An antifascist IT collective that doesn't focus on ops but just helps local grassroots groups set up boring old web services and provides ongoing technical support
Boring? Yeah. But if you wanna get activist groups out of the big tech surveillance bubble you need nerds willing to set up and maintain: DNS, email services, web hosting, secure comms, VPN, Mastodon instances, and document services. That's out of reach for many many groups doing the work of social justice. For much of the grassroots, throwing up a fb page and getting a Google account is honestly the only viable solution - they do not have the time or the resources to do anything else.
I (non-techie) advocate always to use https://switching.software , riseup mail and pad as well as framadate. But hell, it *is* difficult for the laypeople not to just use a google drive...
@thekitmalone this is how in the 90s/00s a lot of UK activist groups got infiltrated by spy cops, as they actively volunteered to do all the "boring/nerdy" stuff..
It's a problem I see in non-tech activist spaces too. Folks would rather do something glamorous like start a new org or host a rally with themselves as the speaker ... or (on the tech side) start a whole new software project, create a Mastodon instance. But nobody wants to pass out bottled water, clean up trash, apportion email accounts, manage the backups.
I think it's really interesting to see how many comments sorta make the assumption that the purpose of such an effort would be to ask grassroots activists to switch wholesale to Mastodon, install some specific toolset, switch to free software, whatever.
Nah, but I do think that if we tell people "you should be self hosting your website and email" we have a duty to also help provide that labor, just as we might volunteer to pass out flyers at a rally or set up the chairs at an event.
@vfrmedia yup. Which is why I tend to advise movement leaders to be incredibly careful with anyone who they bring into their leadership team or into their planning circle. It's everywhere in the movement - these days I only work on real stuff with people I've personally met and have a long-standing trust relationship with. It's also why I think this stuff is way better if it's ultra local.
@thekitmalone the potential is huge! Everyone needs this work done, if u wanna live outside big tech - it’s not difficult, but it’s necessary and often invisible work. It’s a good example of “we have all the tools for a utopian solarpunk future - but we gotta do the work”.