Our purpose is to facilitate Free Speech. You know, like the Founders intended. Sometimes, tyrants shut down dissent by arresting those who speak out, as is happening now in the UK and Europe.
While it’s hard to guarantee privacy and anonymity against nation states, here are the steps we can take to get you most of the way there.
Why is anonymous speech important?
Most governments in the Western World claim to be “democratic,” meaning they are Republics where citizens hold the power, and choose their rulers by casting votes at election time.
In order for the democratic process to work, there must be a free flow of information. Citizens need to be able to speak their minds, converse, debate, and argue. Without vigorous debate (and therefore vigorous protections on speech) it is impossible for the citizenry to be fully informed, and a fully informed citizenry is a basic requirement for a functioning democracy.
Unfortunately, we are seeing frightening restrictions on speech in countries that claim to be democratic; this bodes ill for the future.
How to Speak Anonymously on the Internet
The important thing to realize is that anonymity protects you from being targeted for your speech, but we don’t care to go to jail for something you said, or to hide your identity. So it is critical that we do not know who you are.
If we don’t know who you are, then we don’t need to lie for you.
If our logs don’t give away your information because you practice proper internet hygiene, then if they are seized they are useless.
If payment was made anonymously, then that’s that.
Note that doing all this requires discipline on your part, but if you are disciplined we are willing to do our part to help.
0) Get a private e-mail address
There are companies out there that provide secure e-mail. We don’t endorse any of these but you can start by researching:
- ProtonMail
- Tutanota
- Posteo
- Startmail
- Mailfence
Without an e-mail address you can’t get hosting. So start here.
1) Pay Us Anonymously
This probably means paying via Crypto, but we are flexible (gold coins are anonymous too, but the shipping can be problematic). Without getting too complicated, we are happy to be paid via Monero (which is private). Use the “Contact Us” link in the header to send us an e-mail from your new private e-mail provider, let’s negotiate what you need, and you can prepay for 6 or 12 months via crypto. We will setup your site and send you an invite to create your password and login information.
Now if our records are seized, they don’t point to you do they?
2) Never connect from your real IP address
VPNs exist. Use one. This is the Internet, and every connection you make to a site is logged with your IP address, web browser, and all that. Even on this visit you’re making right now. From this point forward you need to connect to this site via VPN; ideally from a computer or virtual machine that you only use to publish from, as that way no data from your main machine leaks.
If you always connect via a VPN service, and you are connecting from a web browser that isn’t your normal one, then our logs won’t be very useful to those who are outraged you are speaking an opinion they object to.
3) Configure Cloudflare or a competitor
Cloudflare does a few things:
- It provides a level of anonymity to those that would attack you. Basically when someone looks up the IP address of your servers using DNS as a precursor to finding out who hosts you and starting denial of service attacks, instead they see Cloudflare’s servers and only Cloudflare’s servers.
- Cloudflare can handle the biggest DDOS attacks. They may make you upgrade to a non-free plan if this is an ongoing issue, but your site will stay up.
- Cloudflare includes a content delivery network where all your files are stored all over the world. If you’re in a different time zone than our servers, and your readers are too, then downloading your web site’s images a JavaScript files from a server closer to you really speeds things up. Bunny.net is generally a faster CDN service, but Cloudflare is free and your anonymous e-mail is likely all you need to set it up.
We will help you set this up for both speed and privacy.
4) Speak your Mind
Note that you must abide by our content policies! If there are riots in the streets and your elected officials seem to be siding against your countrymen, you’ve got every right to say so, and to document what’s happening. Express your opinions. Post facts. Advocate, analyze, proselytize, mock, whatever.
But do not organize violence, or events that can turn violent here. Promote them if they are on some other site, or encourage protests. Just know the difference: saying “It is vital that we protest and be heard at sensitive location on Saturday!” is fine; saying “show up on Saturday at sensitive location and bring petrol cans and halberds so we can show these folks they can’t push us around!” is pushing a line that might force us to shut you down.
Talk, argue, advocate. Create a community if you like. But if you plan violence (or in this day explicitly encourage vigorous self defense) you may be undermining us in our efforts to support you.
Consider paying us more
- Do you want us to perform updates on your site, or ratchet down the security more tightly, or help you expand the site as it grows? We’ll do that – we offer concierge services to business clients for instance – but it costs more.
- Do you want us to set you up with a simple, easy to update WordPress site so you can publish without doing all the nerdy stuff for you? We’re nerds, but we are also capitalists.
- Do you want to host video that might be taken down on YouTube for wrong-speak? We can do that, and we can make it fast using a CDN, even on your continent. But you’ll need to pre-pay the credits to do so. Currently a 45 minute 1080p video costs about a nickel to stream in full via our preferred VPN, but it’s fast and it can be limited to only display from your site.
You know what you need. Just ask. We will do our best to deliver.