De|Center

**Can you help us do a little bsky survey by reposting this**

➡️ What checklists/guides would you like to see ActivistChecklist.org create next? Comment below! 👇

Could be anything in the realms of activist digital security, physical safety, operational security, vetting, specific tools, etc.

A Fight About the Future of War

For months we’ve watched ICE weaponize AI surveillance tools to intimidate & abduct people from communities across the country - the suppliers of these same tools are fueling U.S. attacks on Venezuela & Iran via Palantir’s Project Maven & Anthropic’s Claude AI. www.nytimes.com/2026/03/03/w...

Manifesto for a Free Internet Manifesto for a Free InternetIranian Women’s Coalition for Internet Freedom Today, people inside Iran are living through a near-total Internet and communications blackout imposed by the Islamic Repub...

This is "our" Manifesto for a Free Internet. We are Iranian Women's Coalition for Internet Freedom. Happy International Women's Day!
initiated by @azadehakbari.bsky.social @farzdusa.bsky.social @mahsaalimardani.bsky.social @royapak.bsky.social & Afsaneh Rigot

Our hearts are with the people of Tehran, Beirut, and Gaza as they survive unprecedented violence at scale.
US and Israeli warfare, powered by AI-assisted mass targeting systems, has further turned urban centers into testing grounds for algorithmic carnage. We’re seeing the results.

Lorraine Schneider 1966

“Small Children Who Knew Nothing of Politics or Wars” A scene of devastation in Minab, Iran, as parents waited to know the fate of their young daughters after the bombing of a girls' elementary school killed over 100.

⚡️ “Small Children Who Knew Nothing of Politics or Wars”

A scene of devastation in Minab, Iran, as parents waited to know the fate of their young daughters after the bombing of a girls' elementary school killed over 100.

Report: Mahmoud Aslan for Drop Site News

www.dropsitenews.com/p/iran-minab...

A happy 1 year anniversary to one of our favourite orgs, serving the Southwest Asia and North Africa queer communities on vital digital rights and safety needs.

45% of LGBTQI+ people in MENA have been arrested for who they are—over 1 in 5 multiple times. This is from ARTICLE 19’s 2024 report, the largest study of its kind (5,205 participants across 8 countries). Read more 👉 www.article19.org/wp-content/u...

A great interview with @mahsaalimardani.bsky.social to re-share on the impact of comms blackouts in Iran. Regimes today weaponize the "Liar's Dividend" + AI to dismiss real images as fake and to create false narratives. Distorting truth & eroding trust in human rights documentation worldwide.

365 Days, 12 Months, 1 year : Weaving a safe future for LGBTIQ+ activism in SWANA ❤️✨️🌈

We’ll be putting out our work on this soon, centering pioneering marginalized communities in not only resistance strategies but also in the methods for how we build technology in the age of surveillance. You’ll be surprised (or not) by how nuanced, practical, and effective these methods get.

We love when news teams create organising resources! Much of it wouldn’t exist in the form they do without the decentered. It’s *international* sex workers, queer, trans folks, & other advocates whose experiences are why some of the anti-surveillance tech/methods were created. Why we center them.

“Our technologies can anchor years of generational wisdom, not aid those creating the oppressive structures people need to navigate in order to survive."

Loved this read by Afsaneh Rigot of @thedecenter.bsky.social .

Unplugging a Nation: Iranian Digital Workarounds in the Face of Total Blackout When the State plunged Iran into darkness, cutting the web, texts, and even landlines, Iranians leaned on a hard-won toolkit. Decades-old tactics are now encoded into the digital front.

Authoritarians can’t win when people refuse to be erased.
In #IranProtests, people built their own internet — #MeshNetworks, email relays, smuggled access, diaspora bandwidth, stealthy features, & IRL stealth.
Even in total comms blackout, every barrier met an instinctual workaround.
Our new post 🔐

"We will keep pushing for changes to systems so that they are able to support the digital workarounds communities have already developed. Our technologies can anchor years of generational wisdom, not aid those creating the oppressive structures people need to navigate in order to survive."

"They used smuggled satellite links, phone-to-phone mesh messages, email relays, and near-instinctual tactics to move through total surveillance and authoritarianism."

Unplugging a Nation: Iranian Digital Workarounds in the Face of Total Blackout When the State plunged Iran into darkness, cutting the web, texts, and even landlines, Iranians leaned on a hard-won toolkit. Decades-old tactics are now encoded into the digital front.

"When the state plunged Iran into darkness, cutting the web, texts, and even landlines, people leaned on a hard-won toolkit. We saw the same decades-old tactics evolve into new ones. Hidden etched messages and 'muffled talk' of previous eras are now encoded into the digital front."

Queer resistance to digital oppression in the Middle East and North Africa  - ARTICLE 19 LGBTQI+ people in 8 countries across the Middle East and North Africa tell ARTICLE 19 how police are weaponising dating, messaging, and social media apps to persecute them – and what tech companies ca...

Our research with @article19.bsky.social showed the risks of digital evidence & policing of queer communities in MENA: from mass arrests & torture.The need is more privacy, harm reduction & real anonymity.These policies push them off platforms & increase their risks www.article19.org/queer-resist...

Kaynaklar

Check out @loom4swana.bsky.social’s digital safety guides, including in Turkish, created by SWANA queer advicates for these days. loomswana.org/tr/kaynaklar/

#Turkey #Türkiye #LGBTQRights #Surveillance #Privacy

Türkiye: Draft Law Threatens LGBT People with Prison A government proposal would pave the way to bring criminal charges against lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) people in Türkiye, one of the most alarming rollbacks of rights in decades, Hu...

Türkiye's 2025 draft law criminalizes "attitudes or behaviors contrary to biological sex” &“general morality" — targeting trans & LGBTQ lives, with up to 3 years in prison. Activists are already facing home raids over online posts.
Privacy& anonymity are non-negotiable in fighting global repression

Many companies including Meta and Google are over-complying/comply in advance with digital ID and age verification systems, including Meta & Google.

We need to push back against the policies that shroud surveillance as safety & company over-compliance. This risks us all, esp the most marginalised.

These are mass #surveillance & censorship policies pushed as “child safety.” Threatening online anonymity. Back in 2021, De|Center’s Afsaneh Rigot explained why anonymity is essential to human rights work, including her own & for criminalized queer communities www.belfercenter.org/publication/...

Mass government surveillance treating social media as “crime scenes.” ICE/DHS agents using deception & fake accounts to patrol private groups & profiles, racially targeting immigrants.These are the exact digital entrapment tactics of abusive policing worldwide — from dating apps to WhatsApp groups🔐

Indian Farmers And Trade Unions Protest U.S. Trade Deal With Nationwide Strike (Photos) Farmers and trade unions argue the trade deal will damage their livelihoods, as they will be unable to compete with cheap produce from the United States.

Senior opposition leader and Gandhi family scion, Priyanka Gandhi Vadra, tweeted: “The Narendra Modi government first attacked workers' rights with the Labor Code, and then, under pressure from the United States...

Seven Billion Reasons for Facebook to Abandon its Face Recognition Meta’s analysis that it can avoid scrutiny by releasing a privacy invasive product during a time of political crisis is craven and morally bankrupt. It is also dead wrong.

Meta adding face recognition technology to its smart glasses would violate the privacy rights of millions of people and cost the company billions of dollars in legal battles. It should abandon its plans. www.eff.org/deeplinks/2...

To resist masked infiltration, build resilience now. Queer people & activists experience entrapment daily& show the way. In tech design build: community-focused verification systems, ephemeral & stealthy features, screenshot resistance& REAL anonymity. see our recos
www.article19.org/wp-content/u...

Mass government surveillance treating social media as “crime scenes.” ICE/DHS agents using deception & fake accounts to patrol private groups & profiles, racially targeting immigrants.These are the exact digital entrapment tactics of abusive policing worldwide — from dating apps to WhatsApp groups🔐

👋 We're back! We know it's been a while, but just because we've been quiet, doesn't mean we have not been busy! Check out some of the things we have been working on over the last few months - also on our website: www.migrationtechmonitor.com

Meet Aliya Rahman, Disabled U.S. Citizen Assaulted, Jailed & Traumatized by ICE in Minneapolis We speak with Aliya Rahman, a U.S. citizen who was violently dragged from her car by federal immigration officers in Minneapolis last month and detained at the Whipple Federal Building, which has beco...

"Anybody knows, who studies history, what happens when you have folks who are now treating these humans as bodies, and you have no reason to believe you’re going to make it out alive from a place where they’re already calling you a body." Thank you, Aliya Rahman, for this brave testimony & analysis💥