Earlier:
US Government designates host of noblogs.org a "global terrorist" - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49464391 - (131 comments)
US sanctions Italian hosting provider Autistici Inventati - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49451343 - (219 comments)
Everyone’s missing the big picture here which is that this targeting of infrastructure providers as “terrorists” is unprecedented and concerning: https://decode39.com/16319/autistici-inventati-case-sets-a-n...
If a radical group sets up shop on I2P, are I2P users and devs now terrorists? This is a problem.
What about Monero users/devs? Veilid? Tox? Signal?
> Only months after Paranoia [their first server] went online, the G8 came to Genoa. Many A/I participants were also involved with Indymedia Italy. They helped construct the movement’s media center, laying cables, configuring servers and building workstations through which protesters could report what was happening across the city. What followed was historic: enormous demonstrations, the police killing of Carlo Giuliani, indiscriminate beatings in the streets, torture and abuse inside the Bolzaneto barracks and the nighttime raid on the Diaz school. Official narratives competed with photographs, recordings and firsthand testimony transmitted through independent infrastructure. Genoa became one of the earliest major demonstrations to be documented from nearly every direction by its participants rather than exclusively through institutional media.
https://cavallette.noblogs.org/2026/08/10083/2
Very curious. My latest submission is the video of Larry Ellison with the "The police will be on their best behavior[,] Citizens will be on their best behavior because we're constantly recording and reporting everything that's going on". (It was triggered by a piece on TheOnion.)
Turns out, other people had been recording events, so that a covering narrative may not prevail over the truth.
There is also an article on we will free us [1] if you want to dive deeper into that rabbit hole.
[1] https://www.wewillfreeus.org/the-server-called-paranoia-defe...
The article is quite long, but these two give a brief idea of what is going on:
a) According to that article, what it seems they are about:
> Its manifesto describes the project in explicitly political terms. A/I is antifascist, anti-capitalist and antimilitarist. It promotes free software, encryption, pseudonymity and the independent circulation of knowledge and cultural work. It reserves its limited, volunteer-run resources for people and projects broadly compatible with those principles rather than businesses, political parties, organized religions or institutions already possessing the means to make themselves heard.
b) And the issue U.S. has with them:
> The United States alleges that A/I supplies specialized digital architecture, encrypted communications and hosting to antifascist groups and other radical movements, including organizations already designated by the United States.
Just a helpful reminder that "antifascist" just means communist.
Not at all. The Republican party loves to throw both labels at anything it doesn't like, but most people who are against fascism are not communists.
Most people who label themselves anti-fascists are, though.
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Looks like you missed it when the US did this exact thing a year ago
https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/2025/09/desi...
A tactic of certain "anti-fascist" groups is to simply call anyone they don't like fascist and attack them. Just like actual fascists used to excuse violence as "anti-communist".
Claiming to be anti-fascist doesn't actually make them anti-fascist nor excuse them from breaking laws.
You have been played. One might be thinking that anti-fascist means you are against fascism. But in reality the tactics and goals these people have are exactly the same as German and Italian fascist used
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So preposterous that the UK also labeled at least one of the organizations they provided material support to a proscribed terrorist organization?
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> "oh, you're drowning?? but you're IN WATER.."?
I laughed so hard at that. Best argument is good argument but funny.
FYI the comic character saying “Yet you participate in society! Curious!” is meant to be ridiculed, not emulated.
Yet you participate in communism. Curious!
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Sure, there are examples like that in any large enough group. The folks who stormed the capitol on January 6th should still be in jail too. Breaking laws usually yields punishment under said laws (unless you support or in the good graces of the current president). Labelling broad swaths of people who protest your agenda and don't like your masked goons killing and kidnapping people in their communities terrorists is a gross abuse of power.
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OKRainbowKid asked if antifascism is an extreme movement.
xienze said that an organization which defines itself as antifascist COULD be extreme.
You're asking for a definition of terrorism so you can say that A/I is not a terrorist organization. But that's not what's being argued.
xienze is saying that antifascists CAN be terrorist, not that all of them are. For example, the Red Army Faction committed numerous terrorists acts: bombings, kidnappings, murders. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_Army_Faction#Criminal_acts
OKRainbowKid, of course, started from a false premise that "antifascists" are being persecuted because they're against "fascism".
Anti-fascist isn't a group, it's an adjective.
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Is there any indication or proof that they are providing services to PKK? Equating supporting protest organizers in the west with supporting an armed terrorist group is laughable and dangerous.
Having "pro-PKK views" (or for other groups designated as terrorists for that matter) is not against the law in the US as that is a first amendment right (as long as that speech is not support).
>[The US State Dept's] examples include alleged railway and pipeline sabotage in Europe, attacks on energy infrastructure, Rose City Antifa, resistance to Atlanta’s proposed police-training center, Jane’s Revenge and publications carrying statements attributed to armed organizations.
At least one of these things is not like the others. Why are peaceful protests against "Cop City" (Atlanta's proposed police-training center) lumped in with violent attacks on infrastructure? This isn't the first time either - Samuel Tunick, the man who was charged with destruction of evidence for giving his duress pin to the CBP agents, was being investigated for his connection to the Cop City protests.[1]
And as others have said, what does it say about the current US admin that they are designating "anti-fascist" groups as terrorists? I will say, at least unlike Cop City protests afaik, Rose City Antifa seems willing to use violence to accomplish their goals.[2]
[1]: https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2026/jul/23/cop-city-pro...
[2]: https://rosecityantifa.org/articles/statment-on-strategy-and...
> what does it say ... that they are designating "anti-fascist" groups as terrorists?
it says that these so-called 'anti-fascist' groups are good at branding themselves?
Anyone can start a group and call it "Anti-Fascist" but it's silly to suggest that opposing that group means you're a fascist. Maybe you don't like their methods. Maybe you think they're full of shit in who they choose to oppose. Or maybe they do commit crimes and you call them criminals.
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> violent attacks
> on energy infrastructure
that's not violence
When it's -30c outside and your house hasn't had heating for days, you might disagree.
Seems like this should be a/the top level link
I clicked around a bit, read the manifesto, I still have no idea what these people do. I guess they claim to have been around for a while, but a bunch of the links don't work and the manifesto has definitely been updated to reflect 2026 opinions.
What is this?
The "About" page seems fairly clear:
> A/I was born over 20 years ago to provide internet support (through website hosting, e-mail accounts, mailing lists, chat, blogs, and much more) to activists and collectives coming from the world of grassroot and social movements.
The very first sentence on their about page says they "provide internet support (through website hosting, e-mail accounts, mailing lists, chat, blogs, and much more) to activists and collectives coming from the world of grassroot and social movements"
It also says their manifesto was written in 2002.
You can use the Wayback machine to see older versions.
For what it's worth, the people I have known personally who talk like this don't actually do very much except talk like this. Then again, they have never been sanctioned by a government.
i thought the page says it pretty clearly.
they are a group of people providing services to activists. services include email, web hosting, chat, and other anonymity services. (see https://www.inventati.org/services/)
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They host blogs and email used by many activists.
including the noblogs site which is used by many anarchist, anti-fascist, anti-imperialist, etc groups
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Maybe a honeypot?
Most likely a honeypot.
It is intentionally vague. From the State Dept:
> The A/I Collective exclusively offers its tools and services to radical left-wing actors and manually vets all potential users for ideological affinity before granting them access to its infrastructure.
I don't trust the US State Department to tell the truth. At this point, it's like citing a Wikipedia edited entirely by bad faith actors.
In this case the US State Department is accurately reciting what this organization says about itself openly: https://www.inventati.org/about
> I don't see anything wrong with that.
Did I say there was something wrong with that? No. Let me repeat what I said: "In this case the US State Department is accurately reciting what this organization says about itself openly". Do you disagree with this statement?
Did you click on https://www.inventati.org/about ? (I also tried reading the manifesto first.)
From it:
> We support individuals, collectives, communities and groups whose political and social activities fit within this worldview and who share with us some fundamental principles: anti-fascism, anti-racism, anti-sexism, anti-militarism
I suspect they have some "not mainstream" political views; although I think understanding what these views are requires more in-depth reading of the blogs that they host.
Yeah, that says pretty much nothing about what they do. It reads like an enterprise tech company webpage saying "we provide solutions to help transform your company into the digital age".
Solutions to help individuals live through the digital age. Very different - for-profit vs for-survival (etc.).
Will you just click the link? It's like 2 paragraphs and the very first sentence says they "provide internet support (through website hosting, e-mail accounts, mailing lists, chat, blogs, and much more) to activists and collectives coming from the world of grassroot and social movements"
How much more specific can you get?
> some "not mainstream" political views
I would say they are pretty "mainstream" (or very widespread) in some territories. I have seen bartenders wearing those 'anti-' terms on their t-shirts at work.
Anti-fascism, anti-racism, anti-sexism, and anti-militarism?
Good?
> Good?
That will depend on what the bearers will want to mean with it, as usual.
> "not mainstream" political views
Yeah we should ban any non-mainstream political views and designate them as terrorist
It’s a sad day when antifascism is considered not mainstream
The US govt is trying to brand "antifascism" as a terrorist ideology. They host antifa stuff.
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Antifa is not one organization, that's ridiculous. It would be like claiming that "Anarchists" are a terrorist organization.
Ridiculous. I am anti fascist, and I have never heard of any of what you are talking about.
I oppose fascism.
That does not magically infuse into my brain mysterious connections to groups of people, nor instantaneous knowledge and mastery of tactics from nazi groups...
That would be actually kind of cool, but no, sorry to disappoint you.
The objection is the administration is inventing a group wholesale in order to designate those who oppose their policies as terrorists. The executive order can say whatever, that doesn't make it factual.
You link to that press release like it means something more than changing a lake's name by fiat.
Yeah, yeah, soon any opposition to Trump or Israel is deemed terrorist...
Autistici/Inventati is an Italian collective, active since around 2001, that runs free digital services for activists, grassroots groups and anyone who wants to communicate without being profiled.
It provides email accounts, mailing lists, blogs, websites, chat and VPN access.
Is it truly anyone, or only anyone that politically aligns with them?
Anyone that politically aligns with them. They say that explicitly:
> We support individuals, collectives, communities and groups whose political and social activities fit within this worldview and who share with us some fundamental principles: anti-fascism, anti-racism, anti-sexism, anti-militarism
They don't receive any money for this. It's 100% volunteer services.
You want them to be "held accountable" for supporting groups that don't align with the ideology of the US whitehouse.
Obviously not to fascists, and if you look at their website they make it very clear that you need to align ideologically and explain why and how you will use their services
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Do the US then also sanction themselves? Cause the numer of people they have killed in that region of the globe since 1984 easily exceeds that number by orders of magnitude.
And the platform hasn't done any killing. They merely provide email etc. Are we going to sanction road builders too because a murderer has driven on their road since 1984?
The US sanctions the PKK because we're obliged to do so by our NATO ally Turkey, which gave rise to the PKK by carrying out a genocide against its local Kurdish population.
Meanwhile the SDF, the armed wing of the PYD, follows the same ideology as the PKK and was trained in military tactics by the PKK, and was among our chief allies against ISIS. They fought alongside US soldiers and we even supplied them with small arms.
The history of the PKK is complicated and the state they struggle against has a long history of genocide and (more recently) outright dictatorship. The relation of these countries to the PKK isn't ultimately determined by the PKK's history, morality, ideology, or even the use of terrorist tactics per se.
If you're curious about the bigger picture, there's actually an organized movement whose aim is to "de-list the PKK" as a terrorist organization, and that's probably a good place to start: https://www.peaceinkurdistancampaign.com/activities/delist-t...
There are also some books and some academic papers on the history of the PKK and their ideology. Those written by independent academics are generally neither fully condemnatory nor exculpatory towards the PKK, but give a clear sense of how the term "terrorism" and its use is at least contestable, geopolitical, etc. And any familiarity at all with the history of the conflict makes it clear that the Turkish government is likewise guilty of state terror conducted against Kurdish civilian populations in Turkey for generations now.
that would technically fall under the definition of "anyone", yes...
it would be more reasonable, maybe, if the sanctions weren't primarily being used for the anti-encryption, anti-privacy crusade.
They should have hosted for Al Qaida and ISIS. Then they would have been invited to the White House and been sprayed with perfume by Trump:
https://www.israelhayom.com/2025/11/12/donald-trump-ahmed-al...
"Al-Sharaa, who until recently was known by his alias "al-Julani," was a longtime jihadist who was part of the ranks of organizations associated with al-Qaida and ISIS, and even orchestrated an attack against Israel – milestones that led to his designation as a "Specially Designated Global Terrorist" by the US, with a reward of approximately $10 million for information leading to his capture. President Trump decided to lift the sanctions on al-Sharaa, who has transformed into a political leader following the collapse of the Assad regime in December, when he assumed Syria's presidency as the leader of Hayat Tahrir al-Sham."
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This entire thread you’ve been talking about the PKK with very little evidence in support.
Is that more, or less, than the 1.2 million people Musk has killed so far with the illegal dismantlement of USAID? Musk aggressively advocates for the forcible ethnic cleansing of Europe.
I see people posting links to x.com which he uses to promote those views as well as platform other hate groups calling for violence and genocide against immigrants, trans people, etc.
Do acts gain moral validity under color of law alone?
Don't worry, the regime change part of USAID has been moved directly to Rubio in the State Department. Only the aid part has been removed.
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Does AWS do business with anyone? Like the Israeli government who has been labeled perpetrators of genocide by the UN ~1 year ago because they've killed tens of thousands in Palestine since 2023?
Well, the State Dept is anything but vague about its argument:
https://www.state.gov/releases/office-of-the-spokesperson/20...
"The A/I Collective exclusively offers its tools and services to radical left-wing actors and manually vets all potential users for ideological affinity before granting them access to its infrastructure. The group has become a key node in a transnational campaign by violent and criminal far-left networks to destabilize the United States and its partners across Europe, the Western Hemisphere, and beyond...."
"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."
Could the persons that mention the PKK all over this thread kindly find links now that noblogs.org is partly dysfunctional and autistici.org is down?
Google Search yields a very small amount of third party support for the PKK, all unreachable now.
I cannot find any evidence at all and neither can LLMs that this organization has ever directly supported the PKK or hosted a PKK website.
It can't be because of a PKK link because then the US would have to designate themselves as terrorist. They literally armed and supplied to YPG to fight ISIS. The Kurds proved to be the most effective at stopping ISIS
> We believe that this world is far from being the best world possible
This is like straight out of every evil villains mouth.
For those like me who don't have context, here is the New York Times article on this recent news / event
> The State Department on Wednesday designated three groups based in Europe, including two that advocate Palestinian rights, as transnational terrorist organizations.
> The move is part of the Trump administration’s fight against what it calls a “resurgence of far-left political terrorism” worldwide, a focus that many security experts say is disproportionate.
> In a statement, the department said that it would impose sanctions on Palestine Action, which is based in Britain and organizes acts of support for Palestinians and opposition to Israeli policies; Masar Badil, another pro-Palestinian group with branches in Western Europe and Canada; and Autistici/Inventati, known as A/I Collective, which is based in Italy and offers free digital tools to leftist activists around the world.
a/I collective in the OP is the third on this list.
> based in Italy and offers free digital tools to leftist activists around the world
Palestine Action has been designated a terrorist group in the UK as well after sabotaging military aircraft (the article says they sprayed paint, but does not say it was sprayed inside jet engines, rendering them inoperable). Masar Badil supports "armed struggle". One of the other groups ("hammer") recently designated a terrorist group (and linked to A/I Collective in another article I read ) got its name by attacking people in Germany with hammers.
Designating A/I Collective a terrorist group is different as it is not directly supporting violence, but it is providing free services to people who do, and it says it provides services to groups its aim is to "provide support exclusively to individuals or groups we feel we have an affinity with.". On the other hand their terms forbid "military use" which is broadly defined enough to rule out terrorism.
I think its likely they do have sympathy for violent groups, n the other hand, unless they have been going out of their way to support violence in some way I do not see reasonable grounds for banning them. Lots of commercial services have dodgy users. My fear is that is is heading in the direction of "if you do not hand info to the US authorities on demand you will be deemed a terrorist"
Here's my "nuanced" take: If a pro-zionist group were officialy designated as terrorists for spraying paint into a jet-engine I would find that ridiculous too.
Sabotage of military aircraft is political violence.
> I think its likely they do have sympathy for violent groups
The US regime is an extremely violent group, so I that's certainly the issue.
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Right. But when when a group blows up hospitals, schools and other infrastructure and murders 70,000 civilians (Israel)... Why is that not disignated terrorism?
But it’s okay when we do it.
More seriously though, there’s no reasonable comparison to be made between any western power and Iran, Russia, or (and especially) Hamas.
October 7th was beyond the pale. Systemic rape, torture, and terror used to be something reasonable people could agree to stand against.
I notice people always respond with "but the US does this too!" and never actual incidents. No, I'm not going to just high five your vague head nod at wrong doing you can't even describe.
Seriously, sit down, make a list of incidents, including weighing the outcome of those incidents. If it's a case where an officer or a soldier did something wrong, list what happened after (court, punishment, cleared of wrongdoing, etc)
Then do the same for your favorite alternate country that you think is superior. If you want to pick team Iran or Russia, then lay it out for them. Make the same list.
Spraying paint into the jet engine of a military aircraft is not "terrorism". It may be criminal, but it was not in any way a violent crime. Given that it disabled the aircraft, it counts as more than mere vandalism, but calling this an act of terror is outrageous.
The logic seems to be that Hamas has committed terrorist attacks against Israel, and is also the government of Palestine, so anyone fighting for the human rights of Palestinian people is actually materially supporting Hamas terrorism against Israelis. That does not really track if you know anything at all about what's going on in Palestine right now, or what people's actual criticisms of Israel are.
You have a very nuanced take that I broadly agree with. I would add that they were probably targeted for political reasons, it's not like the current administration is going out of their way to tackle right wing "terrorism".
> Palestine Action has been designated a terrorist group in the UK as well after sabotaging military aircraft (the article says they sprayed paint, but does not say it was sprayed inside jet engines, rendering them inoperable).
That pretty much tells you everything you need to know. Definitions of "terrorism" that extend to sabotage against occupying or invading militaries and their allies are meaningless and hollow dilutions. At that point the discourse has been reduced to something like "violence is scary".
This use is also interesting (and galling) because it frames disarming as an unacceptably violent act.
There are some definitions of terrorism that leave room to designate attacks against professional agents of state violence as "terror", e.g., attacks on soldiers who are off-duty, attacks on civilian police forces, attacks on nominally civilian intelligence organizations like the CIA, etc.
Imo such uses of the words "terror" and "terrorism" should be considered carefully, because sometimes they are meaningful or useful, but often they are essentially attempts to hoodwink the public. Effectively they are designed so that any attack against an occupying army by a faction too weak to muster a permanent standing army of equal strength falls into the "terrorism" category, which means invasion is "war" but resistance is "terrorism".
The notion of "civilian" or "non-combatant" isn't always straightforward, either. In the history of the PKK, for example, one of the "civilian" forces targeted by bombings and shootings were a local militia whose sole purpose was suppressing popular unrest among local Kurdish populations who were forbidden from speaking their own native languages, celebrating their holidays, etc. Formally these militias were not part of an army. But their scarcely concealed function was suppression of the local population, unlike (for example) a proper civilian police force whose role is at least nominally to promote public safety, assist vulnerable (weak, elderly, disabled) citizens with daily life, investigate crimes, mediate/de-escalate disputes, etc.
Anyway, it's worth sitting down and thinking through a few different serious definitions of terrorism and asking yourself what use they are. One or more definitions will likely stand out to you as particularly useful when it comes to thinking through things like the safety of innocents, the morality and bounds of acceptable political activism, and other topics that might directly affect your comfort and safety. You'll often find that governments and large press organizations try to trade on the emotional impact of those definitions while operating under rather different ones that are more convenient for themselves.
> Palestine Action has been designated a terrorist group in the UK as well after sabotaging military aircraft
This is already an extreme perversion of justice all on its own. Damaging military equipment is absolutely outside any useful definition of terrorism. This is simply armed conflict.
Damaging property for political ends has been part of the definition in the UK, and I think the US, for decades. I would say the case for targetting military equipment is stronger than for damaging most other things.
> This is simply armed conflict.
Armed conflict by residents and citizens against the state is usually a serious criminal offense everywhere.
Colinizers?
>any kind of property
"Any kind" is quite the load bearing argument there. Let me remind you Europe is under an ongoing land invasion, which is why fucking with its defensive capabilities is unlikely to solicit much sympathies.
> Armed conflict by residents and citizens against the state is usually a serious criminal offense everywhere.
I think it’s worth considering that you’re much more likely to be a resident or a citizen than a state when you’re deciding how you feel about these kinds of things.
You cannot hide behind convenience.
I suppose the UK could declare Palestine Action as combatants and hunt them down and shoot them.. but that doesn't seem very uh, appropriate. I sort of prefer them being arrested and going through courts.
> Damaging military equipment is absolutely outside any useful definition of terrorism.
I hope no one takes this seriously.
If you're caught sabotaging equipment on a US military installation in many cases they are authorized to use deadly force and you'll be held accountable under the UCMJ. The absolute best outcome is you're designated a terrorist and live to see a prison cell.
Terrorism used to be defined as attacking civilian targets to aid in political messaging.
Attacking military targets is somewhere between an insurgency, partisanism, or an armed conflict.
If we let terrorism mean “any act against the state”, then people who burn police cars are the same as people who plant bombs in shopping malls.
Are you sure you want to say it's armed conflict? That makes it legitimate to kill members of Palestine Action.
The labeling of groups as "terrorist" is intended to justify authorization for military action against those groups, where, prior to the Global War on Terror, state affiliation or outright sponsorship was typically needed for a military response.
I am not an expert on the legalities. My impression is that, if they are terrorists, you kind of have to catch them in the act, or preparing to act, or providing support for actions. An army, in wartime, can be attacked in broader circumstances.
Corrections welcome if I am wrong.
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Thank you! Kind of nuts they posted this with that title but no explanation.
Do I see "Free palestine" in the corner there?
I guess bombing them got some pushback.
Everyone's a terrorist nowadays.
In times like these...
seems like PIR (the .org registry) now also suspended their main domain: https://www.whois.com/whois/autistici.org (it is on serverHold)
Interesting to see that their most important domain, noblogs dot org, seems unaffected.
I think the registrar makes the difference: autistici.org was registered via Gandi, but noblogs.org registrar is Tucows Domains Inc., which points[1] to njal.la, an "offshore" domain hoster that should be more resilient, but isn’t really usable for email hosting, since domains at such a hoster will land on blacklists almost immediately.
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This administration is on a witch hunt for anything they can identify as "antifa" when no such central organization insists. Instead it's being used as an over broad label to attack organized opposition to it's broadly unpopular policy agenda.
(If you're opposed to antifascists what does that make you?)
> (If you're opposed to antifascists what does that make you?)
Smart enough to reject abusive little word games?
I see "fascism" and "antifascism" more like "matter" and "antimatter" - pretty much the same thing, just there's a violent reaction when the two collide.
This is a terrible take.
Were the Allied powers antifascist?
> (If you're opposed to antifascists what does that make you?
You cant judge a group by its name. Otherwise, Make America Great Again is great, the National Socialist German Workers' party seems fine, etc.
It's not an organized group. It's a label being used as a cudgel to attack anyone who doesn't like the current president (who also happens to have the world's most fragile ego/thinnest skin/whatever his soul crushing pathology actually is).
It's not a group. There are several smaller orgs that call themselves antifascist but there's no such centralized group or political structure. It's not even a specific ideology. It's just oppositional to fascism
Exactly. Antifa is short for "opposed to fascism". Which, you know, is the bad thing where you hurt a lot of people just because they are different from the "group" you defined, with the aim of spoliating the outsiders to enrich the members, or make them an inferior cast, etc...
Having to explain why fascism is to be fought against...
Ugh, what a world. Not even science-fiction writers dared to write such a nonsensical reality.
Nomenclature alone is meaningless. Is the Democratic People's Republic of Korea which professes anti-fascist messaging and motives both democratic and anti-fascist? I wouldn't assume every "antifa" group is principled and accurate in its diagnosis of what fascism is and who are acceptable targets for their outgroup directed aggression.
Perhaps not, but this administration is in no way principled or accurate in its diagnosis of anything so their labelling of any group doesn't deserve the benefit of the doubt.
NK is a dictatorship. I don't know where you got the misunderstanding that they would be "anti-fascist".........
Anti fascist => anti dictatorship.
Anti fascist means that you don't like fascism and that you are not going to let it happen passively.
(Tired of explaining the obvious. But I guess that somebody has to.)
A dictatorship mechanically leads to a situation where the governing group is working for their own wealth, thus in this case the "group" is the governing class. The extent and definition of that class is voluntarily limited so that wealth and power converges to them.
Now you see it? Yes that is a fascism, meaning that:
dictatorship => fascism
And the reverse stems from the "groupism" (i.e. tribalism) of fascism, which entails that you need exclude large portions of the population from the political system.
As this "group" definition becomes narrower and narrower (in order to make more wealth converge to the alleged "true humans" of its center), it becomes a harsher and harsher dictatorship, and finally a strongman regime.
fascism => dictatorship
And you are factually wrong.
You are probably thinking about the Communist factions among the Republican forces opposed to Franco.
ALL of the Republican factions were opposed to Franco and to fascism, not only the Communists.
And, besides, nobody was calling themselves "antifa" at that time, because that was damn obvious that if you were in the Resistance, you were opposed to that despicable tyrant. But they were absolutely anti fascists, all of them and not only the Communists.
What somebody says != what somebody does.
If somebody says something nice and does nothing, that's good.
If at the same time somebody does something bad, that's bad.
That does not remove the evaluation (nice or bad) of the speech alone.
Saying "I am against this thing that is objectively despicable" is GOOD.
So, saying to be anti fascist is good.
Saying to be anti fascist and doing fascist things is bad.
I don't know how much more obvious things I am supposed to explain...
I guess there is no limit to it.
You are assigning this magical reality and then getting mad about it.
Anti-fascists are not concerned with the magical weight of this in-group designation. They are concerned with all things non-fascist.
And if a Christian group is doing Demonic stuff that's a problem.
And seeing slop where there is not, you are being rude to me without purpose.
Not everybody is born in an English-speaking country.
I laid down the ideas logically, maybe that is what sounded foreign to you.
By the way you are the person writing nonsensical stuff such as "Antifa is a terrorist organization", while everybody is repeating tirelessly that it is just an adjective meaning to be opposed to fascism:
> when no such central organization insists
No any such organization exists. It is a movement, and a description one can describe one's self or actions: "anti-fascist".
But of course, their logic for sanctioning-by-association would mean that they all - Trump, Bessent, Rubio etc. - with their innumerable contacts with "violent terrorist groups and regimes" everywhere around the world, and just themselves really - should have been sanctioned, arrested, tried, or just disposed of like the US does with so many it dislikes.
Yes. The president fomented a violent insurrection and then pardoned its participants (who should all still be in prison). He shouldn't be in office and you could similarly sanction his own social media platform, X and any other number of their supporters.
Well, maybe that too, but I meant the Gaza genocide and the slaughter of civilians in Iran, Yemen, on Venezuelan boats etc.
Or the long tail of bodies that will come out of the USAID cuts.
> (If you're opposed to antifascists what does that make you?)
Communist parties around the world killed 80+ million civilians, and were also vehemently anti-fascist, will opposing that make you fascist?
While we're doing hypotheticals, what does Elon Musk's destruction of USAID and the downstream deaths resulting from it make him?
If someone is opposed to Communism they should oppose Communism, not anti-fascism. Seems pretty straightforward
Oddly the US is very cozy with some modern Communists!
Actual link: https://cavallette.noblogs.org/2026/08/10076
Title: A Statement by A/I Collective About US Sanctions
the group: https://web.archive.org/web/20260101085655/https://www.autis...
> A/I (Autistici/Inventati, pronounced [au’tistiʧi]-[iŋ’vɛntati], or [iŋvɛn’tati]) was born in 2001 from an encounter of individuals and collectives of the autonomous anticapitalist movement interested in technology and active in the digital rights struggle. We believe that this world is far from being the best world possible. We react by providing a platform and tools for digital self-defense addressing the need of free communication for activists and other individuals.
> All of our services are provided for free, without any form of control or commoditization of the personal user data. We don’t receive any form of compensation for our work. We are volunteers exploiting the experiences we accumulated over years of technological, political and legal research while doing radical activism, and we are motivated and inspired by the principles of solidarity and self organization.
From their about page:
> A/I was born over 20 years ago to provide internet support (through website hosting, e-mail accounts, mailing lists, chat, blogs, and much more) to activists and collectives coming from the world of grassroot and social movements. Our principles are fairly straightforward: the world should not be run on money, should be rooted in solidarity, community, mutual help, equal rights and freedom, and social justice. Easy, isn’t it? We support individuals, collectives, communities and groups whose political and social activities fit within this worldview and who share with us some fundamental principles: anti-fascism, anti-racism, anti-sexism, anti-militarism. On top of that, one has to share our basic attitude towards money and the capitalistic world: a deep feeling of uneasyness and unrest.
I'm bothered by their incorrect use of the root word 'autistic' - That's just a poor choice on their part. Very bad look.
Same. I wonder if there's something I don't understand here? But afaict it doesn't seem to involve autistic people in particular?
As far as I can tell, there were no credible criminal charges against this group, except that they are effective organizers on the opposite side of political spectrum. In the White House’s deranged logic, this qualifies them to be officially designated as domestic terrorists [1].
Can we all agree that this is an assault on the First Amendment?
[1] https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/2025/09/desi...
The first amendment only applies inside the US. The US is allowed to cancel the speech of foreigners.
And murder foreigners, of course. It's allowed in the Constitution!
Yes, which is why the 2013 drone strikes crossed a line by openly murdering Americans.
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That seems hugely speculative without any supporting evidence.
They didn't make it sound speculative. It sounded like they had the financial records and intelligence to back it up.
Whether this specific post is about Iranian connections to these groups, I don't know, but that's why I said assume for that aspect of it.
The comment got flagged though, which is good since it lets me know it's a sensitive issue. That tells me I should spread it 10x harder.
TIL people still assume.
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The biggest free speech violation I can imagine.
Related discussions:
US sanctions Italian hosting provider Autistici Inventati
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49451343
US Government designates host of noblogs.org a "global terrorist"
Don't worry guys, fascist are always looking out for free speech.
What was that...
muummuummmmemmmeuuuu...
BANG
Given administration's obsession with Antifa being in the room with them at all times, it's impossible to take anything they say in relation to this as even close to factual.
Keep in mind we're talking about communications services here, and one focusing on political speech at that.
"Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances."
In general I think the free lunch of centrally hosted services and persistent doxxable identities is nearing a close. It was inevitable that governments would meddle more, and more, and more - implicitly treating communications are something other than speech due to how encompassing the digital world has become - and now here we are.
There is the absolutely perfect Supreme Court case that ruled against your theory.
Holder v. Humanitarian Law Project https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/561/1
There is a law (18 U.S.C. § 2339B) that says you cant knowingly provide material support for designated foreign terrorist organizations. A law firm wanted to provide financial support and legal services to some, including the PKK (the same group A/I was accused of helping). They argued the federal law violated their first amendment rights.
The court concludes that the first amendment doesn't protect your ability to provide material support including services and communication equipment and the law still stands today.
Im curious. How would you argue the first amendment protects knowingly providing material support to designated foreign terrorist organizations?
Their infrastructure and services were used in domestic terrorist attacks on pregnancy centers in the United States, by the CHAZ operation in which two black teenagers were lynched, attempts to crash police helicopters, attempts to burn police officers alive.
Providing material support to perpetrators of these actions would go above "speech".
The current United States government is very keen on pushing the idea that there is a vast and shadowy international left-wing conspiracy waging war on it.
This is, to be clear, lying nonsense.
And despite it being transparent garbage, millions of Americans are eagerly lapping up Red Scare 2.0
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Google says the Chinese military budget is 281 billion. They probably get lower cost labor and production, but that’s significantly lower than the United States.
Adjusting for Purchasing Parity, an imperfect measure, that still only like 600 billion, significantly lower than the United States.
Vertical integration is an interesting claim, because we have been told that the government outsourcing to private companies is more efficient due to competition than the government doing the work themselves.
>shadowy
brother we're not discreet about it, the US is a stain on the world and the world would be more stable and better off if it disappeared, it is the biggest organizer of violence, arms dealing, murder, corruption and every single one of your leaders has been a scourge inflicted on the world. It's not a deep, hidden conspiracy.
It also turns out that only one side of these two has the means to wage war and is also the biggest arms dealer in the world. Bully gets called mean names, boo hoo :(
I don't know where to start. The US supported Saddam after his Iran invasion:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_support_for_Iraq...
Maybe read how de Gaulle viewed the US "promoting peace in Europe" or how the British did after the US stole the Suez canal and kicked the British out of the Middle East.
>World War 2
Do I need to remind you you _nuked_ a soon to be surrendering country for the lulz?
>Vietnam war
Lmao you've literally went in there because of your blind anti-communist behaviour after coup-ing your own "allies" of South Vietnam
>Korean War
True, not your fault, you just bombed an entire country into non existence.
>Iraq attack Iran
Lmao you gave Iraq billions of dollars in hardware through back channels to go around your own inclusion of Iraq as a backer of terrorism and encouraged Saddam Hussein to invade Iran
>Iran
You installed your own dictator and supported him in a coup because the prime minister of Iran wanted to have control over their own reserves. The fact that there's been an islamic revolution is direct blowback caused by your involvement.
>We have promoted peace in Europe through NATO
Peace in Europe exists because of the European union and because we've finally accepted to stop shooting at eachother. It was also the American government that pushed back against UN intervention during the Srebrenica genocide.
> We're trying to achieve a similar Europe-like stability in the Middle East
By spending hundreds of billions on a country that, since its inception, has continuously been at war, an aggressor, colonizing, genocidal theocracy? Working out GREAT.
>What country is it that you're defending
Watch out, your paranoia is seeping through. The US is a net negative to world peace is the only thing that was said.
>Oh no, it couldn't be Iraq. Maybe it's Iran! Do you want to go down the list of the kind of country Iran is? How about Afghanistan? North Korea?
While none of those countries are angels, and a lot of them are also victims of political power plays outside of their own control (hint: it involves the US being so violently anti-communist that it would rather raze a country to the ground rather than see its hegemony ever so slightly threatened), I would like you to remind you that none of these ever nuked a country twice. It's really hard to catch up to the US on the scale of atrocities committed.
I could also remind you of the dozens of dictatorships you've funded and supported in South America, the weapons selling to Iran, the ongoing involvement in the drug trade or the illegitimate embargoes.
>[free speech word vomit]
I don't particularly give a shit about American free speech when the US is, once again, the biggest source of political instability anywhere in the world. But I'm glad you can freely and openly support Nazis because freeze peach, it's made the world a lot better.
We've got a billionaire funded conspiracy openly ignoring the Constitution, wantonly trashing our American liberties, and yet you're still raging about "communist billionaires" ?
The politics of billionaires as a group is not leftism, nor is it rightism. The politics of billionaires is self-serving authoritarianism. From each camp, they pick the sides of issues that stand to increase their own power, taking stakes in them as if they are horses. They will gladly support woke groupthink as long as it's getting results, and then readily switch to supporting anti-woke groupthink when society has had enough and the winds shift.
The net effects from both phases are losses from our individual liberty, which have been accumulating for decades, and are presumably the source of your rightful anger. But please come to your senses!
> As for the constitution, they are surrounded by lawyers and if they overstep something, they back off. They are applying unitary executive theory as a solution to a slow congress to address the many critical issues facing the US in our time, one of which is demonstrating to China that we can act, which is one more element of deterrence to prevent them from starting World War 3.
The solution to save the country is to write off the Constitution in favor of "unitary executive theory" aka autocracy? Falling flat on our face in Iran creates a deterrent for China? I'm sorry, these are nothing more than partisan rationalizations.
FWIW I was right there with you regarding the woke groupthink of the past decade, but as I said the real issue is that the political winds have shifted, and unless you shift with them you go from speaking truth to power to simply speaking for power's new buntings. I completely understood a vote for Trump 2016, I was the weirdo telling my friends he was likely to win. But by 2020 it was clear that he had no actual substantive policy or leadership, just more division and "I don't take responsibility at all".
As I said, please come to your senses. You don't have to listen to my arguments (in fact you shouldn't, because what I said above aren't actually arguments - rather they're short blurbs to measure how far from centrist non-partisan reality you've gotten). But please listen to criticism from somewhere. Standing up for individual liberty in the face of tyranny is plain old-fashioned American, not woke.
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Links to the actual announcements of sanctions:
* https://home.treasury.gov/news/press-releases/sb0616/
* https://www.state.gov/releases/office-of-the-spokesperson/20...
And - the list of people that were originally put in this category when G.W. Bush issued this executive order has 29 people/organizations: Usama bin Laden, Ayman al-Zawahiri, Al Qaida, and various affiliated/related organizations.
So, yesterday it was Bin-Laden, today it is some Italian left-wing tech guys, and tomorrow it might well be you or me. Get ready to be branded a terrorist at some point.
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The point is not what kind of policies the "radical left" tech guys had. The point is they had quarter century run in which law enforcement in Italy could not find anything illegal in their actions.
And The current US administration was like "we don't care that running a webserver for activists is legal in Italy, we will just declare them terrorists".
Which is precisely why it's important that criminals and even terrorists have rights and due process. Else they can just declare YOU a terrorist and suddenly you have no rights.
> Very far to the left,
Well, a proto-fascist government would consider hosting anti-fascist websites as being "far left".
Remember, Trump and his cultists are symptoms -- not the cause. I.E. Cuba's embargo was in place long before the orange buffoon, and that is the same force at play here. Fear that the people will get a taste of a fairer, more just alternative. > “are you antifa or are you fa?”
https://cavallette.noblogs.org/2026/08/10076 - Direct link to the sanctions declaration.
The actual Treasury Announce here - https://home.treasury.gov/news/press-releases/sb0616/
"The Autistici Inventati is an Italy-based far-left organization that provides a range of technological tools and services to violent left-wing extremist groups, including website hosting on foreign servers, encrypted email accounts, chat and video conferencing, and digital architecture associated with its “Noblogs” platform. Autistici Inventati identifies itself as an “anti-fascist” and “anti-militarist” organization opposed to capitalism and exclusively provides its services to vetted individuals, collectives, and groups it perceives to be aligned with its ideology, including to sanctioned terrorist organizations such as the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), which has been designated by the United States, United Kingdom, and European Union for its use of terrorist tactics leading to thousands of deaths in Türkiye, Iraq, and Syria since its establishment in 1984.
Autistici Inventati is being designated pursuant to E.O. 13224, as amended, for having materially assisted, sponsored, or provided financial, material, or technological support for, or goods and services to or in support of, an act of terrorism."
How quaint. The MEK (Iranian People's Mudjahheddin) were designated as a terrorist organization but collected money in EU streets all the time. Now they are useful against Khamenei.
The US would also like to use the equivalent of the PKK in the large Kurdish part of Iran against Khamenei.
Nothing to say of using the PKK rebranding of SDF in Syria as well as receiving "global terrorist" Al Jolani in the White House.
US cynically removed them from the Terrorists list in 2012.
MEK is probably just 300 really old guys now, they have strict rules against marrying outside the org.
What does it entail, in practice?
They are sanctioned, okay, and? What happens practically.
US sanctions mean if you trade with the santioned org.. YOU get sanctioned (lose access to trade or financial systems controlled by US or US companies like Visa)
They will become pariahs financially speaking. Nobody will be authorized to wire money to/from them. It's brutal.
> Nobody
In the USA - the consequences should be only related to USA pertinent actors. The newspapers in Italy say, "there is no judgement against them in Italy".
The same mechanism that was used to sanction Russia, Iran - will be used to sanction A/I Collective.
If Italy doesn't shut down their services, the Italy itself will be shut out of SWIFT.
>...then* Italy itself will be shut out of SWIFT.
SWIFT is headquartered in Belgium. Only 2 banks out of the total 24 on the board of directors is US banks. Unless there's a hostile takeover of the SWIFT organisation by the US, I think this is a bit of a stretch. (Plot-twist: Italy is on the board of directors.)
If you donate to them from the US, you probably get put on a no-fly list at a minimum. Maybe even a friendly visit from the feds at your home!
Anything between having their google profiles deleted to abducted and tortured at a CIA blacksite.
in this case, it mostly means trouble getting money, as they are funded via donations
The consequences may include the loss of:
• Bank accounts and payment processing.
• U.S.-linked donations and fundraising services.
• Hosting, cloud infrastructure and upstream network services.
• Domain registration and related technical services.
• Certificate, security and email-delivery accounts.
• Software and communications services.
• Relationships with non-U.S. providers frightened by American secondary sanctions.
• Access for people in the United States who currently use A/I’s services.
My question now is whether European hosting providers sprouting up in the face of the US CLOUD act will step up to provide those services.
No, because they don't want to be banned from banks. With few exceptions, the US has power over all global financial systems. Also tier 1 ISPs (even the European ones), which trickles down to all ISPs.
Do you think many banks worldwide would enjoy declaring themselves the enemies of the US government in order to assist left-wing lunatics?
You misplaced "lunatics" in your sentence, though sadly the likely answer remains the same.
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*˙ᴉuᴉlossnW oʇᴉuǝq - uoᴉʇɔɐǝɹ sᴉ ɯsᴉɔsɐℲ
Thank you. Almost didn't recognize the name, as upside-down as it was.
Anti-fascism is reaction to fascism, it's in the name, even.
Antifa is a leftist movement, nowhere on this planet is not anti-capitalist. The two flags in the logo, black and red, represent the anarchist and the communist movement.
Marxism came first. Mussolini was a Marxist, then developed Fascism as a reaction to it.
When Marxist talk about "reactionary forces", what do you think it means?
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Clueless.
In my experience, groups like this have a fairly hostile relationship to State Communism as well. The Kronstadt rebellion for example is frequently cited [1]. But then you have groupings like Anarchist communists [2], which you would then risk lumping together with the anti-Communism part (not to mention that anti-Communism as a term is usually associated with forces staunchly opposed to people like this). Plus, if you are "only" anti-authoritarian, how do you suggest avoiding getting lumped together with Anarcho-capitalism?
[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kronstadt_rebellion
[2]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anarchist_communism
Furthermore, these organisations operate in what they perceive to be Fascist and/or Capitalist societies, so why state opposition to something that is not "there" and has been pretty much gone from the global scene for nearly forty years?
In conclusion, yes, you have a point. But given the reasons above I find it really hard to get worked up over it and Anarchists do not generally get along with Leninists, Stalinists, or Maoists anyway.
Of fascism, capitalism, and communism, only two are going concerns in these people's lives. If they're going to declare themselves "anti-communist" they might as well also take a strong vocal stance against ghosts and flying cars.
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Yep I just donated $1000
Can I ask what you're hoping the organization does with that money? I'm genuinely interested in understanding what the expected outcome is.
Servers, connection and maintenance costs... That is what they do. Read the manifesto.
> We react by providing a platform and tools for digital self-defense addressing the need of free communication for activists and other individuals
Yes, they select the users. But clearly to exclude services to those they would judge as bad actors!
> reading further ... extremely selective and it has nothing to do with
What paragraphs inclined you to think that?
Ouch.
A good friend of mine was charged with providing material support to terrorists for providing similar donations. And all his donations were prior to the US designating the recipients as terrorists. The government's arguments were "Yes yes, but you knew what you were supporting even though we hadn't designated them as such..."
Hope you're not in the US.
Your friend has integrity and should hold their head up high they are fighting against oppressive bullshit
I already agreed he has great integrity you’re just proving it further
Having values is expensive
Many people pay with their lives
Do you really not care to know what the terrorist organization was before you assume that "they are fighting against oppressive bullshit"? Is A/I and ISIS the same to you?
Nice! That’s genuinely worth praise
You are a good person.
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This is getting too big to ignore and is leaking into mainstream popular culture.
In the most popular streaming show atm (new season of Reacher), a main plot point is CIA and State Department and Green Berets involvement in a village massacre in Indonesia in the 90s (in the land of the tv show), this is of course a reference to the CIA and State Department indirectly murdering 1 million Indonesians 1965-1966.
> US has done worse
They have not.
They have.
Which of Trump or Putin is worse is irrelevant. Trump's US is maybe on par with Putin's Russia, maybe better or maybe worse (which depends on which aspect is looked at). That cannot deter us from fighting against what is bad in both of them.
This is NOT a competition nor a championship about which dictatorship can inflict the most pain and destruction to the world.
Nobody is rooting for such a "winner".
Criticize all the despicable actions of such stinky regimes, regardless of if they are in Putin's Russia, in Trump's US, or wherever else.
We are NOT in a race to the bottom.
We shall never forget our values, as Humans and as Earth-dwellers.
the asymmetric deployment of "whataboutism!" is hypocrisy about hypocrisy
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the first few sentences of this link, and their about page, and their services page all make it clear what they do. i am unsure of where you confusion comes from.
They host blogs and digital infrastructure for autonomous anarchist/leftist collectives and are deeply connected to global free speech movements since their founding in 2001. If you expect to see a two sentence mission statement or a product summary, you’re going to be disappointed.
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From HN guidelines:
> Off topic: Most stories about politics, or crime, or sports, or celebrities, unless they're evidence of some interesting new phenomenon.
So you’re incorrect. HN isn’t off bounds for all political posts, but yes, they do have to have an “interesting new phenomenon”.
The U.S. sanctioning a decades old technology collective is clearly new. Whether it’s “interesting” I can’t speak to because that’s subjective to every individual, but that’s where the useful voting system comes in.
> For the majority of organizations one can tell what they do in a few seconds
Have you ever opened the website of any B2B software/services provider? By your logic, they're all the most suspicious people on earth, because none of them seem to be able to explain what they actually do.
There's an "About" link on the top of the page and if you click it it fully explains what they do and for who in the first sentence of the first paragraph.
You're getting a negative response because ignoring that and implying that they're secretly doing sketchy things makes it look like you're doing bad faith criticism
Reason.com is political. EFF.org is political. Anti-ChatControl sites are political. Do you flag those, too? If not, why not?
They aren't?
They are very clearly providing IT support for free to anti fascist organizations.
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Do you see how a removal from a private app store, while bad, is different from an arrest or a sanction?
Parler experienced a government coordinated shutdown across app stores and infrastructure providers like AWS.
I’m not sure what distinction you’re trying to make, when their infrastructure (AWS) was shut off due to the government labeling them terrorists due to some users (who Parler had banned) using the service.
Did the government force AWS to shut them off or just ask nicely? Hard to say. Any message from the government comes with implied threats. We'd only find it which was the case, if AWS had refused and the government had either punished AWS or not.
Can you see how it's different from an explicit sanction or an arrest?
In some ways (not all, of course) an implicit demand from the government is worse than an explicit one. An explicit one at least puts all the cards on the table.
I think these are very different things, private company's actions vs government actions.
"HN cheering", true or not, doesn't really matter in the end, either.
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Do you regularly laugh at poor people?
Laugh in what way?
13000 euro a year is the yearly drinking budget of an outgoing San Francisco resident.
i wouldn't characterize it as very expensive or even expensive. it is in fact super cheap. even in italy.
Maybe help donate then? 13000 Euro is a lot of money to poor people
Capitalism is the single most powerful destroyer of the world the world has ever seen. It remains undefeated.
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In the United States, your example is explicitly protected by the Protection of Lawful Commerce in Arms Act. It is the legal defense of arms manufacturers who's product is sold legally and in good faith but is used by a third-party for illegal actions.
Rather than a vague insinuation that this group has taken some action deserving of economic blackballing, perhaps you could point to some specific action this group has done?
Sure you can. Gun makers do it all the time!
Which terrorist groups, specifically? And what support are they offering specifically?
You say provide tools for communication. Presumably that's every communication platform worldwide - almost undoubtably some sort of terrorist has used each of them.
They provide services to PKK which is a terrorist group, specifically.
Which services, and where is the evidence they do so?
The PKK is in the process of disarming. If this decision is based on the PKK specifically, the timing seems strange.
so you admit they are still armed
Can you demonstrate that? What evidence is there that they have provided services to PKK
>They are making and providing tools that enable communication specifically for Far Left groups, some of which are terrorist groups.
As per a government who puts cycling and expressing distaste for inflation in the same camp.
> So I don't think this is as innocent as they seem.
Well, they are innocent until proven guilty.
> They are making and providing tools that enable communication specifically for Far Left groups, some of which are terrorist groups.
By all means, present something that shows they are knowingly supporting terrorist groups so we might judge for ourselves.
I mean, we have organizations that supported the January 6th terrorists that haven't had anything done to them, so I'm looking for something more serious than murder, storming the capital, riots, attacking the police force, and attempted assassination of a Vice President.
Without judging this or trying to axiomatically derive the logic, I think the claim here is that a/I knowingly and deliberately provides services to the PKK, which the US and the EU designate as a terrorist organization.
It’s more than that, I think. I read through the various government statements as I was curious about rationale and precedent: the other two groups impacted by the order are rather unambiguous extremists, so understandable. In the extended justification for this a/I group, the US gov lists a large number of US and EU “Antifa” groups that variously leverage their services, including one that the individual recently arrested for wiping his phone is meant to be connected to. It suggests to me this was the result of some considerable network analysis and that the intent is to now have stronger legal tools to go after those groups.
I think that second (speculative, of course) step would be the more worrying precedent: if the use of technical infrastructure also used by designated groups was formally made to be incriminating/right-waiving. Why wouldn’t that apply to Signal, for example? The OP suggests the dividing line should be between true infrastructure open to all, including unsavory actors, versus tools that advertise services to a particular faction. It’s not an entirely disagreeable distinction, but I think in practice it’s rather fuzzy (Moxie of signal is/was rather far left himself, if I recall).
EDIT: Re-reading the document, the state department emphasizes that a/I “manually vets all potential users.” OP’s distinction stands for now.
I share most HN'ers priors about this administration and its motives and am commenting positively, not normatively, and only about the specific claim the Treasury Department made.
Signal doesn't knowingly and deliberately provide services to any organization, let alone one formally designated by the US and the EU. The whole point of Signal is to eliminate all pretenses of the service knowing who its users are or what they're doing. To the extent that's also true of Autistici Inventati, the OFAC designation is invalid.
I feel much more confident saying that regardless of the validity of the underlying legal argument, this administration's messaging (on everything) is unhinged and partisan. I'm purposefully not reading into or out of what they're saying.
My understanding is that this is only coming from the US government. Do we have any reliable information to back this up? Because if it's just the US government, I can safely assume it's all lies.
I have no idea, but --- non-normatively --- there is some signal to be gleaned from this particular provider being targeted and not other, better-known and more systemically important ones.
> Our financial strategy relies exclusively on voluntary donations.
That is not a sustainable strategy in the long term. Sure after this news they will get lots of donations, but long term it is not something that is realistic.
Since they are now "sanctioned" by the US you cannot legally donate to them even if you wanted to...*[0]
[0] *Unless you now know why this collective needs crypto more than ever.
>That is not a sustainable strategy in the long term
they've been around 25 years, which is nothing to sneeze at
> Since they are now "sanctioned" by the US you cannot legally donate to them even if you wanted to...*[0]
There are many of us who do not live in the US, so many still can. Just not through paypal.
That's not how US sanctions work. When the US sanctions something, nobody is allowed to donate to them. Basically any country that trades with the US (most) has to follow according to their trade deals. Any bank that wants to be in SWIFT must block any transfers
Maybe they should try couping the Italian government, rename themselves to Ragazzi Orgogliosi. That should help.
Look up Operation Gladio
The question stays the same: “are you antifa or are you fa?”
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@dang at this point this is either Hacker News or anti-capitalist. I think this all should be banned.
It is not unprecedented, but a lot of fools lauded moves like this when these kind of instruments were used with barely a legal net around them against islamic terrorism or cybercrime.
I'm not crying for no Al-Qaeda or 8chan, mind you. In this very year UN and ICJ officials have been targeted in a similar fashion though. When the pax americana ends like this, I don't know what else is needed for EU and Asia to raise tougher walls around the woes of any idiot hyped enough to be voted by USA citizens.
8chan's /pol/ wasn't any different than 4chan's. the reason why the 4 is tolerated but the 8 got axed is that 4 is a honeypot and 8 wasn't.
> the reason why the 4 is tolerated but the 8 got axed is that 4 is a honeypot and 8 wasn't
That's certainly a take.
My personal take is that 4chan actually complies with the US laws, specifically the ones around promptly removing+reporting any illegal content that the US cares about (e.g., terrorism threats/CSAM/etc.), and 8chan doesn't.
Out of curiosity, what makes you consider 4chan to be a honeypot, as opposed to it just being a platform that simply complies with the relevant laws?
I will admit, I've spent barely a few minutes on 8 in my lifetime, so I am not equipped to judge the nuance of their situation much. With 4 though, it's been an on-and-off thing for me over the past ~15 years.
That article tells me 4chan wasn't a honeypot but used by Epstein for his chaos or at least he thought about using it.
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we've seen several websites that do not break US law get evicted by registrars, ISPs, DDoS protection services, and other Internet landlords. 4chan miraculously survived multiple mass hysteria periods of the past decade without (iirc) any major disruptions. same as Russian 2ch -- miraculously untouched by Russia's rapid North Koreaization even though its /pol/ is overwhelmingly anti-regime.
1. It is extremely likely neither 8chan /pol/ nor 4chan /pol/ were or are honeypots.
2. Untrue. I heavily used both (not as a right-winger; just as a decades-long anonymous imageboard user who sometimes finds it fun to rile people up in /pol/ boards). 8chan's was a lot worse and was shut down for a reason.
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I think the same people who opposed a/i sanctions (not AI sanctions but they're really missing out by not exploiting that confusion) also opposed sanctions for """islamic terrorism""" and for """cybercrime""".
To some thin extent (opposition to racial profiling and big copyright), mayhaps. People protest against Guantanamo, not for ISIS, and protest against identification, not for looking at pedo porn.
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It's the logic of Jack Bauer taken to the end. "Come on, it's obvious who the bad guys are, who needs rules?" until suddenly it's not obvious anymore...
My conspiracy theory is that "24" was funded by the CIA (etc.) to build public support for measures like the Patriot Act. "24" debuted 11 days after the Patriot Act became law, so they were being worked on at the same time.
Don't forget the X-Files spinoff The Lone Gunmen. During its pilot episode, first airing March 4th, 2001, members of the U.S. government remotely hijack an airliner and try to crash it into the World Trade Center, blaming anti-American terrorist groups in order to start a new global war on terrorism for the profit of defense industry contractors.
I’m not missing it, I thought that was obvious. See my other longer comment in this thread.
And Epstein friends Lutnick, Larry Silverstein, Sarah Ferguson and Michael Jackson all had appointments in the WTC on 9/11 and all canceled last minute.
The series may have been produced preemptively in case something would happen. In fact several agencies did warn in the summer of 2001 that something was likely to happen but the warnings were shut down.
I'm not a truther, but boy they try hard to make you one ...
I was going to say the same about James Bond, but it turns out they literally boast about helping in its production on their website, so it's not really a conspiracy theory https://www.cia.gov/stories/story/the-cia-and-pop-culture/
And just like stochaistic terror, it's a label you can apply to basically any media you don't like, that seems to support a political agenda you are opposed to.
And it was a Fox production. Using the most obvious shill isn't very covert.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Base_and_superstructure
It’s a conspiracy theory in that there’s no evidence of funding, support, or even cooperation in the particular case of “24”.
The 24 pilot was filmed before 9/11. After 9/11, the show had to be modified because reality has become uncomfortably close to it. That included delaying the premiere and removing a scene involving an exploding passenger aircraft.
The Washington Post reported on a trend of shows about counter-terrorism and spies, on August 4 2011: https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/lifestyle/2001/08/04/...
That article mentions that some of those shows relied on government consultation, with the CIA and FBI, to help with realism, etc. “24” was not one of them. “24” co-creator Joel Surnow is on record saying there was no government involvement.
Quote from the WP for context:
> Coming this fall [2001]: A new primetime drama series takes a close-up look at an elite federal agency and the dedicated men and women who hunt deadly terrorists and treacherous criminals.
> The new show's on CBS. It's also on NBC. And ABC. And Fox. Some years it's twenty-something sitcoms. Sometimes it's doctors, or vermin-oriented "reality" shows. This fall, the trend is Fed TV: No fewer than five new network series depict the exploits of people with civil-service pay grades, shiny employee ID badges and very large guns.
But it was “24” that did the most to normalize the “torture the bad guys till they reveal the plot” and other such right-wing wet dreams.
Except people love torture anyway. Even people who say they're opposed to torture usually do so in terms of "it's bad to torture people, but like, it would totally work". It is a ludicrously common sentiment.
The actual conspiracy was the CIA told the Zero Dark Thirty producers that the Intel to find bin Laden came from torturing a detainee, which was a straight up lie (namely: under standard interrogation he provided the intelligence they needed...then they waterboarded him over 100 more times which provided absolutely nothing).
A conspiracy theory without a shadowy government organization is just a conspiracy.
Frankly EU India and China need to take a tougher stand here or see themselves getting harassed in future.
You may be unaware, but the EU, India, and China have also engaged in their own versions of economically-pressured internet presence takedowns of international activists and dissidents they label subversive. The degree differs according to leverage and their constitutional reasoning, but there is no spirit of opposition to this type of policy if that’s what you’re imagining.
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The British case was overturned on appeal. (Crazy that it had to go that far though.)
I can't find much left or right coverage of it, there's so much news coverage in the way.
There is a difference between failing to condemn something and gloating/supporting attacks on liberty simply because one's favored political team is now doing it.
I believe the point is the unsurprising result.
That said:
> Canada debanked right wing truckers
Who were participating in the illegal blockade: https://www.canadianlawyermag.com/news/general/fca-upholds-2...
The government also exceeded their authority, but there's a gap between "I don't like (left/right)" and "blockade".
> multiple American platforms coordinated to silence Trump in 2021
After this happened and he was impeached twice for his performance regarding it: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Capitol_riot-_Videos_show...
(No comment on BBC link save for this not being novel by UK standards nor specific to left/right: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Twitter_joke_trial)
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Any western /b/ and /pol/ is or has been a church for an ideology of fascism and pedophilia, furthermore politicians and cops LOVE to blame the platform when someone posts a manifesto and then exit the house to kill people with guns. They tend to spot this pattern because they disrupt grassroots movement just like that: agent provocateurs or controlled places will work to ensure that the status quo will not change no more than what is tolerated. My limits for free speech are very broad and would certainly tolerate a lot of 8chan, but don't ask me to close my eyes and don't ask me to be sympathetic
Yeah epstein emails showed Christopher Poole met with Jeff the day before he made /pol/ and ghislaine was a mod of many subreddits.
And it probably didnt start with them
Erm, but what about saying mean hateful words??
That makes them, like, the bad guys, don't you think?!
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Monero is delisted from exchanges in Canada because the anonymity makes it impossible to comply with anti-money laundering regulations. It makes it a lot harder to acquire the coins or to turn them into liquidity. The government is also going hard against encryption with law c-22, which will make Signal stop providing service in the country.
They will only catch the amateurs. But they can pat themselves on the back I guess that did something.
It does more than catch amateurs, it's a heavy blow against the adoption and usefulness
Sounds better and better!
Poor government has to fight crime the old fashioned way.
Ridiculous.
This isn't comparable to the legality issues in particular countries, a comparatively minor threat for FOSS software projects. If the US declares your organization as terrorist, you'll lose banking access globally by leveraging the SWIFT system. The US influence has always been problematic, but this is now blatantly abused for MAGA populism.
All this means eg. Signal would not be able to escape jurisdictions, because no bank anywhere relevant will endanger their SWIFT access opposing the US. Sanctioned Signal would stop providing services for everyone, since they can't pay for servers, neither being able to receive donations, nor wire any money themselves. It's similar prior situations involving payment processors (e.g. in case of Wikileaks), but has totalitarian reach affecting almost all banking globally.
It's a politico-technological arms race. Governments make laws, we make technology that gets around the laws. Governments must increase their tyranny just to maintain the same level of control they had before. The result is either an uncontrollable population, or a totalitarian state.
I always hoped we'd find some sort of equilibrium. A state where governments learn to tolerate some crime because fully policing them would require crossing serious lines. It's becoming increasingly clear though that governments have no limits. There is no cost they are unwilling to pay in the name of maintaining their own power.
I'd say the more salient dynamic is mass communication increasing the power of propaganda (now individually tailored!) making it so people are increasingly tolerant those lines being crossed. People voted for this, right? There are legitimate understandable gripes underlying Trumpism. Propaganda is able to use that frustration as raw input, and twist it to convince people to support things that directly make their gripes worse! How much did we hear about inflation and the price of eggs, and yet forty trillion dollars more in the hole and now they cheer for it.
Sometime during the Obama years I came up with the realization that the primary information flow in democracy (especially a two-party democracy like the US) isn't the commonly accepted people->government, but rather goes parties->people. The act of "choosing" a candidate makes people have an affinity for everything that politician goes on to do, even when they would have rejected most of it. Trumpism, specifically how people who considered themselves "conservative" didn't look at his abject failure of a first term and send him permanently packing in favor of someone with leadership or patriotism, has thoroughly proven this out.
This is hardly unprecedented -- in fact, it looks like the US government has learned a thing or two from the anti-spam community. If you actually want to block e-mail or newsgroup spam at its source, you don't complain to the spammer themselves, but rather to their mail/news provider, and if that doesn't work, you escalate the issue to the upstream provider, the hosting company for the spammer's website, the registrar for the spammer's domain names, and so on. This is time-consuming but is sometimes effective. (Of course, dedicated spammers may then switch providers, or start employing distributed botnets of zombified residential devices, but knocking out their infrastructure at least temporarily does disrupt their operations for a time and drives up their cost of business to the point where they may reduce or even cease their activity.)
The anti-spam community can’t throw you in jail or fine you.
There is a balance that needs to be struck between freedoms and rule of law and it's quite rare to be able to actually have discussions about how to strike that balance because most folks willing to discuss have a simplistic but vaguely absolute position favoring one extreme or another and can never come to the point of deciding of where to draw the lines of enough freedom or enough control.
If you have real operational security concerns, your provider shouldn't know anything about you; should in fact have bilateral shielding between themselves and you to prevent either counterparty from learning stuff. That's how Signal works.
But Signal requires a working phone number for registration and it knows the phone number. The backend could be modified at any time to store this somewhere else while maintaining end to end encryption between the two parties communicating on it. How can Signal prove continuously that it doesn’t store or disseminate the phone number? I know in past precedent it has told courts that it only has very limited information (date of account creation and the last time of account access).
There's all sorts of things any service provider could do to sleuth out who its users are. The implication of this OFAC determination is that A/I didn't need to sleuth anything out; they are accused of knowingly and deliberately assisting the PKK.
Signal will allow traffic analysis. You send the message to signal, if they wish they can write down to whom they send it on.
It is impossible to make a secure system without the continuous transmission of dummy messages to large numbers of users.
Again: in every system there's always some kind of sleuthing you could do to attempt to identify a user. That's not the legal standard. The complaint against A/I is that they knowingly and deliberately assisted the PKK.
No. With dummy messages you are guaranteed that traffic analysis will not be possible.
Because you connect to the network, then start sending messages to everybody continuously, a message every second, or every ten seconds, or every 100 seconds, you will, every second, or every ten seconds, or 100 seconds, be able to send a message to whoever you want, and you will not be distinguished in any way from the other network participants, even if an adversary controls all nodes but that of the person you want to communicate with. Without dummy messages, traffic analysis will always be possible.
If they knowingly and deliberately assisted the PKK in a forbidden way, there would likely have been an Italian prosecution. Since this hasn't happened, it probably isn't true.
The illegality of the PKK in the Europe is also something quite complicated. The commission have declared it a terrorist organization, but here in Sweden such declaration have no judicial meaning and we define terrorism by whether the organization satisfies objective criteria defined in our law, which the courts determine from case to case (which in Sweden means that if you send money the PKK and prosecutor brings the case and argues that they're terrorist organization, and you argue badly, and he wins, then you might be convicted, but when another guy does the same thing, and argues well, he wins); and the situation in Belgium is similarly complicated, with a legal dispute about whether PKK was a terrorist organization, which PKK won, and thus the PKK was, in Belgium, declared by a court to not be a terrorist organization.
Impossible for a public thing though, noblogs.org will always be traceable to where noblogs.org is hosted because that's how the packets get there.
You can maintain much better opsec in a two way communication than a broadcast.
Right, I'm only moved to comment by the implications being drawn on this thread that Signal and WhatsApp are next. Different fact patterns and different legal standards.
Signal and WhatsApp don't have the plaintext of your communications to begin with.
This is about finances. If the US declares you a terrorist organization, you cannot do any banking anymore, even outside the US, since most banks do not want to gamble on SWIFT access.
Since the US considers anything "antifa" as terrorism now, it already had most concerning distant effects last year. See GLS bank cancelling Rote Hilfe in Germany. 1933 was the last time Rote Hilfe was cancelled, btw. It's an antifa OG. Pretty good indicator about the status quo..
Anyway, look at e.g. GrapheneOS, which is already treated as probable cause by law enforcement. Encrypted messaging also super sus. Thing is, funding can't escape jurisdictions. Signal servers are not running on love and fellowship, but donations and public money. Opsec won't protect your software stack's foundation against US finance attacks.
This OFAC action isn't based on "antifa", though the press release predictably takes shots at it. It's based on three designated foreign terrorist organizations, notably the PKK.
I don't think US cares about the PKK either, but that's not my point.
It's neither an explanation nor a tautology; it's an element of US law.
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The picture everyone is missing is voting in November is how this gets resolved. The only way radical authoritarians survive on 30% approval ratings is apathy. Theres no reason to put up with this, the other side of a 70% electorate opposition is prison for the lawless incumbent
Even if Barack Obama himself was re-elected and the Democrats gained a 102% supermajority, does anybody seriously believe this sanction in particular would be reversed?
If the Dems get the House and Senate, expect a lot of reversals.
I would imagine we might even have some "settlements" with the "DOJ" before the end of Trumps term
> The only way radical authoritarians survive on 30% approval ratings is apathy.
And voter suppression, vote manipulation, or simply force.
I agree with you in that barring the above, there is no logical reason a vast majority of all elections should lean away from MAGA/GOP considering the state of the country.
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I believe there is a double standard here compared to section 230 of the communications act.
Platforms can't be held liable for speech on their platforms for a reason. For full disclosure: I feel ambivalent about that.
I don't know of an equivalent legal protection for I2P-like infrastructure.
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You feel ambivalent about eg. HN not being held liable for some random user signing up and posting, say, a terroristic threat on it? You realise that if platforms/HN were legally punished for that, no website could accept user content, ever, and you are effectively suggesting the end of public communication on the internet?
You are mostly right about my ambivalence (re: liability) but wrong about the conclusion.
> no website could accept user content, ever, and you are effectively suggesting the end of public communication on the internet?
That does not follow. Just like financial services are forced to KYC, there would have to be some similar provision. For example, a site might choose not to have anonymization and then liability passes through a KYC chain. If a site wanted anonymous then the burden would be on moderation before it became public. I think this probably already happens in large extent where images are scanned to avoid bad things appearing on public sites and there is already liability around that.
I know that isn't a popular position. It would change the entire character of the Internet. And it couldn't just be thrust upon people since the current contract is one of promised anonymity (even if that is probably not true wrt state actors).
> Just like financial services are forced to KYC, there would have to be some similar provision.
Hold up, to echo what you said to the other poster: That does not follow.
1. Simply repealing Section 230 does not create some kind of fresh new "know your poster" requirement out of thin air.
2. Sites would not have an incentive to do it either. Knowing the author's identity would not shield them from liability. In fact, it might increase their liability.
> If a site wanted anonymous then the burden would be on moderation before it became public.
That's backwards: One of the big things Section 230 does is declares that the act of moderating does not create involvement and liability for the message. It means you can block things without becoming a sorta-co-author of the things that pass the filter.
Change that, and sites will be forced into either (A) basically no moderation or (B) blocking 99% and letting through the safest 1%, and the latter depends on having teams of lawyers.
_______________
Useful links:
* "Everything You Know About Section 230 Is Wrong (But Why?) " https://www.techdirt.com/2021/10/29/everything-you-know-abou...
* "Hello! You've Been Referred Here Because You're Wrong About Section 230 Of The Communications Decency Act " - https://www.techdirt.com/2020/06/23/hello-youve-been-referre...
What sort of logic is this? I use I2P and no one sanctioned me or labeled me a terrorist.
I'd look at the Prairieland Detention Center Case to understand how broadly and aggressively this government is using "terrorism" to go after political opponents.
Daniel Rolando Sanchez-Estrada got 30 years in prison for moving a box of magazines related to the protest. He wasn't even at the actual protest.
Several people got decades in jail because the FBI successfully convinced a jury that setting off fireworks near a detention center on the 4th of july was actually detonating bombs. And that because one idiot brought a gun and shot it, they are all guilty.
It's very much not far fetched that you as an I2P node could get hit with a terrorism charge if some political enemy ends up using your node. That's on the same level of moving pamphlets for a protest.
> Several people got decades in jail because the FBI successfully convinced a jury that setting off fireworks near a detention center on the 4th of july was actually detonating bombs. And that because one idiot brought a gun and shot it, they are all guilty.
The USG has a somewhat different description of events, and appears to have had video that they showed a jury.
> The defendants dressed in “black bloc”—dark clothing with head and face coverings that concealed their identities—designed to hide each individual’s identity but also to aid and abet those members engaged in illegal acts by making members indistinguishable from one another to law enforcement. Evidence introduced at trial revealed that the defendants brought eleven firearms, body armor, and eleven military-grade first aid kits with tourniquets and other items to treat gunshot wounds to the scene of the attack. [...] After ANTIFA Cell members arrived at the detention facility, they began shooting off and throwing fireworks (explosives) at the facility and vandalizing vehicles and a guard shack on Prairieland property. [...] Witnesses testified that an Alvarado police officer responded to the scene after correctional officers called 911. When the officer began issuing commands to defendant Nathan Baumann, Benjamin Song can be heard on police bodycam video yelling, “get to the rifles!” and then he opened fire on the officers, striking the Alvarado police officer in the neck as the unarmed correctional officers ducked and ran for cover.
https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/leader-antifa-cell-members-no...
Note you can see in the pictures they were definitely not just setting off fireworks "near" the detention facility, but from the camera stills its obviously intended as harassment. And "some idiot" didn't bring a gun, they were all part of a group, they brought lots of guns, and he actually shot a police officer during their "protest." Note also that the USG explicitly uses the word "fireworks", contrary to your framing.
Yeah, sorry, if you a) join a group that states it wants to overthrow the USG b) go with a bunch of members to a federal facility as part of a violent protest c) set off fireworks, vandalize everything in reach, and d) shoot a cop, you are all going to prison, and that makes perfect sense.
In a much lighter but similar move, Suno is now associating exporting generated music with the behavior of "bad actors."
It's just incredible how spiteful the federal government is towards its constituency
Not really. It's not like they're going after actual terrorists.
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Isn't it just as likely they are using facebook, instagram, and tiktok?
I checked for an official PKK YouTube channel. I found that they don’t have one as they’re a designated foreign terrorist organization* and Google complies with that designation by not allowing them an official presence. Unsure about the others but I doubt any of those companies would allow an official account. Probably individuals that belong to that group have accounts but I don’t know that for sure.
* I did not make the designation, I know nothing about the PKK, I am only referencing it.
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And political neutrality isn't going to save anyone. Political alignment with the US government is what they're after.
Are we going after free speech now?
So it's trivial that if you are the government and you want to arrest someone for speech, you first call them a terrorist organisation and then you can arrest them for speech? Ridiculous.
I'm uninterested in bot answers. You claimed label X applies so consequence Y applies.
Useless.
Why is providing people with the means to express themselves to an audience wrong? Please think for yourself; don't resort to labels.
The USA has never had free speech. There's not one time in its history when the government wasn't trying to force people it disagreed with to shut up.
I agree that ultimately they'll try to target Signal. Meredith (Whittaker) has a tough job on her hands. Much admiration.
Have we forgotten Megaupload? Napster? Limewire? BitTorrent?
Anyone setting up infrastructure has to consider, in the very least, how this will be used for CSAM in particular but sure, I guess terrorism too. Years ago we had The Office make a joke about this where the company website for selling paper was overtaken by child predators.
This is one reason why we have centralized infrastructure and not federated infrastructure. All the platforms we have have the capability to report content, automatically scan pictures, images and text and to respond to law enforcement. You need all of those processes.
They're not being targeted for terrorist activity per se; they're being targeted for providing material assistance to terrorists.
Per the Treasury Department:
"The Autistici Inventati is an Italy-based far-left organization that provides a range of technological tools and services to violent left-wing extremist groups, including website hosting on foreign servers, encrypted email accounts, chat and video conferencing, and digital architecture associated with its “Noblogs” platform. Autistici Inventati identifies itself as an “anti-fascist” and “anti-militarist” organization opposed to capitalism and exclusively provides its services to vetted individuals, collectives, and groups it perceives to be aligned with its ideology, including to sanctioned terrorist organizations such as the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), which has been designated by the United States, United Kingdom, and European Union for its use of terrorist tactics leading to thousands of deaths in Türkiye, Iraq, and Syria since its establishment in 1984.
"Autistici Inventati is being designated pursuant to E.O. 13224, as amended, for having materially assisted, sponsored, or provided financial, material, or technological support for, or goods and services to or in support of, an act of terrorism." https://home.treasury.gov/news/press-releases/sb0616/
Per the State Department: "The A/I Collective provides encrypted tools and services to numerous violent far-left extremist groups operating in the United States and around the world. Many of these groups have relied on the A/I Collective’s digital infrastructure to plot or incite violent attacks, recruit others to engage in criminal activity, publish official communiqués by U.S.-designated foreign terrorist organizations, and disseminate maps of critical infrastructure, along with instructions for building improvised explosive and incendiary devices – all routed through a network of foreign servers intended to conceal criminal activity from law enforcement." They then go on to list the specifics. (https://www.state.gov/releases/office-of-the-spokesperson/20...)
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> If they choose to support the PKK, which the EU, UK, and US have all deemed a terrorist organization for over 20 years, then of course the US should sanction them and they have no moral ground to stand on.
No moral ground to stand on? Would you say that about Amazon who supports the US regime, which is in the business of bombing Iranian schoolgirls? Is that less terrorist?
This collective of course has much more of a moral ground to stand on than indeed Amazon.
> Would you say that about Amazon who supports the US regime, which is in the business of bombing Iranian schoolgirls? Is that less terrorist?
Strictly speaking, unintended collateral damage of civilians in a war does not fulfill the definition of terrorism. The attack on Iranian school was to the best of my knowledge a mistake stemming from old intel. Terrorism is deliberate attack on civilians to achieve a political goal.
>The attack on Iranian school was to the best of my knowledge a mistake stemming from old intel.
Bloomberg piece on this topic:
>An Analyst’s Missed Remark Surfaced in Deadly Iran School Strike Probe
>An analyst's missed remarks and US intelligence systems that weren’t connected to one another are among the missteps that investigators have surfaced while probing the cause of a missile strike on an Iranian school that killed an estimated 120 children, people familiar with the matter said.
>Years before the US attacked Iran at the end of February, an intelligence analyst examining information about potential future strike targets in Iran noticed changes at a site the US had previously characterized as a naval facility belonging to the elite wing of the Iranian military in Minab city in the southeast of the country. It was, in fact, now an elementary school.
>The analyst remarked on changes at the site in a digital intelligence tool, but that tool wasn’t linked up to the official intelligence database that the US uses to develop strike targets and the information was never conveyed to military commanders, according to people familiar with the matter who declined to be named discussing sensitive matters.
https://archive.is/LNMMf
Strictly speaking, no. If you're going to play semantics, you first need to define how "unintended" is "unintended". If I drive down the highway at 200mph and get someone killed, is this unintentional? Now what if I do so in a crowded street? If I'm sending a missile at a country, how much effort do I need to put into research to be able to say it was "collateral" damage? If I aim them completely randomly, then what's the verdict?
If you're going to go down the semantics route, every word needs proper inspection. You're focusing on only one of them, "terrorism".
Luckily though, we don't need to; the US does more than enough intentional extrajudicial executions of civilians on its own. Even just considering one particular area where it does them, and then only the ones we know about, we're at about 227 civilian executions in just the last few years [0].
[0] https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2025/10/29/us/us-caribbe...
Oh okay, how about the deliberate attacks on civilian infrastructure?
I love how governments (in the west) are absolutely incapable of campaigns of terror.
I don’t think it was intended.
I think that when you’re bombing thousands of targets, a 0.1-1% targeting error rate leads to dozens of unintended collateral hits (and thousands of civilians dead) — and is among the many reasons wars are horrific.
> The attack on Iranian school was to the best of my knowledge a mistake stemming from old intel.
A mistake in a completely unjust war.
And what about the fishing boats we are bombing in the Caribbean and the Pacific? Not even the pretense of a legitimate war in that situation.
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>And even if they were that doesn't mean the US shouldn't sanction them for supporting terrorism.
careful, if you start going after neutral infrastructure providers, that means google, amazon, microsoft, meta, and more will also need to go. i guarantee more terrorism-related content is discussed via those providers than a/i.
we should probably also go after internet service providers, too. maybe the companies that make the fiber optics?
(has anyone checked who is providing terrorists with electricity?)
All the providers you mention here work with the US government in situations where their platforms are being used by terrorist organizations. It sounds like the a/i folks are specifically offering free services to a militant group, so that's why they're being sanctioned. I don't think your argument flies.
Removing all the oxygen from our atmosphere would kill 100% of terrorists, that's a good strategy too right?
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To be explicitly clear, a "neutral infrastructure provider" does not describe A/I so your scenario is hypothetical.
>careful, if you start going after neutral infrastructure providers, that means google, amazon, microsoft, meta, and more will also need to go.
No, because they actively respond to removal request. Open by default, supporting request for removal.
The difference comes in when you are open by default and tell the US to fuck off when they ask you to stop supporting terror groups.
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i would agree there as long as the providers are actually neutral they should be free from culpability. we shouldn't encourage providers to restrict who they serve because of potential liability, that's giving them way to much power.
Isn't forcing a provider to do business with everyone who asks just as bad? You're saying noblogs should be compelled to host nazi blogs. (Actual Nazis, not a euphemism. People who want Jews to be gassed.) You're also saying wedding cake bakers should be compelled to bake cakes for gay weddings.
> (has anyone checked who is providing terrorists with electricity?)
Or for that matter, where they get their air?! Oh gosh golly darn, gee, if Earth is providing air to those commie bastards…
I may not agree with their political views, but to say that the tool is the problem is equivalent to saying guns kill people instead of people that use guns. The problem isn’t the tool or their point of view, or then even speaking about it - the problem comes from humans not controlling themselves. Any actor taking any adverse or malicious action inspired by words or ideas isn’t the fault of the ideator or author, but of the actor failing in self control.
Gotta reign this insanity in.
except they aren't neutral, which is the whole point
did you read the part where nonethewiser said "And even if they were [neutral] that doesn't mean the US shouldn't sanction them for supporting terrorism."?
the double-negative might be confusing, so we can reword it to: "And even if they were neutral, the US should sanction them for supporting terrorism"
that's the part i quoted and my comment is about.
> If they choose to support the PKK
Did they? There's a lot of implication with that "if", and I saw someone else point out (albeit rudely) that anything that may have supported them was taken down.
So since The International Criminal Court has issued arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, will US sanction him too?
Or since ONU has declared illegal the occupation of territory in West Bank, will US sanction Israel?
Or will the United States only sanction those who simply see things differently from them?
we should be careful not to assume that the eu, uk and us set a good moral standard to follow.
you might ask who is right; the groups like google providing services to the us military, or the groups providing services to those opposing the us military.
> Their own manifesto says they use their limited resources to support groups they align with.
Woah, with radical statements like that, we might have to go after mutual aid groups, PACs, and churches.
I mean, I think it entirely depends on the nature of the groups they support?
You miss the point. It establishes they aren't neutral. Of course it's not necessarily bad to support things you agree with.
Amazon also only supports groups it aligns with.
It's bullshit made up by Shideler [0], and it's not even the PKK directly either that A/I supported, but some blog that reposts communiqués.
We'll see if the Bush- and Obama-style thoughtcrime back in action will lull USA citizens and make them forget the gas price.
[0] https://www.judiciary.senate.gov/imo/media/doc/4a3850cc-9186...
Cherry picking bad one organization doesn’t make me feel any better about this over-broad order.
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Yeah you're not, what you've done is basing your arguments on a false premise.
Morality != legality. these anarchists have a much better moral grounding than most US tech companies which gladly support US military destruction.
> If they choose to support the PKK, which the EU, UK, and US
But they are not choosing to support the PKK.
They accuse it of being “a major far-left tech collective whose services are used by the most active and violent Antifa cells in the United States and across the world.”
The far left is a terrorist group? Where are all these violent "antifa cells"?
They labeled this groups as a terrorist organization so they could claim that anyone protesting the fascist Trump regime will easily be labeled terrorists and thrown in jail without a trial.
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Can you articulate this more? Are you saying the first amendment gives A/I a constitutional right not to be sanctioned?
There is the absolutely perfect Supreme Court case that ruled against your theory.
Holder v. Humanitarian Law Project https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/561/1
There is a law (18 U.S.C. § 2339B) that says you cant knowingly provide material support for designated foreign terrorist organizations. A law firm wanted to provide financial support and legal services to some, including the PKK (the same group A/I was accused of helping). They argued the federal law violated their first amendment rights.
The court concludes that the first amendment doesn't protect your ability to provide material support including services and communication equipment and the law still stands today.
> targeting of infrastructure providers as “terrorists” is unprecedented
It is not unprecedented though. The US military empire always was supported by the business empire and corruption empire. Trump and his BigBro Epstein party-goers just make it much more obvious. In reality the terrorists are in the US government primarily.