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Declaring a group of "hackers" as global terrorists? Mark off that spot on your Cyberpunk Dystopia Bingo cards.
granted when I fire up Cyberpunk 2077 nowadays I'm not sure if I'm playing a computer game or a documentary
considering the state that cyberpunk was in on it's release lead to so much backlash that Sony and other digital storefronts allowed unconditional full refunds as the developers knowingly shipped out unbuggy untested garbage, I would say you also have a starring role in that documentary by supporting cdprojektred. Might be a game, I respect myself a little too much to engage with it though
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The cyberpunk dystopia we were promised was much more stylish than the cyberpunk dystopia we got.
Written by artists, built by businessmen and engineers.
Siamo tutti antifascisti!
Not in the tech industry, apparently. As a 50 year old, it's really shocking to see what I thought were just solid, solid underpinnings of a modern liberal society like "white nationalists are bad and should be ostracized" eroding.
too true, but "dovremmo essere tutti antifascisti!" doesn't have much ooomph to it unfortunately.
Not around these parts, especially not in the European sense.
Why can't capitalism be judged on its own merits? Why do we need the state to get involved in shaping hegemony?
You know the answer. There’s a reason the state considers antifa a threat.
Because those goons kept showing up to otherwise peaceful protests to beat people up, vandalize cars, and in some cases light random buildings on fire. Now what the current Trump administration labels as Antifa might be different from the actual Antifa groups in ~2015-2022.
I think a lot of this is revisionist. In most protests, what happens is the police get involved. The police don't know to to de-escalate anything, so surprise surprise - riot!

If you go back and look at the BLM riots, the police were there well before any rioting started. Having poorly trained people with guns, tear gas, and rubber bullets trying to "control a crowd" is a sure-fire way to start a riot. It doesn't help that BLM was protesting the police. Which, as you can imagine, means the police went into it pissed off.

Of course the blame is distributed, but we can't ignore the fact that the police are a major instigator of violence in protests.

Capitalism has been judged on its own merits, and been found to be a ridiculously simplistic, unworkable system that tends toward oligarchy, massive inequality, and authoritarianism.

The state needs to get involved to protect the unworkable system.

Worth noting that at scale larger than family/clan/tribe it beats communism and feudalism on all relevant - to people - metrics.

(though unconstrained capitalism is not ideal)

> unworkable system

? unconstrained pure capitalism has bad effects, but it is not unworkable unlike say pure communism applied at scale larger than a family

> Worth noting that at scale larger than family/clan/tribe it beats communism and feudalism on all relevant - to people - metrics.

No, it demonstrably doesn’t. The countries that have the least problems with the issues I described are ones that combine market economics with socialist approaches.

In many ways, those countries are closer to market socialism than they are to pure capitalism.

> those countries are closer to market socialism than they are to pure capitalism

so they are closer to capitalism than communism

> US’s historical use of socialism and communism

I never visited USA or America

> China succeeds while the US is failing

Part of China's success was more capitalism and far less communism

(and China's success is in large patch catchup after what Mao et all did)

Maybe you are right, at least partially, I can identify many of its flaws myself. However for example my homeland has tried communism/socialism, and went through brief periods of anarchy, and the same can be told about all. My family has lost a lot to all of these experiments (including the current capitalist one), but stability and modest prosperity are the best, and anarchism is as far from that as it gets. Even the communist regime persecuted anarchism.
> the same can be told about all.

Because the idea that there's one simple ideologically-based system that's going to solve all problems is simplistic.

Markets are useful, but that doesn't mean that societies should be organized around entirely around markets and private ownership of almost everything as the primary governing principle.

The US has really taken this to an extreme, to the point that it has legally ruled that "money is speech", which essentially guarantees an oligarchy.

Treating capitalism and communism/socialism as two sides of a binary choice is a propaganda trick, basically.

if the US considered money as speech, like code is speech, we would not be having crypto math wars on crypto/financial privacy as a concept. Tornado-cash for example would not be getting an execution with an audience in the joker "send a message" style.

No, the US govt does NOT consider "money is speech".

Capitalism "needs to win", but there's no way it can without being ruthlessly forced upon people. Heck even forcing it is just delaying the inevitable decline/crash.
Certain elements of Capitalism (cough AI) seem to simultaneously be speedrunning its decline and keeping it on life support. What strange times we find ourselves in.
I think that we had had enough time to judge communism on its own merits. Why do you want to try again?
Let's stick to the topic please. Don't dilute the investigation with random detours.
What has "judging capitalism on its merits" to do with the US declaring an Antifa SaaS provider terrorists?
You didn't read the A/I org webpage, did you?

> A/I (Autistici/Inventati, pronounced [au’tistiʧi]-[iŋ’vɛntati], or [iŋvɛn’tati]) was born in 2001 from an encounter of individuals and collectives of the autonomous anticapitalist movement interested in technology and active in the digital rights struggle.

Anticapitalism doesn't justify supporting terrorism.
Of course the fascists in power have a problem with real freedom.
Freedom to sabotage rail systems that are the property of the people and actually managed by communist unions? Come on?
A/I collective is not being accused of that, but of hosting information and providing communications services.
If I vet Al Qaida members on my platform, provide them services, continue to do it after several bombings, and keep their unencrypted mails and host their websites, I'm quite sure that I can be considered as an accomplice.
When are the executives of Twitter, Facebook, Google, being charged with these crimes? Any minute now?
Facebook was funded by Thiel, launched the day after DARPA shut down digital LifeLog and has long standing connections to intelligence agencies. Twitter is owned by the world's largest defense contractor.

These are government agencies acting as private entities.

Communist unions manager rail systems? Where?
The CGT is a communist union and the SNCF is its most important stronghold. Good luck climbing in the hierarchy if you are not part of it.
Would love to know who your supplier is, for... scientific purposes. FdS is controlled by managers appointed by political parties and the composition depends on who's in power in that moment, surely not "by the people" nor "communist unions".
The CGT, which is a communist union, is overly influent in the SNCF activities, and loves to go on month-long strikes when a decision doesn't fit them. Same happens at EDF.
things reactionaries say that would be awesome if it were true
Wish they would pay this sort of attention to the violent right-wing groups in the US, but of course that would put too many cops and ICE agents in prison for their liking.

Anyway, wouldn't be a day ending in -y if this presidency wasn't yelling about "far-left terrorists".

Rose City Antifa: Oregon gets a shout out. Seriously.
The 2001 AUMF (authorization of us of military force) needs to be repealed so that these "special designations" are no longer allowed and war has to be declared. The US federal government will still perform the same acts but at least after the 2001 AUMF is repealed they'll have to go back to secret assassinations. Instead of flouting it in semi-public with the executive disposition matrix system.
Where's "antifa" headquarters, exactly? Who's their leader? And who's 2nd in command?
That always reminds me of a graffiti I saw once, which simply commanded "Anarchy!"... the irony of which got a bit lost on the artist I think...
That doesn't seem ironic at all. It would be ironic if "Anarchy!" had an HQ.
An organization doesn't have to be centralized, just like communists weren't. This is a lazy argument.
There was a national Communist Party as well as several Cominterns. Communists are pretty big on democratic centralism.
"Several cominterns" - each country had its communist party, meaning a certain level of decentralization.
"Comintern" means "Communist International"--meant to guide the various national parties.
Besides, I don’t usually think of individual national governments as the proper level at which something qualifies as decentralized.
An organization does have to have a clear set of shared plans, toward which it takes a program of coordinated action. That's what an organization is. It's about being organized. A bunch of random individuals who share some opinions, occasionally use similar tactics, may cooperate sporadically, and describe themselves using some term or gravitate toward certain symbols, is not an organization. And it's not clear that "antifa" even does most of those things.

Nor are a bunch of small groups a single "organization" if they don't have some kind of ongoing, systemematic structure for coordinating their actions.

I'm an atheist. That doesn't make atheism an organization.

A unit of organization that was quickly made obsolete and purely symbolic during the era of Stalinism
It was not real communism, as I was told!
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The communists were very centralized. They held world governments. Even the American communists were centralized.
Where is the Neo-Nazi headquarters, exactly? Who's their leader? And who's second in command? Surely if there's no designated single headquarters they aren't a problem.
Copy-pasting my comment to the other poster making the same point:

"Antifa" is not being presented as an ideology, it is being portrayed as a global terror cell. The specific purpose for this is to be able criminalize leftist politics, since the state has many more tools to prevent association with foreign groups.

"Nazi" does not have a leader, but the Nazi party had a leader. Atomwaffen had a leader. Various III% groups have leaders. Strangely, these groups are not being linked to foreign right-wing groups in an attempt to make them illegal.

It's false, the US has banned international right-wing groups such as the Jewish Defense League.
With respect, this is false. JDL members were certainly charged with crimes. They were not charged with belongimg to the JDL, since that would be a first amendment violation.

There are interesting reports on state.gov describing the difficulties the JDL caused with the Soviet Union, eg.:

https://history.state.gov/historicaldocuments/frus1969-76v13...

Note that at no point do they discuss banning the JDL or charging members with belonging to the JDL.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jewish_Defense_League

Ok maybe I'm wrong or there is some subtle legalese but the wikipedia page states that "it was described as a "right-wing terrorist group" by the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) in 2001".

Being part of a domestic terrorist group is protected by the first amendment in the United States. Being part of a foreign terrorist group is not. You can pay dues to the KKK, you cannot donate to Hezbollah.
I've remember news and reporting about neo-Nazis (adjective) but not a lot of "the Neo-Nazi international terrorist organization..." (singular noun).

Seems like an ideology, not an organization.

If you look at the Treasury wording here: "so-called antifascist groups (“Antifa”)" they do this weird thing where they refer to groups, plural, but give it a singular noun as if it's one big global thing.

And that seems very intentionally misleading compared to, say, "self-described Antifa groups" or such.

It all seems consistent with right-wing/American-evangelical victimization propaganda techniques going back to talk radio in the 80s.

Where are "Nazi" headquarters? Who's their leader? And who's 2nd in command?

Maybe an ideology doesn't need headquarters or a leader.

"Antifa" is not being presented as an ideology, it is being portrayed as a global terror cell. The specific purpose for this is to be able criminalize leftist politics, since the state has many more tools to prevent association with foreign groups.

"Nazi" does not have a leader, but the Nazi party had a leader. Atomwaffen had a leader. Various III% groups have leaders. Strangely, these groups are not being linked to foreign right-wing groups in an attempt to make them illegal.

Antifa is a bit more radical than classic leftist politics, advocates for and commits violence, at least in my country (France).

The lack of designated leader doesn't mean that they get a pass and can continue to commit homicide attempts against their designated ennemies, or journalists they don't like.

It's part of their strategy, just like they manage to have 10 persons to light up and throw a molotov cocktail during protests to avoid personal responsibility.

European politics are very different than American politics, and I am not terribly familiar with them so I won't weigh in.

Antifa in the US is "guys with a Signal group chat who do black bloc stuff."

Black block stuff is akin to terrorism or at least political violence.
In America, probably the KKK? They do in fact have a leader and a second in command (not that I know or care who).
Where's ISIS headquarters? Where's the headquarters of drug gangs?
Very strange to decide to only supply a communications system to people ideologically aligned with one. That seems like it would make one stand out to an undesirable degree, and it makes me wonder whether these groups actually do this, or whether they're setting others up. If this is correct I almost whether they're going after something set up by the Italian government.

Still, it seems like this would likely to be protected under the US first amendment, and it would probably be reasonable to bring legal action in the US to avoid silly stuff happening in Europe, when this in inevitably used to send goons and annoying infiltrators across the sea to Italy and Europe.

A/I vets users on its platform, which has been used to organize terrorist attacks by the radical left.

It's not end-to-end encrypted, and given how the Antifa networks are structured, it's very likely that they knew what was going on.

It's deserved and Antifas are the first ones to try to cancel/kill/hurt/intimidate who they judge are their enemies, so I won't shed a tear on those people.

in terms of making alternatives to large platforms, some ideological bias as the differentiator is pretty common.

its a reason for people to ditch the larger platforms with higher reach and bigger audiences

Well this is concerning, hopefully they aren’t planning to go after Disroot and Riseup as well. The ability to access secure hosting shouldn’t depend on political orientation.
>A/I’s cadre of radical hackers and tech developers provide a full spectrum of services – including encrypted chats and email, web hosting, secure video conferencing and streaming, anonymity shields, and a suite of other technological tools [...] while remaining anonymous, untraceable, and beyond the reach of the law.

ignoring the political leanings, this type of rhetoric will certainly be used to further the campaign against encryption, bolster the case for id verification requirements, etc. it paints the use of everyday normal tools: email, web hosting, etc. as inherently bad if they are private.

That's probably the point of it?

"We're murdering people and they have the audacity to organise against us"!

And it will have the effect of making these tools more popular, as it boldly proclaims how effective they are against even nation-state–level threats.
> it boldly proclaims how effective they are against even nation-state–level threats

it boldly proclaims how effective they are against even rogue nation-state–level threats.

There, FTFY.

it almost reads like an advertisement! Secure video conferencing!
Every announcement from these psychos reads like a missive from the Ministry of Peace
>Rose City Antifa also used A/I Collective tools and services to disseminate doxing lists and release illegally obtained personal information of Federal Immigration and Customs Enforcement, along with calls for targeted attacks on ICE agents in the streets and “in their homes.”

That's what DHS does. They dish it out but can't handle it when it's done to them. Cowards.

Rose City 'Til I Die. Go pound sand fascists. Traitors to the Constitution.
Dishing it out but not accepting it being done to them is exactly what it means to be a monopoly on legitimate violence. When two parties are dishing it out separately to each other, and one of them calls themselves the government, this is called a civil war or at least a terrorist insurgency.
ICE has been harassing, imprisoning, and murdering people for no legitimate reason.
Rose City 'Til I Die. Go pound sand fascists. Traitors to the Constitution.