Signal has been blocked by Venezuela and Russia

Indeed. If whatsapp isn't on the list, then I have all the confirmation I need.

"Banned in 15 dicatorships!"

Being decentralized prevents DNS or IP blocks but not blocks through DPI.

Signal has an option to masquerade it's traffic as regular HTTPS, I don't know if Matrix can do such a thing.

https://x.com/signalapp/status/1821979304626155930

Matrix is in fact decentralized but in reality it is not so much, I don't know the number exactly but the majority of users use the matrix.org server

could matrix.org be as easily blocked, since it’s decentralized I’m wondering?>

Or SimpleX?

Yes

Yes, but you'll have to install them from sources other than what governments deem official. Like F-droid.

Now, if they block p2p traffic that's a different story

It depends. Somehow it has to discover the peers. Other than that, they could block traffic between residential IP addresses and there goes large part of the P2P network

WhatsApp supposedly uses Signal protocol.

Why is THAT not blocked? Certainly they wouldnt roll their own encryption and bypass Signal security protocols after having Moxie come in, right? Right????

Telegram is not secure, I guess if you can listen to it better not block it.

I mean it was blocked before Signal was blocked. Russia somewhat famously badly broke their Internet trying to shutdown telegram... and eventually gave up.

I'm guessing Signal finally has enough market share to get the Russian government's attention but not enough market share that they think the web of proxies that kept Telegram online will keep Signal online.

It isn't private

On April 16, 2018, the Russian government began blocking access to Telegram, an instant messaging service. The blocking led to interruptions in the operation of many third-party services, but practically did not affect the availability of Telegram in Russia. It was officially unblocked on June 19, 2020

Some say it was unblocked because they made a deal with Durov. Another opinion is that too many people and services including officials continued to rely on it even during the time it was blocked. Regardless, Telegram did a huge job on circumventing those blocks.

I don't get it, are you really arguing that Russia and Venezuela are blocking Signal to protect their citizens from American snooping?

they hated him because he spoke the truth smh

use matrix, briar, simplex in that order

also what email platforms + vpns do you recommend, out of curiosity?

Signal has strong cryptographic protocols that are not easily broken. It pioneered the use of double ratchet encryption. (Different keys for each message)

It does expose phone numbers to Signal and the US government but that may or may no be a concern depending on what your threat model is.

You need a certain market saturation before a ban becomes useful. If very few people are using the service, there's little incentive to invest time/energy in a block.

I suspect the recent wave of riots in the wake of the election is driving the urgency.

would have* expected it

Matrix isn't secure depending on how you use it. It also doesn't protect individual identities terribly well.

Simplex Chat would be the better option however the main Simplex Chat server and matrix server could end up blocked as well.