Fediverse

You absolutely can run Fediverse software yourself. That's how the internet was created and we have you claw it back from big Tech.

First you should figure out what you want to run. For a few folks and basic microblogging, GoToSocial is super easy to set up, but it's limited.

Bonfire is an amazing fediverse app and it's getting better everyday. They're trying to make it a platform for communities and it's very extensible.

Emissary is also amazing platform for fediverse stuff and then there's HTML and CSS editor to really build what you want from there. Like bonfire, but you have to really create the site you want.

If you want reddit style, I like piefed over Lemmy.

Forums with fediverse? Nodebb.

Pictures only? Pixelfed

Live streams? Owncast

Hosting videos? Peertube

And it all interconnects. So you could run Bonfire, and follow someone on Peertube and comment and like from Bonfire.

It's overwhelming. Id suggest write down what you're wanting and then look at each project and see what fits.

I run my own bonfire at btfree.social and a public peertube at tubefree.org.

Happy to help however I can. I've done some install videos and going to do more soon.

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!

Hi i'm iranian, deploy matrix, that's what most people did in the last blackout in the war, you can either keep federation on to help the load of others or turn off federation to get out the radar, theres no way to register a VPS inside the country under a false name so be very careful.

I know there are quite a few comments already, so I hope you read mine. Bro, be fucking careful. Really understand what you're implementing. Tbh in a small community, I would use snikket or something like that. But under authoritarian tyranny, you need to be sure you and your users cannot be tracked.

Depending on the legality and safety of doing so, you may also want to look into tech for avoiding censorship and oppresive regimes.

Things like TOR, running your own DNS server, etc.

Edit: I didn't want to just leave this vague, so I looked up the Electronic Frontier Foundation's Surveillance Self-Defense guide hoping for some better specifics, but unfortunately it looks like it's mainly about making security plans, understanding your risk profile, using secure settings on your personal devices, using signal, using TOR, and selecting "the VPN that's right for you".

Like you really have a choice of "the VPN right for you" when they shut down things to only approved in/out IPs.

There might be useful info there, but it wasn't quite what I was hoping to point you at, sorry.

Considering the risks involved with hosting something like this, I would probably start with research on how you could host this safely/anonymously. That would be my first priority. Can't help people if they take you out.

Next step would be looking at piefed/Lemmy or whatever systems you're thinking about hosting and identifying what features/logs/etc you would need to disable, modify, or set up to clear themselves automatically so that you wouldn't have information worth going after in the first place.

To be honest: If you don't have the deeper technical knowledge to implement some secure form of forum / BBS or something like that and if you are dependent on the advice from strangers on the net and LLMs AND you are currently living in a nation where something like that may lead to an "accident"... just don't. A warzone isn't the right place to learn to fight.

There are also mesh systems that are worth looking into, if it's possible to get access to the hardware for communication that is potentially harder for the government to track.

You'd be putting your life on the line, so a suggestion if you go through with this idea:

Have someone you can entrust the site to that wouldn't be targeted by the regime (at least immediately, maybe a foreigner?) in case you go MIA, or someone "suicides" you.

Also, hosting an anti-dictatorship platform fully within the borders the dictatorship controls means it could easily hunt down those hosting it. They wouldn't need to pick leaves one by one if they chop the whole tree down, in an analogy. From what I follow of news about Iran, its regime appears to be more immediately an enemy of the US, Israel, Lebanon and Russia, and the EU governments appear to be shifting to be openly against it, so maybe worth looking for VPS providers aligned with those countries, I'd think.

Also, people often use Telegram, but internet being cut makes it somewhat unreliable. Alternatively, what P2P or other portable relay technologies are there, so that even if the origin of the network disappears or internet is cut, it keeps floating around? I can only think of amateur radio broadcast, similar to how Poles did in the Iron Curtain time, but similarly to there back then, you'd need to be on the run after each short broadcast, so you're not easily found.

Buddy...

You want to host an anti-Iranian regime website, from inside Iran?

Like, do you honestly not understand how easy it would be to trace back to you?

Do you realize in any country hosting an instance makes you responsible for what's posted?

That's not even getting into how you couldn't post outside links if there's a filter, or how ~~if~~ when the regime IDs you and arrests you, they have all the DMs and IMs of everyone who signed up for it

You want a secure messaging service, what you're talking about is an insanely uninformed and dangerous plan.

Do not do what you're talking about doing.

IMO its best to keep everything illegal to word of mouth you dont want to leave any traces. Hosting an online fedi platform would be putting up a beacon leading back to you with a paper trail of all people involved.

good start! but when internet gets turned off, anything using tcp/ip stops. look for coop cloud, Reticulum, LoRa radios if you can get them. you can build your OWN local area internet to communicate with your friends.

I'm not sure of the details about the situation in Iran, but from my understanding, it seems that it would be much safer to set up a server outside the country that's run by you and others inside the country. It's fairly easy to set up virtual private servers, although you may need to arrange payment outside the country.

That would be much safer than hosting it with the physical infrastructure inside your borders. If you're hosting the physical infrastructure, it makes it much easier to locate. If the server is not in Iran, then it may be difficult or impossible for the government to seize it and access the contents.

There are people on this site who are far more expert than I when it comes to network security. Follow their feedback and you may even find someone willing to partner with you to help set it up.

A good idea would be a p2p system such as briar, which would be extremely hard to block as it syncs over tor, local WiFi, Bluetooth, and removable drives. As it is fully encrypted and has no servers to take over it would be very hard for the government to intercept messages.

Maybe I don't get what you're asking.

If you created your own instance, running it on your own, and the Iranian government shut off your internet, YOU could still access the instance, since you're on the same Lan inside your house.....but how would other people access it if you don't have internet?