og post: https://hexbear.net/post/6608284
While it was absolutely spreading unverified accounts that were a bit sus, I think the discussion prompted needs to be had for the USian comrades especially. Feds are watching online spaces, pretexts are already established to treat anti-fascists as terrorists (always have been but it indicates a renewed focus), and the USA cares less about 
than ever…
What should US comrades be doing to protect themselves, besides “not using discord”. What about using this site, what are the risks there?
About that original Discord post:
Deleting stuff from Discord doesn’t actually delete it on Discords end. Discord and the Feds can see everything you’ve posted, basically ever, especially if you’re already under surveillance (and Discord frequently hands over data to LEO, long before any real raids. You’ll have no warning). You can actually see this yourself, if you request your data from Discord you can find deleted messages, and sometimes even messages in deleted Servers.
This is true for all websites run by silicon valley types.
I think this is a safe assumption but then what is to be done, for people that already have been in discords that could be flagged as marxist or antifa or whatever? scrub everything and delete your account and hope it gets actually deleted eventually? (and practice better opsec in the future ofc)
Deleting your account is a good idea, if just to stop you from posting more.
Tbh I don’t really think there’s anything to do except pray LEO doesn’t care. You have already handed your data to Discord, you can’t take it back.
This is a public forum. Anything posted here is public.
At least it doesn’t give the illusion of privacy.
Upvotes on lemmy are not private. Deleting a post is as reliable as recalling an email.
This platform is as secure as a listserv/Usenet
No adventure time posting anywhere online. And figure anything you do post here will be tied to you IRL thanks to Palantir 🙃
Should USian comrades abandon this site? if not what precautions are appropriate
just don’t fedpost. don’t dox yourself.
I mean yeah, but is that enough? This server has a static IP, even if they don’t know your posts it’d be easy for feds to find people who post here without tor, vpn, etc. and start knocking on doors, making threats, whatever. I’m not sure the old heuristics of what is/isn’t safe are sufficient anymore.
I mean, I do generally use Hexbear through Tor, so I’m not personally worried. You could use something like Mullvad VPN.
I personally think it’s unlikely that they’ll start raiding people for posting on an obscure communist forum, especially if people don’t fedpost. There’s way more open left-wingers straight up doxxing themselves on places like Twitter, TikTok, and Instagram that would be much easier targets.
raiding maybe not, but put on a list, via dragnet surveillance?
I guess I should have led the post off with more my opinion lol. Because I’m beginning to think americans should not be accessing the site directly at all. We’re all libs, I get that, but when circumstances force us all to start touching more grass I’d rather organize with yall than be sent to the camps together
I think organizing is significantly more likely to land you on a list than using Hexbear. I’ve had multiple friends/comrades arrested by the feds, and they’ve almost certainly infiltrated my orgs to some extent.
But yeah, if that’s what you meant you should open with that. Maybe make a post telling American Hexbears to use a good VPN or Tor, so it isn’t direct access?
yeah 100%. IRL organizing for sure more likely to land you in hot water faster ofc. I haven’t seen anything federal up close (so far) but I know some of the local anarchist groups totally collapsed after a campaign of infiltration before I was around. But a wellspring of sympathizers/contacts that aren’t already on a list seems important to maintain.
People don’t need to abandon the public spaces they choose to gather in. People need to be made aware they’re in public.
right, but it’s a public website on the clearnet, full of marxists. Not taking any precautions to hide that you are a user of the site from your ISP, etc. seems at this point like a bad plan.
If you have the IT skills, especially if you have friends or others with the knowledge/resources, take “homelab” to the next level and start building a private cloud/intranet. You could even spin up your own Lemmy instance and that sort of thing.
Only if you count the bad comms; c/goodposting is closed to the general public à la normies.
