Italian technology collective Autistici/Inventati (A/I) said on Sunday it would shut down its services after a U.S. terrorism designation led to the suspension of its .org domain and the closure of its bank account.
The volunteer-run provider, founded in 2001, offers privacy-focused email, websites, mailing lists and blogging services to activists, campaigners and others seeking alternatives to commercial platforms.
I hate this so much
Two days later, autistici.org became unreachable after Public Interest Registry (PIR), the U.S.-based operator of the .org domain, placed it on serverHold status. PIR said it was legally required to suspend the domain following the designation.
Banca Etica, an Italian lender where the collective held an account, subsequently suspended the account, citing sanctions-related risks. The bank criticised what it described as the use of U.S. sanctions for political purposes.
This is how it works. All they have to do is but you on that list and the whole US-linked and dollar-linked system takes you out of the economy.
The fact that Banca Etica did this despite being otherwise very much good in their track record is nothing short of stupid.
Not sure how it’s stupid, banks have to follow the law. Yes it’s a stupid law, but that’s an issue for the national govt and the EU to address. The rule of law is one of the things that distinguishes us from the barbarians in the Trump admnistration.
What needs to be done is European withdrawal from these treaties. If the US wants to try sanctioning the entire western world it will get interesting.
@thanksforallthefish @birdwing
The EU are planning the “digital euro” as an alternative to the US stranglehold on international finance, but this will take YEARS to build, if ever!!
And there is so much more they need to protect, inc the entire EU-based web.
In any case, The World needs a secure, independent alternative to ICANN, before it goes rogue.
This is why EU needs financial and tech sovereignty.
they did so much good. this is sad.
This is so bad. After blackblogs’ closure, is there any free wordpress hosting service left for left-wing projects? Where to move noblogs.org blogs?
Why? Can’t they operate for the rest of the world?
Without a bank account and domain name?
And they are also being targeted by US sponsored hackers so it’s impossibile to keep services up this way. I hope this is a wake up call for someone but I don’t think so.
I hope this is a wake up call for someone
Sure… a call for our corrupt politicians to increase their prices because it again became a bit harder to sell us out without affecting public opinion. Not that they actually care about the latter, but getting reelected means getting paid by their actual employers longer.
There is no registrar left, like e.g. .ml was open for everybody? With crypto and Chinese banks, the banking should be possible.
It doesn’t really matter if the registrar is .eu, .de or whatever. If US really wants to fuck you they are just gonna knock on ICANN door. As far as I know there is no escaping ICANN, that’s still at the top of every domain, period.
But then the EU has to take care of it. If we want IT independence and the US can ban any domain then it doesn’t matter what else we do. Or rather, I think we don’t actually aim for independence.
If we want IT independence
“We” as in Europeans? Or “we” as in the corrupt politicians with actual power? Not the same group of people, definitely not the same agenda.
that’s still at the top of every domain, period.
I see what you did there.
Has the US ever done so? I don’t think that’s a real risk. Or rather, it’s not any higher than the US threatening to nuke Italy unless the organization is disbanded.
Thousands of people would need to switch their website urls and email addresses. At that point its pointless for people to stay with them. Easier to make a clean fresh start.
Easier for now. It’s infrastructure for activists. Their clients should be willing to accept that inconvenience because their own risk rises if any domain can be switched off.
