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Comment by smashah | Hacker News Reader

Matrix is great but when is the tech industry going to deal with the fact that many, if not all, bridges are against the respective services' ToS and subsequently put the developers of those bridges under legal risk? Whatsapp has already sent legal threats to multiple bridge-component level project maintainers without any recourse.

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The EU just designated Whatsapp as a gatekeeper under the Digital Markets Act: https://ec.europa.eu/commission/presscorner/detail/en/ip_23_... following the "full list of do's and don'ts" link on that page:

> Gatekeeper platforms will have to:

> - allow third parties to inter-operate with the gatekeeper’s own services in certain specific situations

> - allow their business users to access the data that they generate in their use of the gatekeeper’s platform

This is likely also the sole reason[1] that Meta is considering connecting Threads to the fediverse.

[1] https://yiffit.net/comment/498225

There's a fair amount of silly legislation that gets passed in the EU, but forward-thinking (or maybe just here-thinking?) laws like these (and the GDPR!) make me glad I live here.

A double edged sword[1] for sure.

[1] https://edri.org/our-work/why-chat-control-is-so-dangerous/

Yes, those are the silly bits, sadly.

Yeah this is exactly what’s needed. At least in EU the driver is awake at the wheel. As the politicians slowly get more technically competent we’re seeing more effective regulation. As long as EU has influence, everyone else will also benefit since companies often stop doing the shitty thing globally, not just in the EU.

Lack of interop has been a huge problem that’s also gotten worse over time. To address such a broad and complex issue with general legislation is not easy, we still have to wait and see if it works as intended.

I'm aware of DMAs regs but it forces Whatsapp within 6 months to start enabling interoperability. However it doesn't provide protection for these existing bridge projects.

open-wa, Baileys, invidious devs are all in the dark as to whether or not they're Scott free from their respective C&Ds due to this legislation.

The EU interoperability mandate for messaging services will surely improve this situation.

My Facebook bridge constantly locks up my account. [1]

[1] https://github.com/mautrix/facebook/issues/236

I strongly believe users should be able to automate and interact with their accounts through whatever clients they wish however I think blocks/bans/technical countermeasures is fair game.

Count yourself lucky for not having an undeterminable, unfightable legal threat over your head from a $800bn mega corp.

You should use your bridge off of a residential IP in the same city as your other devices, or else Facebook finds the activity suspicious.

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