Signal is aware of the blocks.

“Signal is being blocked in Venezuela and Russia. The app is a popular choice for encrypted messaging and people trying to avoid government censorship, and the blocks appear to be part of a crackdown on internal dissent in both countries…”

  • Dessalines
    21•4 months ago

    Matrix is entirely self-hostable, and you can turn off both federation, and the requirements for any linkable identifiers.

    Signal by contrast requires your phone number, isn’t self-hostable, and is based in a five-eyes country.

    • Lemongrab
      10•4 months ago

      Matrix doesn’t protect metadata, which is arguably just as (if not more) important than message data. Signal by contrast does protect metadata and proper implements Perfect Forward Secrecy for all chats. I do think Signal’s centralized design and phone number requirements problematic, but Signal still has many merits. Such as its massive user base for a AGPL-only project.

      • poVoq
        3•4 months ago

        for a AGPL-only project.

        Citation needed. It is undisputed that the software that runs on their servers is not identical to the code they release; if they release at all because sometimes they just stop for a year, until people complain 🫠

      • poVoq
        9•4 months ago

        This is false. You still need a phone number to sign up and it is used as an internal identifier.

        All they did is to optionally allow you to hide your phone number from other users.