Their own manifesto says they use their limited resources to support groups they align with. They aren't some neutral infrastructure provider. And even if they were that doesn't mean the US shouldn't sanction them for supporting terrorism.
If they choose to support the PKK, which the EU, UK, and US have all deemed a terrorist organization for over 20 years, then of course the US should sanction them and they have no moral ground to stand on.
> If they choose to support the PKK, which the EU, UK, and US have all deemed a terrorist organization for over 20 years, then of course the US should sanction them and they have no moral ground to stand on.
No moral ground to stand on? Would you say that about Amazon who supports the US regime, which is in the business of bombing Iranian schoolgirls? Is that less terrorist?
This collective of course has much more of a moral ground to stand on than indeed Amazon.
>And even if they were that doesn't mean the US shouldn't sanction them for supporting terrorism.
careful, if you start going after neutral infrastructure providers, that means google, amazon, microsoft, meta, and more will also need to go. i guarantee more terrorism-related content is discussed via those providers than a/i.
we should probably also go after internet service providers, too. maybe the companies that make the fiber optics?
(has anyone checked who is providing terrorists with electricity?)
> (has anyone checked who is providing terrorists with electricity?)
Or for that matter, where they get their air?! Oh gosh golly darn, gee, if Earth is providing air to those commie bastards…
I may not agree with their political views, but to say that the tool is the problem is equivalent to saying guns kill people instead of people that use guns. The problem isn’t the tool or their point of view, or then even speaking about it - the problem comes from humans not controlling themselves. Any actor taking any adverse or malicious action inspired by words or ideas isn’t the fault of the ideator or author, but of the actor failing in self control.
>To be explicitly clear, a "neutral infrastructure provider" does not describe A/I so your scenario is hypothetical.
i am replying specifically to your comments about neutral providers (that's why i quoted the part of your comment that i did)
>No, because they actively respond to removal request.
there is still orders of magnitude more conversations going through the providers i mentioned, related to terrorism/csam/etc., which is simply not reported or not known. right now, meta is facilitating significantly more terrorism than a/i.
in any case, this isn't really about terrorism. they've just overused the child-safety angle lately, and needed to drum up some anti-privacy/anti-encryption using the terrorism card.
> i am replying specifically to your comments about neutral providers
Right, which is not A/I.
> there is still orders of magnitude more conversations going through the providers i mentioned, related to terrorism/csam/etc., which is simply not reported or not known.
So no one knows about these conversations but you know there are orders of magnitude more? Walk me through that.
Even if that were true how would that change anything? They still comply with the US government and their mission statement isn't to empower, protect, support political activists which in practice include terrorist designated organizations.
It's true that "terrorism" and "left wing extremism" is sometimes a boogeyman. Just not this time.
>So no one knows about these conversations but you know there are orders of magnitude more? Walk me through that.
sure. whatsapp is used by literal billions of people. add in a few more billion people through facebook, instagram, gmail, outlook, amazon.
would you like me to walk through the statistics calculations? or can you extrapolate from the billions of users? now make a guess how many people a/i has facilitated. a few thousand? a hundred thousand?
>Even if that were true how would that change anything? They still comply with the US government and their mission statement isn't to empower, protect, support political extremists.
because it demonstrates that the goal is not to curtail terrorism.
Could you elaborate? What do you find interesting? Is 12 min less than 15 min? What is interesting? What is a sealion? What is the CIA Sabotage Manual? Is your account older than 15 min?
All the providers you mention here work with the US government in situations where their platforms are being used by terrorist organizations. It sounds like the a/i folks are specifically offering free services to a militant group, so that's why they're being sanctioned. I don't think your argument flies.
i would agree there as long as the providers are actually neutral they should be free from culpability. we shouldn't encourage providers to restrict who they serve because of potential liability, that's giving them way to much power.
Did they? There's a lot of implication with that "if", and I saw someone else point out (albeit rudely) that anything that may have supported them was taken down.
we should be careful not to assume that the eu, uk and us set a good moral standard to follow.
you might ask who is right; the groups like google providing services to the us military, or the groups providing services to those opposing the us military.
> If they choose to support the PKK, which the EU, UK, and US
But they are not choosing to support the PKK.
They accuse it of being “a major far-left tech collective whose services are used by the most active and violent Antifa cells in the United States and across the world.”
The far left is a terrorist group? Where are all these violent "antifa cells"?
They labeled this groups as a terrorist organization so they could claim that anyone protesting the fascist Trump regime will easily be labeled terrorists and thrown in jail without a trial.
Yes, we are talking about a communications service, one specifically focusing on political speech.
"Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances."
Email, chat, websites, blogs - these are all speech! A/I's overt political statement (that you are indicting them for) points to their primary interest being to facilitate political speech - a type of speech with some of the strongest protections (that whole "assemble ... and petition the Government" thing)
Beyond that, they're presumably a neutral conduit like every other service provider. If some users of their services are communicating to coordinate crimes, then unless A/I is getting directly involved in those conversations (with the government producing hard evidence of this), it's the exact same dynamic as every other email/hosting provider.
There is a law (18 U.S.C. § 2339B) that says you cant knowingly provide material support for designated foreign terrorist organizations. A law firm wanted to provide financial support and legal services to some, including the PKK (the same group A/I was accused of helping). They argued the federal law violated their first amendment rights.
The court concludes that the first amendment doesn't protect your ability to provide material support including services and communication equipment and the law still stands today.
Monero is delisted from exchanges in Canada because the anonymity makes it impossible to comply with anti-money laundering regulations. It makes it a lot harder to acquire the coins or to turn them into liquidity. The government is also going hard against encryption with law c-22, which will make Signal stop providing service in the country.
If you have real operational security concerns, your provider shouldn't know anything about you; should in fact have bilateral shielding between themselves and you to prevent either counterparty from learning stuff. That's how Signal works.
Meta and TikTokUSDS let anyone in but they will actively remove stuff like this by request:
The anarchist cell responsible for sabotaging the Transalpine Pipeline (TAL) in March 2026, which temporarily halted crude oil flows to Austria, Germany, and the Czech Republic, relied on A/I Collective tools and services to claim responsibility for the attack and publish official communiqués, as well as to disseminate a manifesto calling for additional attacks on critical infrastructure and referring adherents to another A/I Collective platform, which provides detailed sabotage manuals as well as maps of vulnerable critical infrastructure across North America.
The article is quite long, but these two give a brief idea of what is going on:
a) According to that article, what it seems they are about:
> Its manifesto describes the project in explicitly political terms. A/I is antifascist, anti-capitalist and antimilitarist. It promotes free software, encryption, pseudonymity and the independent circulation of knowledge and cultural work. It reserves its limited, volunteer-run resources for people and projects broadly compatible with those principles rather than businesses, political parties, organized religions or institutions already possessing the means to make themselves heard.
b) And the issue U.S. has with them:
> The United States alleges that A/I supplies specialized digital architecture, encrypted communications and hosting to antifascist groups and other radical movements, including organizations already designated by the United States.
Is there any indication or proof that they are providing services to PKK? Equating supporting protest organizers in the west with supporting an armed terrorist group is laughable and dangerous.
I clicked around a bit, read the manifesto, I still have no idea what these people do. I guess they claim to have been around for a while, but a bunch of the links don't work and the manifesto has definitely been updated to reflect 2026 opinions.
> A/I was born over 20 years ago to provide internet support (through website hosting, e-mail accounts, mailing lists, chat, blogs, and much more) to activists and collectives coming from the world of grassroot and social movements.
they are a group of people providing services to activists. services include email, web hosting, chat, and other anonymity services. (see https://www.inventati.org/services/)
> We support individuals, collectives, communities and groups whose political and social activities fit within this worldview and who share with us some fundamental principles: anti-fascism, anti-racism, anti-sexism, anti-militarism
I suspect they have some "not mainstream" political views; although I think understanding what these views are requires more in-depth reading of the blogs that they host.
> The A/I Collective exclusively offers its tools and services to radical left-wing actors and manually vets all potential users for ideological affinity before granting them access to its infrastructure.
Autistici/Inventati is an Italian collective, active since around 2001, that runs free digital services for activists, grassroots groups and anyone who wants to communicate without being profiled.
It provides email accounts, mailing lists, blogs, websites, chat and VPN access.
Anyone? Like the PKK which The EU, UK, and US have labeled a terrorist organization ~20 years ago because they've killed thousands in Iraq, Turkey, and Syria since 1984?
Do the US then also sanction themselves? Cause the numer of people they have killed in that region of the globe since 1984 easily exceeds that number by orders of magnitude.
And the platform hasn't done any killing. They merely provide email etc. Are we going to sanction road builders too because a murderer has driven on their road since 1984?
Does AWS do business with anyone? Like the Israeli government who has been labeled perpetrators of genocide by the UN ~1 year ago because they've killed tens of thousands in Palestine since 2023?
"Al-Sharaa, who until recently was known by his alias "al-Julani," was a longtime jihadist who was part of the ranks of organizations associated with al-Qaida and ISIS, and even orchestrated an attack against Israel – milestones that led to his designation as a "Specially Designated Global Terrorist" by the US, with a reward of approximately $10 million for information leading to his capture. President Trump decided to lift the sanctions on al-Sharaa, who has transformed into a political leader following the collapse of the Assad regime in December, when he assumed Syria's presidency as the leader of Hayat Tahrir al-Sham."
Is that more, or less, than the 1.2 million people Musk has killed so far with the illegal dismantlement of USAID? Musk aggressively advocates for the forcible ethnic cleansing of Europe.
I see people posting links to x.com which he uses to promote those views as well as platform other hate groups calling for violence and genocide against immigrants, trans people, etc.
Do acts gain moral validity under color of law alone?
> The State Department on Wednesday designated three groups based in Europe, including two that advocate Palestinian rights, as transnational terrorist organizations.
> The move is part of the Trump administration’s fight against what it calls a “resurgence of far-left political terrorism” worldwide, a focus that many security experts say is disproportionate.
> In a statement, the department said that it would impose sanctions on Palestine Action, which is based in Britain and organizes acts of support for Palestinians and opposition to Israeli policies; Masar Badil, another pro-Palestinian group with branches in Western Europe and Canada; and Autistici/Inventati, known as A/I Collective, which is based in Italy and offers free digital tools to leftist activists around the world.
a/I collective in the OP is the third on this list.
> based in Italy and offers free digital tools to leftist activists around the world
Palestine Action has been designated a terrorist group in the UK as well after sabotaging military aircraft (the article says they sprayed paint, but does not say it was sprayed inside jet engines, rendering them inoperable). Masar Badil supports "armed struggle". One of the other groups ("hammer") recently designated a terrorist group (and linked to A/I Collective in another article I read ) got its name by attacking people in Germany with hammers.
Designating A/I Collective a terrorist group is different as it is not directly supporting violence, but it is providing free services to people who do, and it says it provides services to groups its aim is to "provide support exclusively to individuals or groups we feel we have an affinity with.". On the other hand their terms forbid "military use" which is broadly defined enough to rule out terrorism.
I think its likely they do have sympathy for violent groups, n the other hand, unless they have been going out of their way to support violence in some way I do not see reasonable grounds for banning them. Lots of commercial services have dodgy users. My fear is that is is heading in the direction of "if you do not hand info to the US authorities on demand you will be deemed a terrorist"
Keep in mind we're talking about communications services here, and one focusing on political speech at that.
"Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances."
In general I think the free lunch of centrally hosted services and persistent doxxable identities is nearing a close. It was inevitable that governments would meddle more, and more, and more - implicitly treating communications are something other than speech due to how encompassing the digital world has become - and now here we are.
The current United States government is very keen on pushing the idea that there is a vast and shadowy international left-wing conspiracy waging war on it.
the first few sentences of this link, and their about page, and their services page all make it clear what they do. i am unsure of where you confusion comes from.
They host blogs and digital infrastructure for autonomous anarchist/leftist collectives and are deeply connected to global free speech movements since their founding in 2001. If you expect to see a two sentence
mission statement or a product summary, you’re going to be disappointed.
> Off topic: Most stories about politics, or crime, or sports, or celebrities, unless they're evidence of some interesting new phenomenon.
So you’re incorrect. HN isn’t off bounds for all political posts, but yes, they do have to have an “interesting new phenomenon”.
The U.S. sanctioning a decades old technology collective is clearly new. Whether it’s “interesting” I can’t speak to because that’s subjective to every individual, but that’s where the useful voting system comes in.
> For the majority of organizations one can tell what they do in a few seconds
Have you ever opened the website of any B2B software/services provider? By your logic, they're all the most suspicious people on earth, because none of them seem to be able to explain what they actually do.
There's an "About" link on the top of the page and if you click it it fully explains what they do and for who in the first sentence of the first paragraph.
You're getting a negative response because ignoring that and implying that they're secretly doing sketchy things makes it look like you're doing bad faith criticism
As far as I can tell, there were no credible criminal charges against this group, except that they are effective organizers on the opposite side of political spectrum. In the White House’s deranged logic, this qualifies them to be officially designated as domestic terrorists [1].
Can we all agree that this is an assault on the First Amendment?
> In the White House’s deranged logic, this qualifies them to be officially designated as domestic terrorists.
The US claims they were providing services to the PKK which has been a designated terrorist organization in the EU, UK, and US for 20+ years (predating 9/11 even in the US).
>Can we all agree that this is an assault on the First Amendment?
I don't know, but they did say a month or two ago that they discovered Iran pivoted from funding their normal terrorist groups in the west since the US and EU cracked down on it so hard domestically, to funding more radical leftist groups since politicians were turning a blind eye to them.
Given the timing around putting economic pressure on Iran, I'm assuming that they had some financial connection to Iran.
> Our financial strategy relies exclusively on voluntary donations.
That is not a sustainable strategy in the long term. Sure after this news they will get lots of donations, but long term it is not something that is realistic.
Since they are now "sanctioned" by the US you cannot legally donate to them even if you wanted to...*[0]
[0] *Unless you now know why this collective needs crypto more than ever.
Given administration's obsession with Antifa being in the room with them at all times, it's impossible to take anything they say in relation to this as even close to factual.
"The Autistici Inventati is an Italy-based far-left organization that provides a range of technological tools and services to violent left-wing extremist groups, including website hosting on foreign servers, encrypted email accounts, chat and video conferencing, and digital architecture associated with its “Noblogs” platform. Autistici Inventati identifies itself as an “anti-fascist” and “anti-militarist” organization opposed to capitalism and exclusively provides its services to vetted individuals, collectives, and groups it perceives to be aligned with its ideology, including to sanctioned terrorist organizations such as the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), which has been designated by the United States, United Kingdom, and European Union for its use of terrorist tactics leading to thousands of deaths in Türkiye, Iraq, and Syria since its establishment in 1984.
Autistici Inventati is being designated pursuant to E.O. 13224, as amended, for having materially assisted, sponsored, or provided financial, material, or technological support for, or goods and services to or in support of, an act of terrorism."
How quaint. The MEK (Iranian People's Mudjahheddin) were designated as a terrorist organization but collected money in EU streets all the time. Now they are useful against Khamenei.
The US would also like to use the equivalent of the PKK in the large Kurdish part of Iran against Khamenei.
Nothing to say of using the PKK rebranding of SDF in Syria as well as receiving "global terrorist" Al Jolani in the White House.
• Bank accounts and payment processing.
• U.S.-linked donations and fundraising services.
• Hosting, cloud infrastructure and upstream network services.
• Domain registration and related technical services.
• Certificate, security and email-delivery accounts.
• Software and communications services.
• Relationships with non-U.S. providers frightened by American secondary sanctions.
• Access for people in the United States who currently use A/I’s services.
In my experience, groups like this have a fairly hostile relationship to State Communism as well. The Kronstadt rebellion for example is frequently cited [1]. But then you have groupings like Anarchist communists [2], which you would then risk lumping together with the anti-Communism part (not to mention that anti-Communism as a term is usually associated with forces staunchly opposed to people like this). Plus, if you are "only" anti-authoritarian, how do you suggest avoiding getting lumped together with Anarcho-capitalism?
Furthermore, these organisations operate in what they perceive to be Fascist and/or Capitalist societies, so why state opposition to something that is not "there" and has been pretty much gone from the global scene for nearly forty years?
In conclusion, yes, you have a point. But given the reasons above I find it really hard to get worked up over it and Anarchists do not generally get along with Leninists, Stalinists, or Maoists anyway.
Of fascism, capitalism, and communism, only two are going concerns in these people's lives. If they're going to declare themselves "anti-communist" they might as well also take a strong vocal stance against ghosts and flying cars.
In the United States, your example is explicitly protected by the Protection of Lawful Commerce in Arms Act. It is the legal defense of arms manufacturers who's product is sold legally and in good faith but is used by a third-party for illegal actions.
Rather than a vague insinuation that this group has taken some action deserving of economic blackballing, perhaps you could point to some specific action this group has done?
Which terrorist groups, specifically? And what support are they offering specifically?
You say provide tools for communication. Presumably that's every communication platform worldwide - almost undoubtably some sort of terrorist has used each of them.
Without judging this or trying to axiomatically derive the logic, I think the claim here is that a/I knowingly and deliberately provides services to the PKK, which the US and the EU designate as a terrorist organization.
It’s more than that, I think. I read through the various government statements as I was curious about rationale and precedent: the other two groups impacted by the order are rather unambiguous extremists, so understandable. In the extended justification for this a/I group, the US gov lists a large number of US and EU “Antifa” groups that variously leverage their services, including one that the individual recently arrested for wiping his phone is meant to be connected to. It suggests to me this was the result of some considerable network analysis and that the intent is to now have stronger legal tools to go after those groups.
I think that second (speculative, of course) step would be the more worrying precedent: if the use of technical infrastructure also used by designated groups was formally made to be incriminating/right-waiving. Why wouldn’t that apply to Signal, for example? The OP suggests the dividing line should be between true infrastructure open to all, including unsavory actors, versus tools that advertise services to a particular faction. It’s not an entirely disagreeable distinction, but I think in practice it’s rather fuzzy (Moxie of signal is/was rather far left himself, if I recall).
EDIT: Re-reading the document, the state department emphasizes that a/I “manually vets all potential users.” OP’s distinction stands for now.
I share most HN'ers priors about this administration and its motives and am commenting positively, not normatively, and only about the specific claim the Treasury Department made.
Signal doesn't knowingly and deliberately provide services to any organization, let alone one formally designated by the US and the EU. The whole point of Signal is to eliminate all pretenses of the service knowing who its users are or what they're doing. To the extent that's also true of Autistici Inventati, the OFAC designation is invalid.
Yes, I originally only meant to note that in the extended statement on a/I the PKK isn’t mentioned and the focus is rather on a network of “antifa” groups [0]. With respect to your legal point, I reread the document and we’re in agreement: the state department goes to lengths to demonstrate that a/I “manually vets all potential users.”
I feel much more confident saying that regardless of the validity of the underlying legal argument, this administration's messaging (on everything) is unhinged and partisan. I'm purposefully not reading into or out of what they're saying.
My understanding is that this is only coming from the US government. Do we have any reliable information to back this up? Because if it's just the US government, I can safely assume it's all lies.
I have no idea, but --- non-normatively --- there is some signal to be gleaned from this particular provider being targeted and not other, better-known and more systemically important ones.
> So I don't think this is as innocent as they seem.
Well, they are innocent until proven guilty.
> They are making and providing tools that enable communication specifically for Far Left groups, some of which are terrorist groups.
By all means, present something that shows they are knowingly supporting terrorist groups so we might judge for ourselves.
I mean, we have organizations that supported the January 6th terrorists that haven't had anything done to them, so I'm looking for something more serious than murder, storming the capital, riots, attacking the police force, and attempted assassination of a Vice President.
If a radical group sets up shop on I2P, are I2P users and devs now terrorists? This is a problem.
What about Monero users/devs? Veilid? Tox? Signal?
If they choose to support the PKK, which the EU, UK, and US have all deemed a terrorist organization for over 20 years, then of course the US should sanction them and they have no moral ground to stand on.
No moral ground to stand on? Would you say that about Amazon who supports the US regime, which is in the business of bombing Iranian schoolgirls? Is that less terrorist?
This collective of course has much more of a moral ground to stand on than indeed Amazon.
careful, if you start going after neutral infrastructure providers, that means google, amazon, microsoft, meta, and more will also need to go. i guarantee more terrorism-related content is discussed via those providers than a/i.
we should probably also go after internet service providers, too. maybe the companies that make the fiber optics?
(has anyone checked who is providing terrorists with electricity?)
Or for that matter, where they get their air?! Oh gosh golly darn, gee, if Earth is providing air to those commie bastards…
I may not agree with their political views, but to say that the tool is the problem is equivalent to saying guns kill people instead of people that use guns. The problem isn’t the tool or their point of view, or then even speaking about it - the problem comes from humans not controlling themselves. Any actor taking any adverse or malicious action inspired by words or ideas isn’t the fault of the ideator or author, but of the actor failing in self control.
Gotta reign this insanity in.
>careful, if you start going after neutral infrastructure providers, that means google, amazon, microsoft, meta, and more will also need to go.
No, because they actively respond to removal request. Open by default, supporting request for removal.
The difference comes in when you are open by default and tell the US to fuck off when they ask you to stop supporting terror groups.
i am replying specifically to your comments about neutral providers (that's why i quoted the part of your comment that i did)
>No, because they actively respond to removal request.
there is still orders of magnitude more conversations going through the providers i mentioned, related to terrorism/csam/etc., which is simply not reported or not known. right now, meta is facilitating significantly more terrorism than a/i.
in any case, this isn't really about terrorism. they've just overused the child-safety angle lately, and needed to drum up some anti-privacy/anti-encryption using the terrorism card.
Right, which is not A/I.
> there is still orders of magnitude more conversations going through the providers i mentioned, related to terrorism/csam/etc., which is simply not reported or not known.
So no one knows about these conversations but you know there are orders of magnitude more? Walk me through that.
Even if that were true how would that change anything? They still comply with the US government and their mission statement isn't to empower, protect, support political activists which in practice include terrorist designated organizations.
It's true that "terrorism" and "left wing extremism" is sometimes a boogeyman. Just not this time.
sure. whatsapp is used by literal billions of people. add in a few more billion people through facebook, instagram, gmail, outlook, amazon.
would you like me to walk through the statistics calculations? or can you extrapolate from the billions of users? now make a guess how many people a/i has facilitated. a few thousand? a hundred thousand?
>Even if that were true how would that change anything? They still comply with the US government and their mission statement isn't to empower, protect, support political extremists.
because it demonstrates that the goal is not to curtail terrorism.
yes
lets start with this: how many terrorists do you think a/i has helped?
How is your precious Nvidia PAC going?
Did they? There's a lot of implication with that "if", and I saw someone else point out (albeit rudely) that anything that may have supported them was taken down.
Or since ONU has declared illegal the occupation of territory in West Bank, will US sanction Israel?
Or will the United States only sanction those who simply see things differently from them?
you might ask who is right; the groups like google providing services to the us military, or the groups providing services to those opposing the us military.
Woah, with radical statements like that, we might have to go after mutual aid groups, PACs, and churches.
But they are not choosing to support the PKK.
They accuse it of being “a major far-left tech collective whose services are used by the most active and violent Antifa cells in the United States and across the world.”
The far left is a terrorist group? Where are all these violent "antifa cells"?
They labeled this groups as a terrorist organization so they could claim that anyone protesting the fascist Trump regime will easily be labeled terrorists and thrown in jail without a trial.
"Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances."
Email, chat, websites, blogs - these are all speech! A/I's overt political statement (that you are indicting them for) points to their primary interest being to facilitate political speech - a type of speech with some of the strongest protections (that whole "assemble ... and petition the Government" thing)
Beyond that, they're presumably a neutral conduit like every other service provider. If some users of their services are communicating to coordinate crimes, then unless A/I is getting directly involved in those conversations (with the government producing hard evidence of this), it's the exact same dynamic as every other email/hosting provider.
Holder v. Humanitarian Law Project https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/561/1
There is a law (18 U.S.C. § 2339B) that says you cant knowingly provide material support for designated foreign terrorist organizations. A law firm wanted to provide financial support and legal services to some, including the PKK (the same group A/I was accused of helping). They argued the federal law violated their first amendment rights.
The court concludes that the first amendment doesn't protect your ability to provide material support including services and communication equipment and the law still stands today.
A/I was never a politically neutral host, not that that would save them from sanctions: https://www.wewillfreeus.org/the-server-called-paranoia-defe...
[1] https://www.wewillfreeus.org/the-server-called-paranoia-defe...
a) According to that article, what it seems they are about:
> Its manifesto describes the project in explicitly political terms. A/I is antifascist, anti-capitalist and antimilitarist. It promotes free software, encryption, pseudonymity and the independent circulation of knowledge and cultural work. It reserves its limited, volunteer-run resources for people and projects broadly compatible with those principles rather than businesses, political parties, organized religions or institutions already possessing the means to make themselves heard.
b) And the issue U.S. has with them:
> The United States alleges that A/I supplies specialized digital architecture, encrypted communications and hosting to antifascist groups and other radical movements, including organizations already designated by the United States.
Could have been a false flag to discredit antifa. What happened to safe harbor?
What is this?
> A/I was born over 20 years ago to provide internet support (through website hosting, e-mail accounts, mailing lists, chat, blogs, and much more) to activists and collectives coming from the world of grassroot and social movements.
they are a group of people providing services to activists. services include email, web hosting, chat, and other anonymity services. (see https://www.inventati.org/services/)
From it:
> We support individuals, collectives, communities and groups whose political and social activities fit within this worldview and who share with us some fundamental principles: anti-fascism, anti-racism, anti-sexism, anti-militarism
I suspect they have some "not mainstream" political views; although I think understanding what these views are requires more in-depth reading of the blogs that they host.
> The A/I Collective exclusively offers its tools and services to radical left-wing actors and manually vets all potential users for ideological affinity before granting them access to its infrastructure.
It provides email accounts, mailing lists, blogs, websites, chat and VPN access.
And the platform hasn't done any killing. They merely provide email etc. Are we going to sanction road builders too because a murderer has driven on their road since 1984?
https://www.israelhayom.com/2025/11/12/donald-trump-ahmed-al...
"Al-Sharaa, who until recently was known by his alias "al-Julani," was a longtime jihadist who was part of the ranks of organizations associated with al-Qaida and ISIS, and even orchestrated an attack against Israel – milestones that led to his designation as a "Specially Designated Global Terrorist" by the US, with a reward of approximately $10 million for information leading to his capture. President Trump decided to lift the sanctions on al-Sharaa, who has transformed into a political leader following the collapse of the Assad regime in December, when he assumed Syria's presidency as the leader of Hayat Tahrir al-Sham."
I see people posting links to x.com which he uses to promote those views as well as platform other hate groups calling for violence and genocide against immigrants, trans people, etc.
Do acts gain moral validity under color of law alone?
You see it everywhere.
https://archive.fo/e8Gss
> The State Department on Wednesday designated three groups based in Europe, including two that advocate Palestinian rights, as transnational terrorist organizations.
> The move is part of the Trump administration’s fight against what it calls a “resurgence of far-left political terrorism” worldwide, a focus that many security experts say is disproportionate.
> In a statement, the department said that it would impose sanctions on Palestine Action, which is based in Britain and organizes acts of support for Palestinians and opposition to Israeli policies; Masar Badil, another pro-Palestinian group with branches in Western Europe and Canada; and Autistici/Inventati, known as A/I Collective, which is based in Italy and offers free digital tools to leftist activists around the world.
a/I collective in the OP is the third on this list.
> based in Italy and offers free digital tools to leftist activists around the world
Designating A/I Collective a terrorist group is different as it is not directly supporting violence, but it is providing free services to people who do, and it says it provides services to groups its aim is to "provide support exclusively to individuals or groups we feel we have an affinity with.". On the other hand their terms forbid "military use" which is broadly defined enough to rule out terrorism.
I think its likely they do have sympathy for violent groups, n the other hand, unless they have been going out of their way to support violence in some way I do not see reasonable grounds for banning them. Lots of commercial services have dodgy users. My fear is that is is heading in the direction of "if you do not hand info to the US authorities on demand you will be deemed a terrorist"
The US regime is an extremely violent group, so I that's certainly the issue.
Everyone's a terrorist nowadays.
US sanctions Italian hosting provider Autistici Inventati
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49451343
US Government designates host of noblogs.org a "global terrorist"
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49464391
Title: A Statement by A/I Collective About US Sanctions
Streisand effect at work again
"Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances."
In general I think the free lunch of centrally hosted services and persistent doxxable identities is nearing a close. It was inevitable that governments would meddle more, and more, and more - implicitly treating communications are something other than speech due to how encompassing the digital world has become - and now here we are.
This is, to be clear, lying nonsense.
> Off topic: Most stories about politics, or crime, or sports, or celebrities, unless they're evidence of some interesting new phenomenon.
So you’re incorrect. HN isn’t off bounds for all political posts, but yes, they do have to have an “interesting new phenomenon”.
The U.S. sanctioning a decades old technology collective is clearly new. Whether it’s “interesting” I can’t speak to because that’s subjective to every individual, but that’s where the useful voting system comes in.
Have you ever opened the website of any B2B software/services provider? By your logic, they're all the most suspicious people on earth, because none of them seem to be able to explain what they actually do.
You're getting a negative response because ignoring that and implying that they're secretly doing sketchy things makes it look like you're doing bad faith criticism
They are very clearly providing IT support for free to anti fascist organizations.
Can we all agree that this is an assault on the First Amendment?
[1] https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/2025/09/desi...
The US claims they were providing services to the PKK which has been a designated terrorist organization in the EU, UK, and US for 20+ years (predating 9/11 even in the US).
>Can we all agree that this is an assault on the First Amendment?
No. There is already a law that you cant knowingly provide material support (including services) that has been upheld by the Supreme Court https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/561/1.
Given the timing around putting economic pressure on Iran, I'm assuming that they had some financial connection to Iran.
Fascism is reaction - Benito Mussolini.
That is not a sustainable strategy in the long term. Sure after this news they will get lots of donations, but long term it is not something that is realistic.
Since they are now "sanctioned" by the US you cannot legally donate to them even if you wanted to...*[0]
[0] *Unless you now know why this collective needs crypto more than ever.
they've been around 25 years, which is nothing to sneeze at
The actual Treasury Announce here - https://home.treasury.gov/news/press-releases/sb0616/
"The Autistici Inventati is an Italy-based far-left organization that provides a range of technological tools and services to violent left-wing extremist groups, including website hosting on foreign servers, encrypted email accounts, chat and video conferencing, and digital architecture associated with its “Noblogs” platform. Autistici Inventati identifies itself as an “anti-fascist” and “anti-militarist” organization opposed to capitalism and exclusively provides its services to vetted individuals, collectives, and groups it perceives to be aligned with its ideology, including to sanctioned terrorist organizations such as the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), which has been designated by the United States, United Kingdom, and European Union for its use of terrorist tactics leading to thousands of deaths in Türkiye, Iraq, and Syria since its establishment in 1984.
Autistici Inventati is being designated pursuant to E.O. 13224, as amended, for having materially assisted, sponsored, or provided financial, material, or technological support for, or goods and services to or in support of, an act of terrorism."
The US would also like to use the equivalent of the PKK in the large Kurdish part of Iran against Khamenei.
Nothing to say of using the PKK rebranding of SDF in Syria as well as receiving "global terrorist" Al Jolani in the White House.
They are sanctioned, okay, and? What happens practically.
[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kronstadt_rebellion
[2]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anarchist_communism
Furthermore, these organisations operate in what they perceive to be Fascist and/or Capitalist societies, so why state opposition to something that is not "there" and has been pretty much gone from the global scene for nearly forty years?
In conclusion, yes, you have a point. But given the reasons above I find it really hard to get worked up over it and Anarchists do not generally get along with Leninists, Stalinists, or Maoists anyway.
Rather than a vague insinuation that this group has taken some action deserving of economic blackballing, perhaps you could point to some specific action this group has done?
You say provide tools for communication. Presumably that's every communication platform worldwide - almost undoubtably some sort of terrorist has used each of them.
I think that second (speculative, of course) step would be the more worrying precedent: if the use of technical infrastructure also used by designated groups was formally made to be incriminating/right-waiving. Why wouldn’t that apply to Signal, for example? The OP suggests the dividing line should be between true infrastructure open to all, including unsavory actors, versus tools that advertise services to a particular faction. It’s not an entirely disagreeable distinction, but I think in practice it’s rather fuzzy (Moxie of signal is/was rather far left himself, if I recall).
EDIT: Re-reading the document, the state department emphasizes that a/I “manually vets all potential users.” OP’s distinction stands for now.
Signal doesn't knowingly and deliberately provide services to any organization, let alone one formally designated by the US and the EU. The whole point of Signal is to eliminate all pretenses of the service knowing who its users are or what they're doing. To the extent that's also true of Autistici Inventati, the OFAC designation is invalid.
[0] https://www.state.gov/releases/office-of-the-spokesperson/20...
As per a government who puts cycling and expressing distaste for inflation in the same camp.
Well, they are innocent until proven guilty.
> They are making and providing tools that enable communication specifically for Far Left groups, some of which are terrorist groups.
By all means, present something that shows they are knowingly supporting terrorist groups so we might judge for ourselves.
I mean, we have organizations that supported the January 6th terrorists that haven't had anything done to them, so I'm looking for something more serious than murder, storming the capital, riots, attacking the police force, and attempted assassination of a Vice President.