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Do we have any anarchist sites on Tor or similar networks (i2p, ZeroNet)? Could we make backups of Anarchist News and Anarchist Library on these networks? I think this is one of the things we need. The drug marketplaces have proven surprisingly resilient on Tor.

I think we've known about surface web vulnerabilities since 8chan got taken down. CrimethInc got a bit worried back then. They were talking about moving offline, going back to traditional printing. Of course this was before the lockdown... things just get worse and worse.

In Web 1.0 anarchism did very well. Indymedia and Infoshop were doing public posts and discussions before it was fashionable (have a look at Gorrion's "Robots of Repression" for an analysis). A lot of the early hacker culture, peer-to-peer, anti-copyright, FLOSS, was at least lightly anarchistic. Of course the primmies were already worried about... exactly what's actually happened since. The internet was initially a machine for "disintermediation" - removing the mediators, the people who come between peers. The rise of monopoly platforms has reintroduced mediation. Platforms capture market/user share which then gives them an overwhelming advantage, making it very hard for alternatives to gain traction. The difficulty we now face is that most users are self-restricting to these mediated platforms.

The new people coming in, are already web 3.0 natives who use social media before they become interested in anarchism. What will generally happen - and I suspect the platforms are designed for this - is that they will be funnelled into less radical (often idpol or alt-left) groups which are more successful on these platforms, they will become caught-up in the endless self-reproducing pile-ons and flame wars of the social-mediaverse as their main form of activism, or they will be detected and repressed early on, before they have a support network or firm convictions, and their anarchist leanings will be nipped in the bud. So to reach these people, we'd need to create lines of flight or detournement channels which funnel them out of these pre-laid channels of recuperation.

The main problem with using Facebook, Twitter, Reddit and the like is that they're centralised and censorious. Running anarchist content there is like trying to run dissident material on a Chinese platform (except without the gulags... usually). A lot gets past because they can't check every post, but they're running algorithms, human checking, and snitch systems to control what appears. A lot gets through the cracks because it's small and invisible. The bigger and more successful you are, the more censorable you become. The companies are despotic, they can make whatever rules they like, they aren't bound by the First Amendment and they actively ban much more than is banned by law anywhere. And the rules are so broad, if they don't like you they can ban you for anything or nothing. A lot of these sites started off as free-for-alls and then became more and more censorious, often in response to media scandals or idpol campaigns which hurt their business reputation. Now for example, Twitter is aggressively censoring content critical of lockdowns. They also use automated systems which will censor links to particular sites or URL's, or prevent certain content from being reposted if it's once banned. And they have stealth systems which flag accounts for further surveillance, or implement invisible sanctions like "shadow bans" or making posts less visible to followers. And if the movement starts to gain ground, this will trigger a media panic followed by expanded repression which, given the nature of these platforms, will be highly disruptive. Just imagine one Czolgosz-type attack or one big media campaign to blame anarchists for a major riot where something bad happened... or look at what happened in Russia after that kid bombed the KGB. Of course, most groups avoid repression most of the time... because they and their movement aren't having much success...

So if we do what for example Insurrection News did - run a site plus our own Facebook and Twitter channels as a permanent place to find each other - we won't achieve very much before being banned. And if we're too successful, we're putting ourselves and our social media hangers-on at a lot of risk.

From what I've seen about the way other so-called "extremists" use social media, the most effective strategy is to keep your real activity and your stable sites off social media, but use these big platforms for "recruitment". They run front groups on social media which are more moderate and stay within the censorship, or they run large numbers of disposable accounts, expecting a percentage to get banned but others to get through (playing the probabilities). When they pick up followers, group members, etc, they encourage them off the platform and onto less censored sites like instant messenger groups and chatrooms, and then onto hidden sites on Tor or other services. This is staged to avoid censorship - initially someone will be invited onto another mainstream service that won't look suspicious. Obviously this model would have to be modified to anarchist philosophy. Most of these other groups are authoritarians who are trying to indoctrinate and isolate people. We're doing the opposite, trying to help people free themselves from control. But the basic model is sound. Have a small team running disposable accounts and groups which attract anarchists, then encourage them to join a Telegram group and on there encourage them to use Anarchist News or a Tor site etc. That way we filter them off the surveilled channels and stay one step ahead of surveillance/censorship.