In the latest escalation of the Trump administration’s war on the left, the U.S. government’s designation of a popular antifascist webhosting provider as a terror group could shutter a swath of radical websites in the U.S.

Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent announced Wednesday that they were targeting the Italy-based A/I Collective with terror sanctions. Federal law gives the Treasury Department broad discretion to apply the terror label to foreign groups.

A wide array of anarchist, antifascist, and far-left groups in the U.S. and abroad use the privacy-minded collective’s offerings, including an anonymous email service and its popular noblogs.org blogging platform.

The practice of designating an internet platform and service provider as a terror group — rather than those pursuing violence themselves — has “huge” implications for the future free speech on the internet, warned Jillian York, the director of international freedom of expression at the Electronic Frontier Foundation.

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[–] 9 points 2 months ago*

To be fair, the current administration would designate my cock a terrorist organisation.

Think about what you just read. And now ask yourself if that would be really the craziest thing that happened the last 10 years?

Things are that much fucked.

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  • [–] 4 points 2 months ago

    If you're anti antifascist, does that make you a fascist? 🤔

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    [–] 72 points 2 months ago (1 child)

    A reminder that all republicans are helping him do this by not stopping him. They have a lot of power to stop him. Ya know, since it's just a job.

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  • [–] 36 points 2 months ago (4 children)

    Federal law gives the Treasury Department broad discretion to apply the terror label to foreign groups.

    Maybe a little too broad. Trump has a unique way of interpreting words.

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  • [–] 19 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago) (1 child)

    Maybe a little too broad. Trump has a unique way of interpreting words.

    Yeah, that's definitely the most charitable way of phrasing it. I'd say he doesn't understand any of them to begin with, and doesn't have to, because the people who should be correcting him, aren't. Words mean whatever Trump decides they mean now. Which is terrifying, because redefining words is fascism 101. There was just more internal resistance during his first term.

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  • [–] 16 points 2 months ago

    Doesn't sound very terroristic to me, especially compoared to ICE, or the Epstein Files featured pedophile and Trump's personal criminal defense lawyer led inJustice Departmnet.

    From their site:

    Manifesto - who we are and what do we want

    To begin with, we want everything.

    Our aim is to reclaim spaces on the Internet where we can discuss and work on two levels: on the one hand, the right to and need for free communication and access to digital resources; on the other, social projects linked to reality and struggles.

    Setting up an independent server seems to us to be a good point to start and reach our goals.

    We believe that communication must be free - and for free - and, therefore, universally accessible.

    We try to accomplish all this by offering internet services (web sites, e-mail, mailing lists, chats, blogs, newsletters, and more) using our best skills and knowledge to defend both individuals or groups sharing our same aims or ideals.

    Standing outside the commercial attitude of payed services and web spaces, we happily welcome those unresting towards cultural and media censorship, against the globalized imaginery being prepared, packed and sold to us each and every day.

    The services we provide are not intended for (directly or indirectly) commercial use, or to be used by organized religions or political parties, or, in short, by those who already have the means and resources sufficient to widely spread their own ideas, or who use the concept of representation and (explicit or implicit) delegation in their day-to-day relationships and projects.

    Knowledge and resources grow through sharing. This is why we encourage the systematic, organized and completely free distribution of cultural material, auto-productions and documentation, while why we fight against traditional copyright and support the adoption of free and open-source software and licenses.

    We called ourselves Inventati because we strive to find ways to translate issues that are part of struggles and their organizing, overcoming the limits and constraints of reality in the digital world. Ie: a plenum can be made permanent and continuous through the use of a mailing list.

    We called ourselves Autistici, instead, for the passion we have for understanding the technical tools and for exposing the politics implicit in the digital world; even if software is created in a virtual world it doesn’t mean it doesn’t have a political impact on reality.

    Starting from the technical tools we use we came to develop a clear array of political stances, crucial to both cyber and material world and lives: free sharing of knowledge just to mention one.

    We believe that media and communication should not be the exclusive domain of information professionals. We believe in the value of self-management: this is why we have no sponsors or funding of any kind, apart from voluntary donations from those who believe that our project is important and must survive. None of us earns a cent from this project (in fact, quite the opposite).

    All decisions about technical and political aspects of our servers and projects are taken collectively. We discuss everything through the use of mailing lists and other forms of mediated communication, so that all of our debates and process are available and accessible to any single person participating in the collective.

    We have no coordinator, and no spokesperson, and decisions are not reached by voting.

    Autism with invention generates sharing

    autistici / inventati 2002 - 2023

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  • [–] 12 points 2 months ago
    [–] 7 points 2 months ago
    [–] 3 points 2 months ago (1 child)

    Trump loves free speech that he agrees with.

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