Let’s say I live under an oppressive regime (don’t we all?) How can I use social media anonymously, so I don’t face reprisals from the government?
Mastodon, Lemmy, Reddit and other social media platforms restrict users who connect through TOR or a VPN.
Is there any way I can create an account on these services and use them anonymously?
Thanks in advance for any information and advice you can provide.
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Only mildly sarcastic, but even if you’re trying to be careful, you reveal a lot about yourself by making comments at all or interacting with a community at all. Your interests, your writing style, your browser footprint, etc. etc. It’s very difficult to not be truly unique if someone out there is purposefully tracking you as an individual. Depending on where the instance is hosted, they may be required to keep server logs and may further be required to divulge those to police for lawful investigations. “Lawful” obviously can vary widely in interpretation, depending on local corruption levels. I know that if I was of interest in an investigation it would not be hard at all to link me to my real identity, and I just sort of live with that.
It’s very difficult to not be truly unique if someone out there is purposefully tracking you as an individual.
And the neat part about that is… it used to be very expensive to do it. Now it blew right on through free, and into highly profitable. So it can be done to everyone everywhere at every moment.
No one knows how many people the Nazis employed to spy on the rest. Some estimates are like 1/4 of the population spied on the others! Today? We can put that to shame using only 0.01% or w/e of our population to spies on the rest. B/c that 0.01% has surveilance tools unimaginably powerful compared to anything the Nazis dreamed about.
There is a place in the world for targeted surveilance of bad people, mass murders, drug kingpins, w/e. You get a judge to sign off, and go to town. But dragnet surveilance of everyone at all times erodes the foundation of free societies.
It’s not completely impossible. We still don’t know who Satoshi Nakamoto is, for example.
I know instances will have to divulge logs if ordered, hence my bid to use TOR/VPN. If there is no way to do that, then I will think of some other way to communicate with people.
We are not state actors.
Fellow under an oppressive regime! I signed onto Fediverse entirely through VPN with no issues! Be very careful to not say too much about yourself so they can track you; lie. Lie a lot. When not lying, do not give away any information about yourself.
I’ve been using Lemmy and previously Reddit for years with a VPN without issue.
I made a new Reddit account through Mullvad a while ago and immediately got shadow banned. Reddit has been aggressive against new users who use TOR/VPN and browsers that resist fingerprinting.
Only VPN I’ve ever used is Mullvad. Granted I didn’t use it to create my account but I’ve been accessing it for 4 years with it.
Granted I didn’t use it to create my account
I bet that’s like 90% of what they care about tho. They really want to ID you when you first sign up, but they might care not as much about day to day use.
It’s fuzzier with reddit tho. Used to be you could sign up with a VPN with success. Some still have accts made like that. They are much sticklier now. It maybe possible but just rarely, and nobody seems to know what makes the diff. It also used to be posible to sign up with Tor, but today that’s instant shadowban.
My side rant is that shadowbans are MF-ing evil. I got caught in one because I used a VPN to sign up. I only ever tried to answer people on a tech help sub. I was posting in good faith. Tried to be helpful and contribute to the community. But none of my posts were ever being engaged with. No upvotes, no downvotes, no replies. Finally I looked without being signed in (“open in private window”) and sure enough… nobody but me could see my posts.
It felt bad, man. I put my time and effort into trying to help other people, for nothing.
Maybe you could use a Chromebook and log in from a busy location with many other users?
Mastodon and Lemmy do not restrict users who connect from Tor or a VPN.
It’s a bit like walking through the park every day shouting at people, and not wanting anyone to know who you are. Eventually they’d figure it out.
Never had a problem on Lemmy or Mastodon with a VPN. If you create a Reddit account through a VPN, though, you will get shadowbanned. I made my Lemmy and Mastodon accounts with a VPN and had zero issues.
Mastodon nor Lemmy restrict your use of Tor or VPN. Maybe an instance does, but hardly every instance. Just find an instance that doesn’t restrict your use.
You can’t use social media anonymously, it will all be pseudonymous aslong as you engage, if you consume social media passively, you can. But their have been reports that passive social media consumption is tied to negative mental health.
I should have communicated more clearly. Pseudonymous is fine, as long as it cannot be tied back to my real identity via tracing my IP address or whatever.
I think Tor with Tor Bridges (to obscure that you use Tor) is your best bet. Or using Tor over a VPN (using a VPN systemwide and then connect to Tor)
Everything else is just standard opsec, not leaking personal information and so on
Also, don’t use a E-Mail address or phone number tied to your real information, like your name or IP address. Because that is how many people got caught in the past.
The problem is that Reddit shadow bans new accounts that use TOR or any browsers that resist fingerprinting. I know because I tried recently.
Oh I’m aware of this, their is no way around this without revealing personal data :(
Lemmy doesn’t restrict VPN use. Some instances may
Am using lemmy.zip through VPN as of this moment
Fair enough. I only tried lemmy.world. I will try .org and .zip to see if they work through TOR. That still leaves Reddit (unfortunately some communities I like are concentrated over there).
Make your lemmy accounts through lemmy.org because it doesn’t require an email. Use a VPN (lemmy.org is fine with that). Use an anti-fingerprinting browser or TOR and be careful not to add extensions that will make you uniquely identifiable. Maybe check out Mullvad Browser or Librewolf? They both have letter-boxing options that will keep your screen at a standardized resolution so you can’t be fingerprinted easily that way.
Honestly, depending on how oppressive and competent the regime you live under is, it could be too much to do this safely. I don’t know where you’re posting from so I don’t want to give you any false sense that you can do the above options and be free and clear.
EDIT: Also don’t sign into things on your TOR browser that you sign into on other browsers. Keep it as an entirely separate identity.
And don’t have two browsers open on the same site and move your mouse from one to the other. There’s a lot of little things that very driven people can do to find ways to identify you…
Also regularly delete and make a new social media account.
And switch your VPN location around.
And use a VPN that doesn’t keep logs and isn’t inside your nation.
And don’t respond to me, this account is gone.
You can’t.
Social media is public, period.
If you want private social interactions then use end-to-end encrypted communication services.
Any oppressive regime will have multiple tools that can identify your access to social media services and determine who the human is behind the keyboard. Assume that everything you post on public social media has your real life name and address attached to it.
Unless you’re an expert and taking extreme measures (and you wouldn’t be asking this question if you were such an expert) then anonymous access to online services with respect to a sovereign power with an intelligence service is impossible.
Checkout https://splintercon.net/ and follow the advice given to political dissidents and journalists.
This guide is pretty good -> https://ssd.eff.org/playlist/journalist-move
Avoid the internet altogether with Meshtastic or Recticulum if your goal is coordination amongst a closed group.
Good luck stay safe.
Nostr? Or get off your ass and make a website.
No, you can’t participate in the yelling out your thoughts at max volume system privately.
Social media is public. What you post or reply to is public. Even unexpected metadata about your interactions is public.
You can’t use social media without being social and sociality is by definition not anonymous. Anonymity is antisocial.
You can’t stick your hand in the hand grinding machine safely. It’s meant to grind hands that are stuck in it.
If you’re scared, go to church.
