Ok, by now most if not all of you have seen my thread warning people about Discord with a head line that's more click bait than I had intended.
This is the article I submitted "Please Stop Using Discord. The SPLC is Monitoring You." - Andrew Anglin
This turned into a case of unintended consequences. I posted this article to make people aware that Discord had formally partnered with the SPLC. Following the set-up at the demonstration in Charlottesville Virginia, Discord shut down several so called "Alt-Right" servers. It is okay to use Discord for general use.
Andrew Anglin is trying to warn people not to discuss their activism plans in open "places" like this and to be careful who you're working with. To prevent more incidents that are really set ups for various right wing groups. He's also trying to warn of Honeypots, as in do not automatically trust servers/chat rooms that your group did not start and does not moderate. The US Government, JIDF, SPLC, liberal individuals, and the tech companies themselves all monitor public sites, chats, & services.
It is okay to use Discord and similar services.
It's the same rules as Voat, do not discuss illegal acts or plans of committing illegal acts. Especially calls for violence and planned violent events. Just be aware you have very limited privacy. Trust but verify and use a proxy/VPN service if your country is going full 1984 on you.
I simply wanted to make people aware that there are no safe spaces on the public internet. Very few of the people you talk to are actually your friends. Do not ever tell people online personal information.
There is an unofficial Voat Discord server run by people who are actual Voat Goats. You can open it directly in browser or use the official Discord software. Address: https://discord dot gg/DDZSU39
To provide a real time chat system since the site's had to be shut down for spam and provide a back-up information system in case of site problems, again. It's okay to use this service.
I'm one of several people that has been looking into several options to build out 3rd party services for Voat and help with hosting. I had hoped to poll Voat and set up either a Mastodon Instance or Mumble server. Both of which are open source systems that I would host and have control over.
For an idea of who the SPLC are check out this article: "Southern Poverty Law Center – Manufacturing Hate for Fun and Profit."
For information on the actions of the JIDF see this video: "Israel's Internet Censorship War"
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[–] superkuh 0 points 6 points 6 points (+6|-0) ago
I would argue it is not okay to use Discord. The clients are remote back doors and surveillance tools. Use Mumble or Teamspeak or anything where you run the server on your resources (even if it's a $15/yr VPS).
They send a tracking request for every single thing you do in their client. Clicked on someone’s profile, clicked on a channel, clicked on a server, etc. The URL was named /track before but they renamed it to “/events” recently (but it’s still a POST with no response).
Also their desktop client is literally a remote administration toolkit, it has full access to FS (electron app) and it loads every script from their servers.
They can just add something like require(‘fs’).readFileSync(process.env.HOME + ‘/.ssh/id_rsa’).toString() and send this to their servers, and you won’t even notice that (since it doesn’t require an update on client because the client is just a browser with full permissions that loads obfuscated code from their servers every time you launch it).
In addition to that by being a centralized service (instead of an open protocol with federated servers in networks) it creates perverse incentives for censorship due to the company not wanting to associate with scoundrels. Currently Discord will even ban groups that discuss video game cheats.
Hosting your own (mumble/teamspeak) or using a federated open protocol (IRC/Matrix.org) cuts the gordian knot of deciding what type of content will be allowed for everyone.
[–] WhiteSurvivalist ago
Know much about TOR or freenet as a way to potentially host a backup forum?
[–] sadvulcan 0 points 1 point 1 point (+1|-0) ago
i2p is better for real time communication, though it may not be as secure as tor.
[–] superkuh 0 points 1 point 1 point (+1|-0) ago
I do know that freenet is slow as shit to the point of being unusable. And that's assuming you can even find 3 peers to start. No, freenet is a late 90s/early 2000s thing. As for Tor... it's great! While the privacy isn't perfect it doesn't really have to be. One of the huge advantages of using Tor is that you actually own your own domain instead of just leasing it on the sufferance of some centralized entity that is subject to political and social pressures. I run all of my websites on both the clear net and on Tor as hidden services. Unless you really want to be super-secret-spy-shit there's no difference in running on Tor or on the normal 'net. So, just set up a this 'backup forum' how you would a normal one.