I’m not sure if the commenters are outraged that element is selling messaging services to police and governments, or if that the wording was not good and they think that element is selling user’s messages to police.
It turns out the original problem stemmed from their CPO speaking at the European Police Conference.
https://mastodon.matrix.org/@element/110310853505977058
The vitriol spiraled out from there, because it's one thing to allow police and governments to use your FOSS (because, you can't really stop them, no?), but to actively support that and use that in your marketing is another thing altogether.
It's not like they're selling to the CCP - these are democratic European countries.
To some, that seems to be the case.
Most of the replies I read misunderstood the wording. But some took a clear ideological stance against providing services to the police.
It’s those kind of interactions that made me leave Mastodon in the end. I’m neither right wing nor left wing, I’m just pro-common sense, and people who flaunt their ideology through megaphones make me hate this planet.
And that’s where ideology comes in.
If civilians have access to private communication, and can pay for enhanced features, why should govt organisations not? OTOH why are the implications on transparency? It’s a hard one.
Is personal privacy more important than the ability to prevent domestic terror and the distribution of material that we can all (I’d hope) agree is abhorrent? That’s not a trivial question.
The list could go on. There are arguments on both sides and they’re far from settled. Me, I just get fed up of seeing people adopt these ideas as if they’re gospel and (as in the mastodon thread) start screaming fascism, as if they have any idea what it is.
Put another way: there's no sense in which the public is made safer or society is made to function more wholly when the police are less accountable due to un-subpoenable communications.
If you're asking me what I think the police should use for police business: I don't care, as long as it can be made accountable to the public. The technology behind it literally does not matter to me, so long as that constraint is satisfied.
Sorry!
Element's position is a little simpler: Government agencies give them money and blowhards on the Internet generally don't.
Though regardless, them so adamantly supporting the very organizations who want to destroy them is never a good look, especially when a lot of people run to encrypted messaging as an escape from government censor to begin with.