Matthew Hodgson, technical co-founder of the Matrix open standard, told us: “This has nothing to do with the Matrix protocol; it’s just an unfortunate naming coincidence.”

  • haverholm
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    443 months ago

    The Register failed in their due diligence by not clarifying from the beginning that this is a different Matrix chat than the open standard. They amended the mistake with an update to the post (quoted here in OP), but that is placed at the end of an article that not everybody is going to read all the way through.

    IMHO this needs a rewrite to make clear from the outset that the Matrix protocol and matrix.org are not affiliated with the criminal chat service. As it stands, even with the correction, it looks like character assassination of a perfectly legal open source project.

    • @Mr_Blott@feddit.uk
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      83 months ago

      I mean, the journalism is fucking amateur at best. “Red pill” isn’t a verb that’s immediately understandable, and yes, I know they say in journalism school to use plenty of similies instead of repeating yourself, but loads of English speakers wouldn’t have a clue what they mean by “Plod”

      • haverholm
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        53 months ago

        I mean, I get the joke of using that expression in the context of a chat named after The matrix, but it’s an in-group jargon that mostly the terminally online will get.

      • r00ty
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        33 months ago

        Yes, instead use rozzers, bacon or filth!

  • QuentinCallaghan
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    113 months ago

    Really makes me wonder why criminals won’t use the actual Matrix protocol instead of this one. They wouldn’t have to pay for its use.

    • haverholm
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      43 months ago

      Read the linked article; this was a different network using the same name.

      • recursive_recursion they/them
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        3 months ago

        yeaah I fucked up, I didn’t read far enough into the article hence why I deleted my comment a second after posting😬

        That’s another poor mistake that I’m gonna try to not repeat

        • haverholm
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          63 months ago

          No worries, The Register hid the clarification about the two different networks way down at the end, so it’s an easy mistake. I honestly think they need to put that note at the beginning to avoid confusion.

          • recursive_recursion they/them
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            23 months ago

            I honestly think they need to put that note at the beginning to avoid confusion.

            Agreed. I really hate it when publications add disclaimers and revisions or updates to the bottom of the page. It’ll always benefit their readers anyways if they decided to put that information at the top of the page