A/I shuts down | Hacker News Reader

A/I shuts down

keepitfree.ai

644 pointscaptainmuon564 comments

Really sad, and also a testament of the fact that as much as we think we try to be indipendent, eventually once somebody starts putting enough pressure on the people around you (and you turn from "a neutral customer" to "a liability") the path to isolation is very short.

This. When the US government decides to label you “terrorist organization”, it means that you are now targeted by the most potent state actor on earth, which will go as far as blowing up weddings in your neighborhood to stop you.

So unless you're willing to become a literal terrorist organization and die with a bunch of your friends in an uphill battle (not technically unwinnable, but at least lopsided and the casualties will be tremendous), the only option is to cave.

> So unless you're willing to become a literal terrorist organization and die with a bunch of your friends in an uphill battle (not technically unwinnable, but at least lopsided and the casualties will be tremendous), the only option is to cave.

Honestly, the internet has made folks so lazy. It's very ironic that the most "revolutionary" act taken recently (January 6) was actually done by the far-right. Yeah: if you believe in something, you need to actually get out of the basement, grab a gun, and storm the Capitol. And if you take it all the way, a lot of people are going to die. That's how revolution works. Unless we're all LARPing?

But Americans/Westerners (left, right, center) are way too comfortable for a revolution, so for people that are, or have been, actual dissidents (think Arab Spring, or IRA, or ETA, or whatever), this is all just a big meme.

If everyone is so comfortable, what do we need a revolution for? Wasn't that the goal of civilization? If someone doesn't like civilization, why try to bring it down? There's plenty of places on earth you can go to live without it.

> Honestly, the internet has made folks so lazy.

Or maybe people realize that revolutions, and the civil war that almost always ensue, are a very high price to pay, for a very uncertain reward.

Talking about the Arab spring, look what it lead to:

- Egypt and Tunisia are again being lead by a dictator, it's just a younger one.

- Libya is destroyed, lacks leadership and conflict could resume any day should Haftar decide he doesn't like the result of the upcoming (but long postponed) elections.

- Syria has suffered the worst civil war of the decade and the situation is still very brittle. It looks like Jolani could bring redemption to Syria, but with the Israeli playing around with fire it could also collapse any day. And that's assuming Jolani doesn't turn into a dictator himself: we're not talking about someone with a good track record of honoring his promises (which is a good thing when the promise is made to ISIS or Al Qaeda, but still).

Jan 6, didn't work, not entirely sure why you bring this up as a blueprint for anyone. It was an actual LARP and as Bruno Macaes wrote resembled a bunch of people making it to the end of a videogame, then running around confused in costumes and going for a drink.

What did work for them was pouring money into the election system and party apparatus, media, the courts and then taking control over politics

It depends on what you count as "revolutionary". There have been at least two high-profile politically motivated murders in the US after that.

> the only option is to cave

Or sue, or organize and protest, or win the next election. Not every government problem warrants revolution, and not needing to revolt is not a failing of the people.

> Americans/Westerners (left, right, center) are way too comfortable for a revolution

A better read is that the situation for most Americans and "Westerners" whatever that means, is that things are good enough that the people do not see value in revolution, or they are able to adjust the government's course enough through elections, redress, courts and other political feedback mechanisms.

> you need to actually get out of the basement, grab a gun, and storm the Capitol.

This is not what happened on J6, and is specifically why it was not an insurrection.

"I broke everything like a child and now everything is worse" is not a revolution. It's being a useful idiot

Weddings if you’re lucky. They’ll also murder 150+ girls at school.

Whats the dictionary definition of terror again?

> violence or the threat of violence used as a weapon of intimidation or coercion

> especially: violent or destructive acts (such as bombing) committed by groups in order to intimidate a population or government into granting their demands

https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/terror

Now, which actor in this story does this sound like? The webhoster exercising their speech rights or the apparatus bombing schools and weddings in order to get their way?

> When the US government decides to label you “terrorist organization”

We really need laws removing the power from the President to unilaterally declare organizations terrorists. At least not long term without their ability to fight the designation in court.

(Same for tariffs. There is no case where one needs emergency power to tariff or sanction anything. If you need to conduct urgent police action, court-ordered asset freezes are plenty.)

What you really need to do, Americans, is start prosecuting your own war criminals.

Only then will you have the moral altitude you profess to have with the rest of the world, and not until then.

"Terrorist" is just this centurys' n-word - a phrase which racists cannot overtly use any more so they invented a new term to supplant it.

We actually need to decouple ourselves such that such threats can be ignored.

> you are now targeted by the most potent state actor on earth

Well, it is a mafia. See the international court investigating war crimes is also targeted by the orange clown-brigade mafia.

> the only option is to cave

Objectively speaking you are correct, but I don't think this has to be the case. For instance, why is that orange mafia so powerful? That is the thing that has to be fixed on every level, not just by taking back what their billionaires stole from us.

As a person living in the place you're mentioning, I have to confidently state that you've been brainwashed

> which will go as far as blowing up weddings in your neighborhood to stop you.

And in case the wedding reference wasn't explicit enough, this isn't just Trump, it was also Obama.

It pains me to summon the specter of "both sides" because the Republicans are so much worse. But the majority of national level Democrats aren't inherently good. They are just less bad (and on some issues they can be close to equally as bad).

I see you get your news from the internet.

> not technically unwinnable

Most should take those odds over giving up another inch of freedom.

People with minor kids and/or dependent spouses/family often disagree.

Could someone point me to some background on this whole incident or write a quick one? I don't know who they are or what's going on but it seems important.

The US Republican party has been inventing an increasingly elaborate alternate reality fiction in order to convince their voters to keep voting for policy positions that obviously work against those voters' own interests. One component of this alternate reality is a fictional terrorist organization called "antifa." They claim that anyone who does not align with their policies is a member of this organization. This allows them to use the anti-terrorism laws passed in the wake of 9/11 and similar incidents against their political opponents. The US government claims someone who used the A/I service was a member of this fictional organization, and used those anti-terrorism laws to declare that A/I is supporting terrorism and so threatened sanctions against the banks A/I was using. No access to banking means A/I is shutting down.

>voting for policy positions that obviously work against those voters' own interests

Delusions of grandeur / superiority complex much? Have you considered a posibility, that these voters just dont agree with your idea of what their best interests are?

>fictional terrorist organization called "antifa."

An organization so fictional, that just a few months back multiple members were convicted in a terrorist attack

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/clyedgnyn4mo

Antifa defenders just hide behind the fact that the movement is decentralized and leaderless by design, but that doesn't make it fictional.

They are obviously a terrorist organization and it is good to go after their financing and communication channels.

> "They claim that anyone who does not align with their policies is a member of this organization"

No one is claiming that Amy Klobuchar or Gavin Newsom is a member of antifa.

also for context this is a shorter version and represents well the situation https://www.inventati.org/who/collective

"After 2005 we have been constantly pestered by prosecutors and security forces (and even by the Vatican! [4]) asking us to hand over users’ data and identities and we are proud to say we were always able to answer: we are sorry, but we do not have them."

This is tech guys supporting with infra real freedom of speech! even more important nowadays! jumping to the violent antifa narrative means ignoring a lot of important things.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Autistici/Inventati#United_Sta...

The US government is labeling anyone who says they're "anti fascist" as terrorists, and shut down a major Italian private email provider using that rationale.

there is a good interview with someone from the collective here: https://sabot.media/post/a-network-called-resistance

Here’s a wiki article that I found helpful:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Autistici/Inventati

“Autistici/Inventati (A/I) is an Italian hacktivist group that provides Internet communication services for left-wing activists. It was founded in 2001 by members of the anti-globalisation movement…”

this one is a good one, in English, that I see is kept updated

https://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2026/08/28/18888285.php

I read it as a very long path, but they've finally got to the end. They say this project is 25 years old and carried by the same people. Now they're tired. They've done enough. Someone else has to carry the torch. That's how I read it

And yes, they could relocate to TOR, I2P, use P2P websites, torrents, and only accept cryptos for donations. But eventually you'll need to put down a credit card on file to buy a domain, and that domain needs to be owned by somebody.

>But eventually you'll need to put down a credit card on file to buy a domain, and that domain needs to be owned by somebody.

You don't need to pay to host onion websites (.onion domains are free and have no central registry). Though that of course really limits the possible outreach, because most people are not used to browsing onionsites.

njal.la (no affiliate) exists for that purpose. It is a privacy focused domain service that is run by the people behind the pirate bay.

[1] https://njal.la/domains/

You’re still subject to ICANN, an American org. There is no escaping the US government if you’re using the public web for your infra

Njalla is not ICANN accredited, so they cannot register domains. They buy them and then lease them out to you.

The issue is, now they are the legal owners and liable for the content of the website, and they also support PayPal, which will absolutely drop them the moment they get sanctioned.

I hereby designate the US government an international terrorist organization.

Yeah, but do you control international banking the way they do? That's ultimately how they're able to do this.

> Yeah, but do you control international banking the way they do?

This is why Europe needs to detach itself from the American banking system.

It used to be very practical to use it. Countries renounced to some sovereignty in exchange for ease of doing business. The USA had an advantage but it didn't abuse it too much.

The current situation is that the USA is asking to forfeit sovereignty and to control business in an ideological basis. There is a strong incentive to leave that system as the alternative is become a colony of the USA. And the push for colonization is not subtle as the president takes over other countries resources like Venezuela's oil or tries to take control of the straight of Hormuz (None part of the USA at this moment)

At the moment Europe is getting more reliant on the US. There are new non-Us payment systems but the end user devices are Apple or Google controlled. Governments and banks are very eager to get rid of cash, to introduce digital ID etc. That all relies on American platforms.

> This is why Europe needs to detach itself from the American banking system.

So far, what it's detached itself from its sources of fossil fuels. With a little help from its great American friends.

Which is why efforts by China to stand up independent cross border payment rails are important. You have to cut the US out of any ability to control activities outside of their boundaries.

China, Egypt to do away with the use of the US dollar - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49555056 - September 2026

China nears launch of mBridge as alternative to Swift - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48636931 - June 2026

and Europe. Europe should also decouple itself from the U.S. as much as it is possible, and not repeat the mistake of overreliance with China. not because China is somehow worse, but because you always should be able to say "no", no matter how good your partners are

So the rest of the world has the option of relying on China instead? How is that better?

What I find wild is that this control over international banking, and the sanctions it enables, is a key benefit of the US-led world order that Trump is trying to dismantle. I’m quite sure he doesn’t understand this, but a key consequence of his efforts to stop the US from getting “ripped off” is that we will soon no longer have the ability to impose these sorts of sanctions as the global economy re-routes around American control.

Just because millions of us haven't marched on the banks globally in a coordinated effort to control the banking system doesn't mean we can't.

Just have not yet done it.

They already know what they are. There are good reasons the term "terrorist" has yet to be formally agreed upon among members of the United Nations.

If that's what you characterize the US government as, I can only imagine what you characterize some of the other governments around the world. Particularly, from the millions of us who migrated to the US legally and willfully and who are very VERY grateful to this country for providing the opportunities people like myself could only dream-of in our former countries.

As Stephen Miller loves to remind us, we had the first net emigration in decades this year. They're rounding up legal immigrants and putting them in concentration camps where they're dying because they're being denied medical care.

Many (most?) governments around the world strike no terror on other countries. They don’t go around invading other countries, nor sanctioning them on the basis of belief, nor using their soft/hard power to exert pressure at a global scale.

Don’t get me wrong: I’m grateful for many things the USA has done, and for the inventiveness and generosity of its people; but let’s not pretend like their government(s) have been the kindest or most terror-free in the past decades.

The USA can be both a good and bad thing. And terrorism, by definition, is a bit of what they do abroad.

A lot of that has to do with the fact that they simply do not need to. Many of these countries rely on allies such as the United States to maintain that aggressive posture for them and offer them the opportunity to remain militarily neutral.

How many of these millions only had to migrate to the US because the US destroyed their countries with war, economic sanctions, covert CIA operations, or other attacks?

I don’t know, how many? You are the one throwing blanket statements.

I’m from Latin America and it’s 100% the fault of some of our own corrupt governments and us people living in those places.

Emphasis on “some,” because countries like Chile, Costa Rica, Uruguay and lately Argentina and El Salvador are showing that less government intervention in economic matters and a zero-bullshit policy on crime is how you turn things around to something that reminisces a somewhat livable country.

A/I shuts down

Some of y'all are from countries that are in great turmoil.

Which is partly or mostly our fault.

Maybe we could concentrate on doing less of that.

It really is not the fault of the US that Mexico has drug gangs that kill people at random. It's not the fault that Pakistan and India are nearly at war forever. It's not the US fault that many countries support and require female genital mutilation. The US is not as evil as you think.

If you don't see an issue with the White House constantly posting straight up Nazi memes then that's on you. There's also plenty immigrants in Europe who vote for fascists, so? Turns out you can't just leave your "former" country behind like an old coat, it's still your upbringing and horizon. You are grateful "to the country", but what does that mean while also shrugging off what the people in "the country" are saying? What is left of "the country"? A bunch of papers, rights and money, opportunities for you; let the goons roam and fill their warehouses, keep children, even infants in despicable conditions, because you (think you) have nothing to fear?

Yet billions of people would still want to come here.

How do you like them apples?

But meaning what

If only you were the UN and could do something about it.

Oh wait!

Hmm. So they are going by “A/I vets its users” and users sabotaged rail systems so therefore A/I is materially assisting terrorists? I wonder how this vetting works? Do users have to submit government issued documents, write essays? Do they make users sign non-violence agreement ToS. I mean heck, Facebook and Twitter has material supporting various things like that and US government is designated them as terrorists.

I wonder why gun manufacturers aren't responsible for the behavior of their users, but this org is.

Because you don't apply to a gun company to buy a gun. (You actually apply to the government...chew on that one for a while.)

Didn't need to chew, I already know the government doesn't do enough to curb gun violence.

Well, in my state, you don't "apply" for a gun like you apply for a license. It is just document that you purchased it after the seller runs a background check.

The government isn't attesting to your capabilities - that is still on you as a citizen.

> you don't "apply" for a gun like you apply for a license.

>... background check

Who requires these background checks? Because the seller wouldn't do them unless obligated. Obviously the check and paperwork around it constitutes at least a de facto application to the government for permission to purchase the firearm.

But that's an outlier. In normal countries you apply for a license, THEN after you get it, you're allowed to purchase a firearm.

IIRC from the last A/I thread, there's actually a special law that basically says gun manufacturers are not liable for what people do with the guns, and says it specifically about guns, not any other industry.

No other industry needed that law. The PLCAA was put in place in 2005 because anti-gun specifically devised a plan to sue gun makers in lieu of any success in changing gun laws.

It is absolute nonsense to ignore why the law exists while you complain about it existing.

Why is it necessary to legislate it if it's nonsense? If there is no culpability, why would there be any threat?

It was necessary because a group of billionaires (Joyce Foundation) decided they were going to do a run around congress and engage in lawfare for their goals.

It’s nonsense to pretend it came out of no where for no reason.

By this logic services like Telegram or Signal would be designated "terrorist organizations". But the current admin is purely vibes-based, so we'll never know for sure

Telegram is openly supportive of cyber crime. I don't think it should be labelled as terrorist organization, but it's not far from that.

I wasn't aware of this group; https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Autistici/Inventati is their wiki article, but it is a little light on details.

Some of the claims are interesting - "Decision making in the group takes places collectively instead of through majority voting." - isn't explained by the sourced article.

In anarchism, democracy and voting are considered flawed

An ignorant/manipulated majority can not decide over my natural rights. 51% of men can not vote in favor of raping 49% of women, that's why 49% of women should be armed and capable of mutually assured destruction as a deterrent (pick gender, race, religion, whatever, applies to all minorities). That's just philosophy, in real life the powerful fucks the weak, and that's how it works. 'Disarm the people' is the first step in the road to slavery. Of course an armed disfunctional society like the US is also not the best solution to the problems the state creates. So we keep thinking and philosophizing, until that day comes...

Btw, I am a philosophical anarchist, I don't throw molotovs or wear masks but I do hate the state with a passion, and I like to think about how a free world should work, and currently the US is the antithesis of that

While this is often the case, it is not clear how this group specifically functioned. Theory vs practice is always very interesting in these cases.

This is how you get mindless group-think. Anyone who tries to object to a bad idea is turned into an outcast and seen as a boat rocker, so members are trained to toe the line at all costs. Very unhealthy.

Possible. But the fact they have been running anarchist IT services for 25 years says otherwise.

It sound like you had one bad social experience and are projecting that onto them.

That seems like two words for the same thing to me but making the distinction seems like a signalling mechanism to me.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Consensus_decision-making alternative political movements care a lot about how decisions are taken. For instance, authors like David Graeber consider that majority voting only makes sense in the context if backed by violence.

So what percent of people are required for "consensus" because it seems like 50%+1 to 100%. There seems to also be an implication that democracy is 50+1 when it isn't. It can require any percentage to reach a decision.

Those two words refer to the same "type" of system where the members make a decision by ascent or descent. Both systems require an agreed upon barrier of acceptance.

They are the same. The US congress reaches decision by consensus.

IETF for instance, makes the distinction because they do not use a fixed vote threshold, but use a judgement of someone with good judgement, taking all facts into account such as the strength of disagreement.

And of course if that person turns out to have bad judgement they won't listen to him next time.

It is certainly possible for this to become unstable and split into two or more groups. This may work for the IETF which frequently creates and destroys working groups.

This reminds me how fragile the internet is and how we need other channels of communication.

Not all problems are best served with technical solutions. This is a political problem.

I’m not suggesting technical solutions to be clear.

Real life is a channel of communication.

the internet is real life

Exactly my point.

Maybe LoRa? Doesn't get more sovereign than that. As long you have people to connect with, that is.

There's already TOR, the problem you run in to is you need connectivity and visibility with the rest of the world on the clearnet. lora is even worse here.

LoRa is very short range and extremely bandwidth limited.

...and trivially jammable

Is it related to reticulum?

Reticulum can use it as one of several transport layers. LoRa is just layer 1 only

I have no way to verify whether the collective really helped the violent acts that are cited in the designation[1] but, as an Italian, given the dialectic and rhetoric in their statements and in their websites, it would not surprise me if this once they - the US government - were not wrong. "A broken clock marks the right time twice a day" and all that.

I have experienced this kind of language personally back when the collective started (they have root in the no-global movement, a protest group that contributed to the violence at the Genova G8).

At the time I was a young activist on their side, but the 'we are not violent' wink-wink nudge-nudge attitude was not main stream but very much all over the place and became hard to ignore.

[1]https://www.state.gov/releases/office-of-the-spokesperson/20...

edit: forgot the link to the designation

> as an Italian, given the dialectic and rhetoric in their statements

As if that holds any value, especially considering the rest of your comment, which completely ignores the rhetoric of that "designation".

That designation is toilet paper - the wording "violent Antifa cells" in the second sentence should be the wake up signal.

> they have root in the no-global movement, a protest group

There was/is no protest group called the no-global movement - you are using language the same way Trump & co. use the word antifa. And using language like Trump & co. is not a good look.

> that contributed to the violence at the Genova G8.

That was the black-bloc, maybe a few hundred or thousand actors within a protest of up to 300k people. I am leaving out the many controversies regarding the infiltrators in the black bloc and the manufactured "evidence" like planted molotov cocktails in the Diaz school.

And we all know who else contributed to the violence, but you conveniently left that out. Carlo Giuliani was killed by police. Same police that raided a school and charged peaceful protesters.

> As if that holds any value, especially considering the rest of your comment, which completely ignores the rhetoric of that "designation".

I am not saying that you have to hold my experience to any value, but I am stating that was my experience. Anyone is free to interpret as they prefer, but I would question your argument as to why. It sounds a lot like "whataboutism". The fact that the designation is bad does not change my experience with the rhetoric of the collective.

If you'd rather know why I do not express much judgement on the designation: I did not pass any judgement of the dialectic in the designation because I don't claim to have the same experience with such - or any - dialect in English.

I also state that 'a broken clock ...' underlining - I thought - the fact that I don't think the US government does normally much good.

> "violent Antifa cells" in the second sentence should be the wake up signal.

It's not as obvious to me as it is to you why "violent antifa cells" is a wake up signal. Would you mind explaining further?

> There was/is no protest group called the no-global movement.. you are using language the same way Trump & co

Admittedly, these are memories from quite a while ago, I don't exclude some of them might be wrong, but as much as it's not a movement with a cohesive leadership and structured belief, for what it's worth, wikipedia seems to agree with me on the existence of a "No global movment" and its connection with the Genova G8 issues [1]. I would invite you to avoid name calling, such as comparing me to Trump :D

I had no connection with black bloc, and while I agree with you that it was a small minority in the protest having violent intentions, I disagree that only black bloc was to blame for those violent intentions.

I also don't absolve the police, what happened was horrifying, but this again does not take away from the fact that the rhetoric used in the communication by the collective reminds me of the 'not so not violent' groups that at the very least orbited the violence, and, in my personal opinion, very much winked at and approved of it.

I don't see you make an argument contrary to what I am saying other than discrediting my own experience based on the fact that - in your opinion - I don't criticize both sides equally?

[1]https://it.wikipedia.org/wiki/Movimento_no-global

First of all I apologize if my previous comment was overly aggressive. Perhaps I got heated because I think this is an an issue that shows were we are going as a society, and it's nowhere good.

> question your argument as to why.

I am also Italian, and I don't feel that "the dialectic and rhetoric" of their statements in any way gives and credibility to the US designation of a "violent antifa cells" equating them to terrorists on the level of Al-Qaeda, ISIS and so on. So there's that, being Italian is not some skill or ability that allows you or me to better understand their statements, especially since they are also translated to English...

> the same experience with such - or any - dialect in English.

That sounds like a cop-out to me, you obviously can express yourself in English quite well, and even if that were not the case phrases like "violent antifa cells", "far-left terrorist networks, built to enable them to organize, recruit, communicate, disseminate propaganda, share target information and tactics, and carry out violent attacks" should clearly show that is nothing more than the lowest form of fearmongering, propaganda and silencing of dissent by an authoritarian government.

Furthermore, especially as Italians, we should support these projects and not give in to notions that "maybe the broken fascist clock is right once in a while".

> wikipedia seems to agree with me on the existence of a "No global movment"

The first sentence: indica organizzazioni non governative, associazioni e singoli individui relativamente ETEROGENEI.

As you put it previously, "a protest group", does not at all convey the notion that these are many people with differing views, and as such there may well be also a violent minority like in any group. No, your comment paints them all with the same brush.

> such as comparing me to Trump :D

I did not compare you as a person to Trump, but the way you are misusing words.

> does not take away from the fact that the rhetoric used in the communication by the collective reminds me of the 'not so not violent' groups that at the very least orbited the violence, and, in my personal opinion, very much winked at and approved of it.

This would be the point were you cite some sources or quotes that give you that impression, rather than relying on your "Italianness" to support your argument.

> in your opinion - I don't criticize both sides equally?

As Italians we should criticize only one side and that is the fascists.

I appreciate the apology, but this is much of the same.

> being Italian is not some skill

Some of the A/I statements being in Italian, and some of the seditious rhetoric being known to me because I have experienced the Italian far left, I think it is a relevant 'competency' in this thread.

> That sounds like a cop-out to me..

It's a good thing I have no obligation of par-conditio :D

Anyway, whether the US document is good or not was not my point, and I never hinted at the fact that it might be good. I repeat that I don't think it is. You are rather just using that to ignore the point I was attempting to make, which is that the language used by the collective is reminding me of language that winks at violence.

> As Italians we should criticize only one side and that is the fascists.

I reject the requirement you try to impose on me of criticizing only the fascists, as if far left - which this collective definitely was - is tolerable or ok or positive. I do not agree. I prefer to keep my own independence of thought, and would rather point out your statement being ironically oppressive.

I'm wondering how long until they target CCC :/

That'll be fun. But the CCC doesn't engage in resistance any more. They mostly just hold the conferences where people tinker with stuff in ways that don't matter .

Well A/I doesn't engage in resistance either. All they did was provide email services and host blogs for people. By this standard, Wikipedia or CCC could indeed be next.

Here is the State Department's rationale: https://www.state.gov/releases/office-of-the-spokesperson/20...

Never heard of A/I and I have no idea what they are about, but rather than a government communication this statement reads like an angry rant with lots of unhelpful name-calling.

I would expect a government to be professional and just stick to the (proven) facts and avoiding labels; that would also be more convincing. Oh well.

This is the new Republican mainstream, the same mainstream that brings us AI generated videos of the Obamas as apes. They have no shame and are likely irredeemable (certainly their behavior is inexcusable).

And ultimately these statements aren't for the normal citizens. They're for the truly strange, the racists, and the trolls.

The entire current US Administration has adopted the grievance rhetoric of its chief executive because the alternative is expulsion.

Really?

> The anarchist cells responsible for sabotaging rail systems across France, Italy, Germany, and the Netherlands in 2026, relied on A/I Collective tools and services to claim responsibility for the attacks, publish official communiqués, and disseminate manuals for constructing improvised incendiary devices to target railways and other critical infrastructure.

> The anarchist cell responsible for sabotaging the Transalpine Pipeline (TAL) in March 2026, which temporarily halted crude oil flows to Austria, Germany, and the Czech Republic, relied on A/I Collective tools and services to claim responsibility for the attack and publish official communiqués, as well as to disseminate a manifesto calling for additional attacks on critical infrastructure and referring adherents to another A/I Collective platform, which provides detailed sabotage manuals as well as maps of vulnerable critical infrastructure across North America.

> The far-left extremist network responsible for multiple arson attacks and acts of sabotage against Germany’s rail and energy infrastructure between 2011 and 2026, including a January 2026 attack on Berlin’s power grid that cut power to 45,000 households and resulted in a fatality, relied on A/I Collective tools and services to claim responsibility for attacks, publish official communiques, and disseminate a manifesto calling for additional attacks on energy infrastructure worldwide.

Seems quite specific to me.

They also probably used Signal for comms, and it's safe to assume some of them used protonmail.

And maybe they used a Google camera for taking photos of their acts.

By the same logic, what prevents US from labelling Signal, Proton, and Google as ones supporting terrorist organizations?

Well, the far left extremists also used ISPs, mobile phones, energy infrastructure to do this.

Are those terrorist organizations too?

Moreover, ask yourself: why hasn't Germany accused A/I of being co-responsible of the attacks?

Is the car manufacturer responsible for their use of a car? The power tools manufacturer? The paper sheet manufacturer? The restaurant that fed them?

Technical intermediaries could be held responsible specifically for hosting the manifestos (under freedom of the press laws), but that requires an actual due process. Meanwhile, 100% of the authors and websites who inspired or relayed Anders Brejvik and other neo-fascist terrorists are still online and are not facing any kind of repression.

Check whitehouse.gov next. You'll think it's been defaced by a script kiddie.

Wait this is not true. I’m truly neutral here.

The site lists actual terror attacks where the tools were used. That’s pretty damning if accurate. Anyone care to comment on that? I’m not well informed but the statement does not look like just straight up name calling.

Has any terrorist group ever used Gmail to communicate?

Remember this is the Trump administration. I think your expectations might be a bit high.

"statement reads like an angry rant with lots of unhelpful name-calling."

This is the standard of communication for the Trump administration.

I’m not familiar with A/I, but this sounds pretty damning – the ideological vetting of users in particular seems to discount any sort of neutral utility defense.

The use of the word “ideological” in text with a US Gov-anything byline is tantamount to a fart. Its whining “I dont like this thing but I cant cry like a child about it.”

Stop trusting the US government.

It really doesn’t, unless they are screening for terrorism. For instance, a company that provides some free tech for low income Catholics, which ends up used in some crime, maybe bombed family planning clinic, can be charged for the terrorism they didn’t do. In fact, this can be leveraged by anti-Catholic terrorists to take out the Catholic tech service.

Sure, sounding damning is kind of the point of this kind of statement. But its also cheap and easy since there is no requirement that any of the claims are justified by any facts.

Hacker news engages in ideological vetting against users. For example, try posting content encouraging violence.

HN only (lazily) filters content. It doesn't engage in ideological vetting, and doesn't need to either.

A good amount of the commenters on this story probably would encourage violence, or at least agree with the sentiment on a different platform, yet here they are. I'm not even sure if they're real people or bots.

We are having a discussion right now that would not be allowed if there was vetting.

Ideologically vetting can mean a lot of things. Like, a sign on the door that says "NO TERFS" is a form of ideological vetting.

By this logic any right wing message board would be designated terrorists the moment one person who has posted there commits a violent act.

This is meant to chill domestic left-wing activism. Just like the person who got 30 years for delivering some zines (https://freedom.press/issues/texas-man-sentenced-to-30-years... https://portside.org/2026-06-25/injustice-how-leftist-zines-...)

From my reading of their policy they do not claim to be neutral:

> To be hosted on our servers you have to share our principles of anti-fascism, anti-racism, anti-sexism, anti-homophobia, anti-transphobia, and anti-militarism

It is the first line of https://www.inventati.org/who/policy

I'm not familiar with A/I, but I'm familiar with americans, and they look completely ridiculous talking smack about others doing allegedly "bad things". And they have no defense about supporting war criminals or genocidaires.

What if "ideological vetting of users" means "discarding those who you believe would use the services for purposes you loathe".

Unfortunately I can no longer take any official communication from my government at face value. They have lost my trust that they are operating as directed by the letter of the law without fear nor favor.

Like trying to scrutinize the motives of a complete lunatic.

Here’s the thing though: if even some of the examples given in the state department page are true (some of them are rather silly), that A/I knowingly provided services to groups that verifiably did some rather violent things they are accused of, I’m not sure how they expected to hide behind their mission.

My impression is that they didn’t say “hey we don’t have customer information but we don’t service violent groups and we will responsibly investigate and discontinue service to offenders.”

Their vibe was much more defiant, like, “we designed this to be anonymous and specifically intend/expect for it to be used in any way regardless of legality and are okay with it.”

Is it right for the US to be the global arbiter of this issue and domains in general? Of course not.

> “we designed this to be anonymous and specifically intend/expect for it to be used in any way regardless of legality and are okay with it.”

That is also what Signal does. Or absolutely any end-to-end encrypted communication service at all - these are explicitly designed not to retain details of communication.

Do you want to declare them terrorists too?

in interviews, they said if you give them examples of "xyz" is prohibited by applicable law, they would remove it. They would not help you spy on them probably, by backdooring their infra or sth.

> A/I knowingly provided services to groups that verifiably did some rather violent things they are accused of

If that's disqualifying, a lot of US government contractors are in trouble.

"violent" is used many times in this announcement, but it would seem that one of the most violent entity in the world right now are the US? Also, it's so weird that "antifa" (antifascists) has become a bad thing. If antifa is bad then it must mean "fa" is good? So we should bring back the Nazis?

The "Western hemisphere" (which, of course, is neither) tolerates the US and the way it enforces its decisions outside its own borders, because it used to provide some assurance of stability and protection. But as the US rescinds that policy, weakens Nato, declares a tariffs war to every country on earth, etc., there will be less and less justification as well as, probably (hopefully) less and less public acceptance for any of this posturing.

> one of the most violent entity in the world right now are the US?

always has been

e.g., https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SG0Ql0VfcRg

I too find it really weird. My grandpa was a member of a violent antifascist organization (US Army, 1940s). The US government even awarded him multiple medals for his antifa activities.

The Fa has taken over the US government.

> A/I’s cadre of radical hackers and tech developers provide a full spectrum of services

Pun intended?

> ERR_UNEXPECTED_PROXY_AUTH

Basically, far right extremists targeting antifascists through mechanisms of political repression while having the gall to call themselves pro free speech.

Why is this downvoted? The regime has openly declared that anti-fascist beliefs are now cause for surveillance, censorship, and persecution.

https://www.kenklippenstein.com/p/trumps-nspm-7-labels-commo...

Most of this has me rolling my eyes (“cadre of radical hackers”? really?), but this part is interesting:

> The A/I Collective… manually vets all potential users for ideological affinity before granting them access to its infrastructure.

What is the truth behind that? Such behaviour would undermine A/I’s claim they are akin to Gmail if they explicitly are not a neutral ISP. After that, it becomes a question of degrees: what were their specific criteria for access to the platform?

Asking out of genuine curiosity. I wasn’t familiar with this group before today.

This is exactly the problem they ran into.

A lot of the state department’s claims of “violent groups” are BS but it also seems like a non-zero number of them are pretty violent organizations.

There’s a big difference between “we have designed our devices to be zero-knowledge but we act swiftly against violent/illegal activity if it’s discovered” versus “we actively endorse the views of our user base.”

For people wondering what types of organizations A/I was providing services to, you can explore the blogs that A/I hosted by using DataRepublican's database that was scraped from the NoBlogs platform.

https://datarepublican.com/noblogs/

There's a "Dashboard" view in the top right that is easier to skim.

So the oppression does work. It won't stop.

"In this political climate, continuing to offer our services endangers our users and anyone who is part of our communities"

This is true in Italy, the United States, Russia, China, and with yesterday's victory of AfD in Sachsen-Anhalt I see the trajectory of it becoming true in Germany too very soon.

And a lot of the comments in this so-called community of so-called hackers are very disheartening, have any of you even read the Hackers Manifesto? Are you just going to shut your eyes in front of the evidence, as long as your pockets and bellies are full?

> History shows that people always choose convenience over autonomy.

The mere fact that revolution exists disproves this statement.

It only proves just how hard people’s lives were in order for them to prefer actual revolution over the status quo.

Well, you can interpret revolution as happening only when convenience breaks down too much.

We must all fight for independent hosting or we will lose the right.

Punish those trying to stop it by coming back stronger. Spin up in a few new countries if you have to.

Friends and I have been giving out free shell accounts, service hosting, and mentorship for anon randos for over 25 years. Apparently this makes us cyber-terrorists. Neat!

We have had our infrastructure taken from us many times, and quickly come back online, often in a new country, every time.

Looking forward to 25 more years of people trying to kill us. Every attempt makes us stronger and smarter.

>Sorry, but we don’t accept Bitcoin.

https://www.inventati.org/donate

Should have focused on Monero donations from the get-go. Banks are a plague. Like what is a group like this using banks for or at least diversifying??

It's like choosing not to use E2EE.

It's not even left political groups that get debanked or screwed—it's everyone often.

Even GrapheneOS, but intelligently, they use crypto heavily:

>Unfortunately, PayPal permanently locked our GrapheneOS Foundation account today. No reason has been provided for the account being locked. All we've done is accept donations. We added our bank account information yesterday in order to begin withdrawing money and it was locked.

https://xprivate.lol/GrapheneOS/status/1684663777273233408

https://xprivate.lol/GrapheneOS/search?f=tweets&q=Pay+monero...

The problem with repression is not financial. Since A/I's goal was never to make profit, Bitcoin can't do anything to help them.

Not surprising. Far-leftists tend to be ideologically opposed to Bitcoin. They say so themselves: "Bitcoin are an investment fund pump & dump done to dupe the ultra-libertarian anarco-capitalists."

Love these people and what a powerful message

If anyone from A/I is reading this know you always have a place to stay/eat if you need it

> We are stopping, but the Resistance and ideas do not stop. Stay human.

How will that be if the resistance is not visible to the public. What are all the people using their services supposed to do? I’m guessing there are plans to reform in a few years. Why is the Italian government not protecting them?

Resistance and revolution happened before the internet. People have become lazy and complacent, and want their resistance served up over the wire. Thats not how real resistance happens, but it does make people feel like they are doing something, sucking up their energy while the biggest impact is TikTok memes, the modern version of the sternly worded letter.

This is exactly where the power structures want the struggle to be , online, with no real consequences that matter.

The best thing that could happen to the internet and society would be that it would be absolutely illegal to post anything inciting resistance or change of any kind on the internet.

Then, the resistance would go back to being real people in real rooms, secrets and whispers and actual plots to effect change in society for a more equitable and prosperous human future.

Because that’s how real change takes place. The powerful don’t try to make change by posting on instagram. (Advertisement and PR of course, but it’s not the organizational nexus) they gather in conference rooms, talk in person, and have social gatherings where they decide your future.

When they do use the internet to coordinate, it’s not in public forums, it’s encrypted communications, targeted and limited in scope.

The internet is useful, of course, and encrypted communication in private groups, even darkweb resources. But thinking you can use the official structure of the internet (public domain infrastructure, dns, walled gardens) as a primary means of subverting the dominant paradigm is foolish at best, suicidally counterproductive on the normative.

The internet was once subversive in and of itself. It no longer is. Now you’re just wearing signs at the mall.

The revolution thrives underground, not out in the open.

A caveat: people would have to be talking to each other to talk about resistance to each other. They don't.

Underground resistance forms out of existing "underground" social networks - social clubs, friends, people who know each other through any means. There's no longer any underground socialising at scale. We use the internet for it, where talk of resistance is strictly banned.

Even when you talk offline it's monitored. If you talk in the vicinity of an LG TV, it's converting your speech to text and uploading it to their servers, ostensibly for AI training.

>Why is the Italian government not protecting them?

The Italian police wiretapped them for one year without them knowing.

> wiretapped them for one year

Can you share the source? I don't have it.

Note: one big issue in the whole event is that this prosecution is happening without a transparent judgement.

Did they prosecute? Or did they investigate and find nothing wrong ?

I take it as, talk to people in real life and don’t rely on systems that can be shut down.

It should be noted that this is a very sensible thing to say even if you are not stopping; the only case where you cannot say this is if you are carrying on with the same branding, which is typically necessary if you are carrying forwards funds (which have been seized) or brand recognition (which may not be important for a group who focuses on interpersonal relationships).

The Italian government is also a far-right government like the US, so is aligned in wanting to suppress left-wing views.

Bring evidence that the actions of the two are really comparable. Surprise us (it will take some effort).

You go offline. Paper flyers and meetings are much more effective anyway.

It is also not like Palestinian activism is blocked on X, despite people here saying that only Nazis are on X and everything is censored:

https://x.com/intifada

Controlled opposition is sometimes allowed on X.

Can just rename themselves into I/A. “A/I? That’s shut down. We are not affiliated with them…”

Possibly. The content can be saved and posted on a variety of other platforms.

While this is very heavy handed censorship, there are plenty of ways around it.

Hopefully riseup can pick up some of the slack here, but more decentralized services are needed.

Are there interesting approaches to the problem? Tor comes to mind but that's not really accessible for readers

I hereby designate the US dollar the currency of an international terrorist organization

What did they do??

Sounds like providing encrypted communications?

I think we can all see the potential problems with this, even if a specific group is awful.

“The specific claim: a far-left media group that describes itself as a “tool” for militants to share information “to be acted upon” used A/I’s services to publish communiqués and calls to action for U.S.-designated terrorist groups, including FAI/FRI, the IRGC, Hamas, Hizballah, ELN, NPA, PFLP, and PIJ. That same media group was cited in a federal complaint against a domestic terrorist sentenced to 19 years for attacking a federal building and a police car with IEDs.”

That's what the USA alleges. There is no evidence of any of this is true, and the USA is known to be a habitual liar and a terrorist state itself.

> Hizballah

Is that Hezbollah's little brother?

The "terrorist" definition is just anybody that doesn’t agree with this administration at this point.

They will fabricate anything to justify their thinly veiled intentions.

This isn't new, it changed after 9/11. The US government expanded the definition of terrorism to pretty much mean anything they want.

If I was someone who funded/relied on A/I's services I would have been trying to figure out what would it had taken for the US State Department to produce evidence for their allegations and would have lobbied for some sort of determination of whether the scope of A/I's involvement with said parties and their actions violated their own policies/terms of service.

Otherwise there is a way to look at this as A/I getting away scot-free for failing to administer their policies, failing to hold bad actors accountable and ultimately letting down individuals and organizations who lawfully used their services.

I'm also not surprised that A/I themselves never anticipated something like this happening and did not have some sort of protocol in place to deal with it. They had 25 years to do so.

Political risk becoming infrastructure risk ; aservice can be viable technically and still disappear when the institutional environment changes

What does it means?

The US government designated a long-running web/email hosting services collective that served political dissidents as a terrorist organization.

https://www.state.gov/releases/office-of-the-spokesperson/20...

It means the government won.

It's interesting how a terrorist organization is now labeling others terrorists. This is how far we've come.

This is unfortunately nothing new. The hegemonic power defines resistance to it as criminal, terrorist, immoral, heathen, satanic, reactionary etc.

What is this nonsense even about? Site I’ve never heard of making bombastic claims without any citations. Can someone please provide context and sources? Because this looks like a hoax or something?

Edit: just so we are clear, I’ve no idea what A/I is, the linked page gave no details, nor do the current top comments. The current top comment is rambling about free shell accounts and stuff. The ones I read after that were mourning the loss of this mysterious site/service/something. Does anyone want to clueinthe rest of us?

I think everybody should read the two Economic Hitmen books by John Perkins.

So I guess they just relaunch under a different name ?

And break everyone's e-mail address in the process? It is not a trivial step to migrate to a new domain an e-mail account that had been active for decades.

The U.S. government’s track record is concerning. After their actions against AntifaOst, numerous NGOs, such as 'Die Rote Hilfe,' were stripped of their banking access in Europe.

I also oppose fascism, militarism, racism, sexism, homophobia, and transphobia, like what A/I do... And none of that is illegal... At least not in any civilised society. So what did they do to trigger so many? I remember the Norwegian stuff (since I’m Norwegian), and I remember thinking it sounded like bullshit to copy their entire server drive when they wanted access to the blog of two people.

From what I could gather, it seems various governments accused them of deliberately providing infrastructure to groups whose violent activities they supported, such as the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), with communications associated with railway sabotage, attacks on energy infrastructure and the “Jane’s Revenge” arson campaign (whatever the hell that is).

Here’s a snippet I found on the net: "Italian police installed a server backdoor in 2004 during an investigation into the anarchist collective Crocenera. It was discovered in 2005. According to contemporary EDRi reporting, the access potentially exposed communications belonging to thousands of unrelated users; EDRi explicitly noted that actual collection of unrelated data had not been proven. EDRi’s contemporary report"

Huge disclaimer on this, since it’s just my musings: This might be one of the situations where both sides are in the wrong. It’s possible that A/I willfully turned a blind eye to actual illegal activity by its users, and refused to cooperate with legal investigations. At the same time, various governments, including mine, overreacted and behaved unethically and maybe even illegally because A/I “didn’t want to play ball.”

Just speculation. But the fact that I can’t easily find concrete examples of what A/I supposedly did wrong makes me inclined to feel sympathy for them. I hate unspecific allegations like “facilitation of problematic and terroristic-adjacent activities.” That’s some 1984-ish bullshit.

I have no clue what I’m talking about here, though. Strange situation and too little information...

https://www.state.gov/releases/office-of-the-spokesperson/20... This designation offers some specific examples of violence being coordinated using their systems. Some are indeed extreme, if true. That doesn’t invalidate their mission or overall contribution to the world at large; it just was sufficient ammo for extinguishing another threat to power.

This does not show what they (A/I) did. The only concrete examples are of bad behavior by some users. Then there’s a bunch of generic claims against A/I, with NO specifics.

So, yeah, it might be true. But I find no concrete examples of what bad stuff A/I themselves did, just their users. Personally, I would like for there to be at least SOME concrete examples. Like, “This convicted terrorist had a blog on their infrastructure, and A/I refused to hand over data they had, even when presented with a valid court order.” Or something like that. Is it too much to ask that the government provide some concrete evidence, not just abstract vage accusations, when doing something as drastic as designating someone a terrorist organization? It would seem so...

This is a knock on the state.gov item, not your comment. Your comment was good.

> https://www.state.gov/releases/office-of-the-spokesperson/20... This designation offers some specific examples of violence being coordinated using their systems

All that demonstrates is that they operated a public email/messaging server. One could have coordinated the exact same things using ProtonMail or Signal.

I note that that extensive list only contains a single death, due to a power failure. Extreme civil disobedience, but not really terrorism.

> “That doesn’t invalidate their mission or overall contribution to the world at large;”

Give me a break. Ends to not justify all means. This is a completely appropriate response by the state department.

> And none of that is illegal... At least not in any civilised society

I mean, the capitalist system is a barbaric system with defenders that do make opposition illegal...

Yeah, but there are degrees. I’d rather have a conversation about trans rights here in Oslo than in Afghanistan.

You're right, of course, but you're on a website of a VC firm.

> Every day we stayed online after August 26, 2026, has been a victory, but now we are forced to stop.

Sad to see big bro tech and AI skynet is winning the war.

So, in 2021-2022 I publically called the See I Ayyy terrorists and advocated against accounts that algorithmically looked to astroturf or divide people on Instagram.

They showed up as actors in my commune where I lived (it was open-to-join, that was the mistake I made among being naive publically thinking truth prevails). I found after that the many past abuses of our government have not stopped and simply adopted to the modern age. Organizations whose interest it is to protect their shadow interests care not about what’s actually good for Americans, their interests are for maintaining status quo.

Status quo supports what - questioning AI and attempting to reverse the power structures or following along obediantly without question? I always wondered if my commentary led me to be put into a database of some kind. After Formerly holding a clearance, and letting it lapse, I’m recently reapplying and let’s see if “calling a government organization a terrorist org” discounts me from that. After reading the article I wouldn’t be surprised if like school yard bullies a leader in the orgs with power respond to viral accusers by marking them in a database as terrorists. Edit; please don’t accuse me of having mental health issues, I’m fine and I am working with my senators office and a “investigatory” agency to look into the abuses. I don’t yet feel hopeful the 3 petter org will reveal anything tho about my case due to security reasons.

A DNS alt-root and something like x402 would fix this

I still think a decentralized DNS alternative could scale, if done the right way. I also think that the majority of sites would be more secure if they used a system like ssh to deal with certificates, and government-controlled trust chains should be left for banking and other "official" stuff.

I'm working on something like this with Dap[1] (full disclosure, I used to be heavy into the Handshake[2] ecosystem). Where previous alt-roots failed is having nothing to build on it. Lots of marketing about how "things will be different" this time while providing nothing in the way of getting developers building experiences atop this new naming system.

Claiming your root is more secure isn't enough, what can people DO with it and WHY should they care? I've ranted enough about this to deaf ears over a half decade to no avail. Even if Dap doesn't end up being the first credible alt-root, I do hope something appears and is not immediately linked to (objectively) illegal/evil activity.

   [1]: https://dap.sh
   [2]: https://handshake.org

When radical right wing groups get whacked, everybody celebrates (as we should). But when radical left wing groups suffer the same fate, we should be crying?

Hmm, I would have expected more outrage from the US "free speech absolutists" over this US government decision ;)

This is such a small blip in all the crap this administration is perpetrating that most are probably not aware of it or are drowned out in the rage over inflation, tariffs, wars, immigrants, etc.

They shut down basically the entire global left wing blogging space since this group was hosting it.

I'm a free speech absolutist (albeit one of apparently few people who actually knows what "free speech" is [0]) and I'm absolutely outraged and infuriated by this action and a long history of anti-speech actions by the USG, though this particular Administration is unprecedented in terms of censorship, general evil and authoritarianism in modern history. I also think it's unfortunate how many people in favor of all sorts of censorship now attack stawmen and treat something so vitally important as a joke like you have. The unseriousness you treat something incredibly serious with has become an endemic problem in our society, and directly inspires nihilism/fatalism/tribalism etc, feelings which in turn directly support authoritarianism.

----

0: For example, if HN bans you, shadowbans you, makes your posts dead by default, flags, or downvotes, that's all free speech.

I am not sure I see a fundamental distinction between HN censoring your speech on their platform or the government preventing you from speaking in public. Both are censoring you right? Is the difference the fact that HN is free to regulate its own platform as it wants to?

For a large part I see people using digital platforms as a primary method of expressing their thoughts and opinions. Governments in both the US and the EU have imposed restrictions on what platforms may host. I think we have not reconciled yet how to reinterpret free speech online.

Im no expert on free speech, of free speech absolutism, so please let inform me :)

> The unseriousness you treat something incredibly serious with has become an endemic problem in our society

Testosterone down 50% since 1970.

Childishness up slightly more than that.

Did you really though? I never understood the "free speech absolutists" to care about speech they disagreed with. They made it clear that they only accept "patriotic" speech a long time ago.

That much was obvious for a long time to anyone paying attention. But I honestly believe that their success at newspeak-ing so many concepts was one of the final nails in America's coffin.

I hope I'll live until their fascist phase ends & historians can properly investigate all the immoral and illegal ways they've been influencing the population. My prediction is that they've scaled Cambridge Analytica to a level that'll make you sick.

I hate to see this strawman every single time there is an attack on free speech. You are actually mocking the fight for free speech. You aren't attacking the hypocrites that only use it when convenient.

The only purpose this rhetoric serves is to justify using the power of government to silence opponents the next time your side happens to be in power.

I think the ability for good concepts to be "tainted" by the opposition is the most dangerous manifestation of tribalism/group think, in modern society.

Did you catch the part where A/I Collective is operated by foreign parties outside the US?

Funny, the same US "free speech absolutists" get upset about "censorship" outside the US (mostly in EU countries) all the time, so it would be completely on point.

If you believe in civil liberties as rights and ideals, your belief shouldn't stop at borders.

So free speech absolutists don't care about free speech, just free speech for americans on american soil? Not very absolutist then...

The US free speech advocates had plenty to day about Julian Assange, an Australian stuck in the Ecuadorean embassy all the way across the Atlantic.

"Italian neckbeard collective declared terrorist organization by Donald Trump" - what a world we live in.

Another reason why EU should be independant of US. Cloudflare never had this kinda of bs...

2 different rules it seems.

I am first hearing about this group today, but here is some context:

https://www.state.gov/releases/office-of-the-spokesperson/20...

Apparently they provide the digital infrastructure for violent Antifa cells and because of a 9/11 related executive order, the A/I is able to be branded a sponsor of terrorism.

I guess this makes it a crime to give them money or provide aid to them (if you are a US citizen).

EDIT: who is downvoting and why? The 2nd sentence in the PR says "Autistici/Inventati (A/I Collective) is an Italy-based extremist group that builds and operates the digital infrastructure for violent Antifa cells and other far-left militants across the world" Are you mad that I quote the article or mad that you disagree with Trump? In either case, why are you downvoting me exactly? I am genuinely curious.

More boogie man bullshit from our fascist admin.

> from our fascist admin

In what way is Trump socialist? Even if you think he's trying to reduce the US to one race (presumably one of the European nationalities? Which is insane to think on its own), he's actively opposed to socialism and generally opposed to government control of industries. People using the term fascism have no idea what it actually means.

I think people are downvoting you for several reasons:

- Taking administration propaganda pieces at face value (such as the batshit insane page you linked to)

- Referring to "violent antifa cells". That's the spin Trump has been trying to put on the groups of people who have been resisting fascism. (Do you know what "antifa" stands for?)

Thanks for explaining, I will work on my approach, I didn't think I said anything that presented I agree with or believed the PR, only that it was context for why the A/I situation.

Yes I am well aware of what antifa means.

One can be anti-fascist and violent. https://www.splcenter.org/resources/reports/better-way/

> In a world where allegations are disconnected from reality, we can only expect repression to be increasingly disproportionate.

At the very beginning of his first mandate, when he lied about something as trivial as the size of the crowd during his inauguration, and kept to his lies despite absolute evidence to the contrary, never showing any hesitation, second thoughts, or remorse, Trump showed everyone the way ahead.

Do not look at facts. Decide what you want to be true, and act like it is true. Do this every day of every year. In the beginning, people will object; do not get into a debate with them, rather continue making up lies, bigger ones.

I remember seeing videos of a tsunami for the first time. I imagined a huge wave that destroyed everything. It was nothing like that. It started slowly. The water level rose, a few waves went over a wall and onto streets, But the water kept coming, and coming, destroying everything that stood in its path, and in a matter of minutes it was the ocean where before there was a city.

I fucking hate the US so much

Yet another example of the troubling amount of power the United States holds over the internet and global finance.

I really worry about the future of free and open expression over the next few years.

America hate thread?

No. America hate anti-fascism.

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