuckerberg impressions I can remember, you should. Live from New York, everything is chaos.
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Today's Source Code was written by David Pierce, with help from Anna Kramer and Shakeel Hashim. Thoughts, questions, tips? Send them to david@protocol.com, or our tips line, tips@protocol.com. Enjoy your day; see you tomorrow.
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