Whether you like them or not, they have very useful mutual aid groups that have funded a lot of HRT, rent, etc for trans people. One trans person got hit by a hurricane and needed assistance with rent for 2 months and it was paid in full. Without their help, that person would have been homeless.

I don't know a lot about this. If the United States wants to subpoena records from an instance admin based outside of the United States, do they have to comply?

Mainstream social media track and identify in non-obvious ways such as browser fingerprinting. If you're on a federated open source social media site then there's none of that. If you use a VPN (and if you can't afford one, Proton offer a free tier) or Tor browser to mask your IP and you're using a non personally identifiable email address that goes a long way towards protecting yourself.

Beyond that, never posting identifying info about yourself such as the place you live, including the State, will protect you even further.

But I do agree that using an E2EE service is the best way to communicate.

Centralized platforms are much more dangerous, the various FOSS federated platforms are auditable and don't contain inherent spyware. You can also use certain sites as a proxy, or start your own VPS+lemmy instance to use as a secure proxy for yourself. The restrictive nature of sites like reddit means they can ban you for taking basic security precautions, which they do regularly.

The decentralized nature of federated social media is the only advantage it has. But it's kind of a wash. The big social media platforms have resources and weight they can throw at resisting state level surveillance. The operator of the Mastodon instance you sign up for probably doesn't have a lawyer on retainer let alone the army of legal experts Facebook or X could throw at the problem. That said you can always change instances or use multiple ones to begin with.

Hexbear has a really large trans community with a lot of mutual aid work. Are you trans?

When I first checked Lemmy this morning, I quickly found three threads from trans communities full of people afraid for their freedoms and even their lives because of the results of the eletion, and another that was a circlejerk about how the election didn't actually matter. That's pretty much it in a nutshell.

edit: To clarify, the dismissive circlejerk was on lemmygrad. I actually think lemmy.ml isn't bad, just a mixed bag sometimes. Lemmygrad.ml is significantly worse, and Hexbear is worst of all. Don't go there for anything but vibes-based politics that will sacrifice any ideal and any person if it means they can be smug (as smug as the worst liberal) on the internet.

These are all large trans spaces, and Hexbear has a couple of impressive mutual aid groups thats helped many trans people.

Tor is a good choice, yes, but most normal people aren't going to use that daily. It should absolutely be used for purchasing things like DIYhrt though.

Ah... well... the Tor Project currently receives funding from the US Department of State, and has in the past received funding from DARPA and the US Naval Research Laboratory... (Tor sponsors list)

the federal government currently accounts for well over half of the Tor Project’s overall funding.

Privacy group demands answers about government’s influence on Tor

Just fyi

Aye.
Lemmy itself is inherently public.
People should be careful what they post anywhere online, including here.
Don't doxx yourself people

Also rotate accounts regularly, using different information in each one.

i recommend Privacy Lock to force entering credentials to unlock the phone if you drop it or shake it, and don't use fingerprint so you can't be physically forced to unlock it

Its a trans group chat, its for trans people. Public facing communities like this one are fine to converse respectfully in. If you do know trans people, be sure to spread the image around.

Please don’t take it personally as there are other groups who do welcome allies, the community is a bit worried at the moment, I’m appreciative of your support!