Every year between December 20 and January 15-ish we change some things around. Some changes are recurrent (such as the Christmas hat on our logo in the videos), some changes are not visible (like the behind-the-scenes clean-ups and upkeep) and some changes are on the policy level and on the way we do things. It is this latter category that this short note is about.
Censorship-resistant
To be fair, over the last 8 years, we had minimal troubles on this front – with the exception of Faceberg. Fortunately, Faceberg’s importance in the milieus we’re interested in has been steadily declining for 4 years in a row now so, overall, there was no serious issue. In fact, our effective reach increased after our already-throttled Faceberg page was finally shitcanned.
With that said, one of the reasons we didn’t have big issues is because we stayed ahead (or sometimes behind) the curve by implementing measures meant to absorb potential blows without compromising on what we need to say. Measures such as:
- Moving to Telegram in 2017 (the rest of the world learned either in 2020 or in 2022 that moving to Telegram is a good idea).
- Implementing our own IRC server for quick discrete chats in 2015
- Big shoutout to the Discord moderation team who’ve been running our Discord server diligently and cleanly since 2018, entering in the 5th year without any major incident and keeping a much-needed balance between shitposting and serious chats
- Getting a discrete (but consistent) presence on alt-tech [Gab, MeWe, Bitchute, Odysee]
- Opening up this website in 2018 [using partners with a proven trackrecord of standing firmly for freedom of expression in the face of great adversity]
- Acquiring a parallel physical infrastructure for backups-of-backups to make sure that if we are taken down, we’d be back within 72 hours
- Implementing an internal sharing procedure and the Donors’ Circle in 2020
All of these (and others less visible) have made it very difficult to effectively censor us.
Going forward (with the approval of the Donors’ Circle) we are taking another two steps in the direction of both resilience and censorship-resistant infrastructure. As the Internet (re)Balkanizes, the opportunities present themselves.
As of this year, all of our public files and some of the internal ones shall be distributed using the BitTorrent protocol. This may seem like a step backward technologically (and it may indeed be) but the fact remains that distributing 7+GB files in an efficient manner and cross-platform compatible cannot be done more effectively and cheaper than the torrent protocol.
Sometime in the next 18 months (subjected to the Donors’ Circle opinion and technological constraints) we will try our luck with a semi-open forum. Open in the same way our Discord server is open, but also with reserved sections. The experience with the Discord server is encouraging enough to consider such an option – even though there are multiple reservations and concerns (not least in relation to privacy).
A heterodox approach to tech is the way forward and, just like we were right to switch to Telegram years before everyone else, we will very likely be proven right to set up the infrastructure for the rebalkanization of the Internet before it fully happens (mentally, it already happened).
Financially stable
The Network is not meant to turn a profit but activities costs money. And 2022 was a surprisingly good year in this department. So good that we still have a hard time believing it. In 2021 it could’ve been “blamed” on the exceptionally low-expense year of 2020. But last year exceeded the optimistic expectations. For the first time, there were no significant financial concerns.
We intend to work harder in 2023 to build upon this status quo. This will likely involve some legal changes too, though a lot of factors are beyond our control so no ironclad promises can be made in public. Suffice to say though that with a bit of luck, by 2025 we might be looking back at January 2023 as “late dark ages” in terms of the Network’s abilities to sustain itself financially.
Delegation
Throughout 2022 we managed to delegate more and more tasks and activities away from the core without any noticeable difference in quality. We are very proud for that achievement and for the work done by those who were willing to take on the tasks.
Regardless of financial results in the near future, we intend to delegate even more in order to both increase the output from the core (by freeing up time now still spent on activities that can be delegated) and also to strengthen the Freedom Alternative community. More people than we imagined 6 years ago ended up coming for the videos and staying for the community. And we want to reward that.
The decision-making process is intentionally slow, in accordance with our general philosophy and because oftentimes no policy may indeed be better than a rushed/spontaneous/spur-of-the-moment policy or action. That’s why we roll out new things slowly – much to the annoyance of some.
We know we can’t please everyone and we’re okay with that. We also know that we’re all inherently flawed so the best that can be done is to strive to do better whilst keeping in mind that perfect is the enemy of good.
To all those who’ve been with us through various parts of this magnificent journey, we humbly thank you and we hope you stay with us for new heights.
Let’s explore!
