I mean yeah, but that's an article from a private company that says that law enforcement is going to try to hack into criminal's phones. Which, like, duh.

The person being interviewed explicitely says that since there are legitimate users of the service, they won't take the same approach they did with services used only by criminals.

Avec ce nouvel outil, il existe pour une certaine partie des utilisateurs une réelle légitimité dans la volonté de protéger ses échanges. L’approche est donc différente. Mais ça ne nous empêchera pas de poursuivre les éditeurs, si des liens sont découverts avec une organisation criminelle et qu’ils ne coopèrent pas avec la justice.

they're saying that if grapheneOS is found to be explicitely working with criminals they'll take measures against the org, which is completely reasonable.

You forgot that french juges have used the facts that people installed Linux, Signal, /e/OS and GrapheneOS has evidence to charge them!

this sounds insane but common for judges; do you have any sources for this?

France was also leading the charge in the shutdown of those other encrypted phone services. They claimed that those were only used by criminals but never provided any evidence. They also broke multiple laws during their investigation. So yes the french government definitely is dirty in this regard and deserves calling out.

They specified it was a media campaign influenced by law enforcement. They may have referenced law enforcement going after them but they meant through a propaganda campaign and they said the measures they're taking are entirely preventative. They aren't interested in fooling around with a government that just got caught trying to assassinate an African leader. Perspective. They always start with a propaganda campaign to label their targets criminals or terrorists. I'd say Graphene's response during an incredibly dark era of history is definitely called for. Its no longer 2014. Its 2025 with fascist coups taking place all over and digital security is one of their main targets. I strongly disagree with the OP and I've been keeping up with entire saga on Graphene's social media and interacting with them about it.

i think i can answer this

personally, when i first encountered graphene's radical statements about the terrible security landscape we're all subjected to, i reacted quite negatively & assumed they were crazy.

then i actually check the technical details of their claims, and fuck me it turns out to be SCARILY correct.

most people don't actually bother with the second part. and you end up with a classic "shoot the messenger" scenario, where the bearer of bad news is equated with the bad news itself & punished by the mob (because they feel it's easier than actually facing the uncomfortable reality of the bad news).

that scenario can only play out for so long before the messenger gets sick of being shot every day & reacts badly to the crowd. then the crowd points at their poor reaction & uses it as further "evidence" against their character.