this post was submitted on 23 Jun 2026
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If it was me, I would not run Lemmy/Piefed in your situation. These things are designed to be fully open and visible to anyone who want to look at them. Probably not your use case.
I'd rather look at something like a Matrix instance, where you can have encryption and secrecy built in. Also, you say that you're a noob in these things. If you want to hide from the government, you really do need someone very experienced to help you with security, or else it won't end well.
All the best!
Well said I was thinking about matrix too seems to be a lot safer. But it's not the platform I was looking for. I really need something like Lemmy where people can make communities share their interests not just group chats
Well then, your choices are: 1. Buy a server under a false name 2. Never connect directly to the server or the host's site. Use proxies for management (preferably proxies in another country). 3. Change keys more often. 4. Reinstall the system on a VPS so that the disk is fully encrypted in case the VPS is seized or management is intercepted. LUKS is the best choice. 5. Don't keep any logs on the server.
Even with all this, your VPS provider can still reveal the addresses of everyone who connected to the instance, so the most challenging part from a user experience perspective is: none of your users should connect directly to the instance, only through proxies or VPNs on other nodes.
Honestly, it's much easier to publish an instance on Tor or I2P networks. But in any case, even if the server is published on I2P, follow all the points from the first paragraph.
UPD: honestly, it's better to put a i2p Floodfill router on a VPS to support the anonymous network within the country. And promote node hosting. This will give much more benefit. Publishing something inside an anonymous network is much less risky than on the internet, though caution must still be exercised.
Thanks some great advice here I should add that hostings here are obligated to log anything they can by default. So that's that I'm not gonna do or allow others to do anything too obviously illegal on my instance also it's mostly for my friends and we gonna keep it somewhat private and closed. That stuff gonna take place somewhere else when the time comes
Good. It seems I unconsciously used my own experience. In my country, even having users limit on a platform requires you to register with the state service.
In that case, it doesn't matter much what you set up. If you just need a chat, Matrix is a good option. Or maybe Mattermost if you need a nice client. There are also several social network platforms in the Fediverse.
Is there any where I can have a private community in the fediverse? Everything here is too open for us
The first step is to understand what you want exactly. Microblogging like Twitter? A social network like Facebook? A video hosting like YouTube? This depends on a lot. Lemmy communities can't be closed out of the box, but YouTube for example can be closed to registered users or with a private link.
I should have mentioned. Micro blogging would be great for us.