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Here is the State Department's rationale: https://www.state.gov/releases/office-of-the-spokesperson/2026/08/designation-of-autistici-inventati-as-a-specially-de
by andlarry 22d ago
Here is the State Department's rationale: https://www.state.gov/releases/office-of-the-spokesperson/2026/08/designation-of-autistici-inventati-as-a-specially-designated-global-terrorist https://www.state.gov/releases/office-of-the-spokesperson/20...
- sph 22d agoLike trying to scrutinize the motives of a complete lunatic.
- Grombobulous 22d agoHere’s the thing though: if even some of the examples given in the state department page are true (some of them are rather silly), that A/I knowingly provided services to groups that verifiably did some rather violent things they are accused of, I’m not sure how they expected to hide behind their mission. My impression is that they didn’t say “hey we don’t have customer information but we don’t service violent groups and we will responsibly investigate and discontinue service to offenders.” Their vibe was much more defiant, like, “we designed this to be anonymous and specifically intend/expect for it to be used in any way regardless of legality and are okay with it.” Is it right for the US to be the global arbiter of this issue and domains in general? Of course not.
- ceejayoz 22d ago> A/I knowingly provided services to groups that verifiably did some rather violent things they are accused of If that's disqualifying, a lot of US government contractors are in trouble.
- beej71 22d agoOr J6.
- deleted 22d ago[deleted]
- Grombobulous 22d ago[flagged]
- ceejayoz 22d ago> There are very logical reasons why the state wielding force and violence is preferable to the alternatives… Seems like there are some pretty clear historical exceptions to this rule.
- Grombobulous 22d ago[flagged]
- ceejayoz 22d ago> we’ve already established an okay-ish democratic system We have pardoned Jan 6ers convicted of "wielding force and violence" for political goals in goverment positions now. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beer_Hall_Putsch https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beer_Hall_Putsch is uncomfortably close to the situation.
- SpicyLemonZest 22d agoAnd everyone involved in hiring and pardoning them should go to prison. I can't speak for everyone, but many of us really do have a principled opposition to political violence.
- mitxela 22d ago[dead]
- stanleykm 22d agowell depends on if you are in the group the state is wielding that power for or not..
- deleted 22d ago[deleted]
- pepperoni_pizza 22d ago> “we designed this to be anonymous and specifically intend/expect for it to be used in any way regardless of legality and are okay with it.” That is also what Signal does. Or absolutely any end-to-end encrypted communication service at all - these are explicitly designed not to retain details of communication. Do you want to declare them terrorists too?
- Grombobulous 22d agoWhat Signal does is different than what A/I was in a number of ways.
- Jeff_Brown 22d agoPlease elaborate!
- pepperoni_pizza 22d agoYou won't elaborate though, just make vague accusations.
- ricardobeat 22d agoI think the difference they alluded to is that they manually vetoed new users, presumably based on their self-declared goals and ideology, whereas Signal etc are neutral platforms.
- Grombobulous 22d agoYeah I didn’t elaborate since this was explained elsewhere in the thread.
- pepperoni_pizza 22d agoThe A/I vetting was in the form of a form asking why do you want A/I email or blog. You could write anything in it. Meanwhile, Signal requires a phone number, so it knows much more about your identity than A/I did.
- fl0id 22d agoin interviews, they said if you give them examples of "xyz" is prohibited by applicable law, they would remove it. They would not help you spy on them probably, by backdooring their infra or sth.
- deleted 22d ago[deleted]
- computomatic 22d agoMost of this has me rolling my eyes (“cadre of radical hackers”? really?), but this part is interesting: > The A/I Collective… manually vets all potential users for ideological affinity before granting them access to its infrastructure. What is the truth behind that? Such behaviour would undermine A/I’s claim they are akin to Gmail if they explicitly are not a neutral ISP. After that, it becomes a question of degrees: what were their specific criteria for access to the platform? Asking out of genuine curiosity. I wasn’t familiar with this group before today.
- Grombobulous 22d agoThis is exactly the problem they ran into. A lot of the state department’s claims of “violent groups” are BS but it also seems like a non-zero number of them are pretty violent organizations. There’s a big difference between “we have designed our devices to be zero-knowledge but we act swiftly against violent/illegal activity if it’s discovered” versus “we actively endorse the views of our user base.”
- fl0id 22d agofor them it basically just means to not platform nazis etc. but then once you have an account, there is no control or anything.
- fastball 22d agoThat's exactly the point though: if you are choosing to platform some and not others, and some (many? most?) of the groups you are choosing to platform are violent groups, you very quickly run out of plausible deniability.
- mitxela 22d ago[dead]
- vrganj 22d agoBasically, far right extremists targeting antifascists through mechanisms of political repression while having the gall to call themselves pro free speech.
- mrtesthah 22d agoWhy is this downvoted? The regime has openly declared that anti-fascist beliefs are now cause for surveillance, censorship, and persecution. https://www.kenklippenstein.com/p/trumps-nspm-7-labels-common-beliefs https://www.kenklippenstein.com/p/trumps-nspm-7-labels-commo...
- deleted 22d ago[deleted]
- vrganj 22d ago[flagged]
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- politician 22d ago[flagged]
- vrganj 22d agoWho cares about some American Bill in Italy? Y'all really think your country is the only one with freedom of speech?
- deleted 22d ago[deleted]
- queenkjuul 22d ago
- hirako2000 22d ago> ERR_UNEXPECTED_PROXY_AUTH
- alexwebb2 22d agoI’m not familiar with A/I, but this sounds pretty damning – the ideological vetting of users in particular seems to discount any sort of neutral utility defense.
- catlover76 22d ago[dead]
- kennywinker 22d agoIdeologically vetting can mean a lot of things. Like, a sign on the door that says "NO TERFS" is a form of ideological vetting. By this logic any right wing message board would be designated terrorists the moment one person who has posted there commits a violent act. This is meant to chill domestic left-wing activism. Just like the person who got 30 years for delivering some zines (https://freedom.press/issues/texas-man-sentenced-to-30-years-for-transporting-pamphlets/ https://freedom.press/issues/texas-man-sentenced-to-30-years... https://portside.org/2026-06-25/injustice-how-leftist-zines-were-used-sentence-anti-ice-protesters-decades-prison https://portside.org/2026-06-25/injustice-how-leftist-zines-...)
- gobacktoreddi 22d ago[flagged]
- stanleykm 22d agoalright buddy take it outside
- deleted 22d ago[deleted]
- grumple 22d ago[dead]
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- bambax 22d ago"violent" is used many times in this announcement, but it would seem that one of the most violent entity in the world right now are the US? Also, it's so weird that "antifa" (antifascists) has become a bad thing. If antifa is bad then it must mean "fa" is good? So we should bring back the Nazis? The "Western hemisphere" (which, of course, is neither) tolerates the US and the way it enforces its decisions outside its own borders, because it used to provide some assurance of stability and protection. But as the US rescinds that policy, weakens Nato, declares a tariffs war to every country on earth, etc., there will be less and less justification as well as, probably (hopefully) less and less public acceptance for any of this posturing.
- nosioptar 22d agoI too find it really weird. My grandpa was a member of a violent antifascist organization (US Army, 1940s). The US government even awarded him multiple medals for his antifa activities.
- 20after4 22d agoThe Fa has taken over the US government.
- the_wolo 22d ago> one of the most violent entity in the world right now are the US? always has been e.g., https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SG0Ql0VfcRg https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SG0Ql0VfcRg
- linuxhansl 22d agoNever heard of A/I and I have no idea what they are about, but rather than a government communication this statement reads like an angry rant with lots of unhelpful name-calling. I would expect a government to be professional and just stick to the (proven) facts and avoiding labels; that would also be more convincing. Oh well.
- tim333 22d agoRemember this is the Trump administration. I think your expectations might be a bit high.
- dpkirchner 22d agoThis is the new Republican mainstream, the same mainstream that brings us AI generated videos of the Obamas as apes. They have no shame and are likely irredeemable (certainly their behavior is inexcusable). And ultimately these statements aren't for the normal citizens. They're for the truly strange, the racists, and the trolls.
- threethirtytwo 22d agoWait this is not true. I’m truly neutral here. The site lists actual terror attacks where the tools were used. That’s pretty damning if accurate. Anyone care to comment on that? I’m not well informed but the statement does not look like just straight up name calling.
- lokar 22d agoHas any terrorist group ever used Gmail to communicate?
- SV_BubbleTime 22d agoIs Gmail used for anything else? Lots, right? Now, what about A/I group? Ah… well, there is your answer.
- 22d ago
- fastball 22d ago> A/I’s cadre of radical hackers and tech developers provide a full spectrum of services Pun intended?
- madsmith 22d agoUnfortunately I can no longer take any official communication from my government at face value. They have lost my trust that they are operating as directed by the letter of the law without fear nor favor.