March 19, 2026 Digital Rights Social

When: March 19, 2026 Time: 14 UTC / Check my time zone here Where: TCU Mattermost | Secure an account here Host: Erin First Steps Toward Adopting Alternative Infrastructure and Tools Come join us and share tips and experience on adopting alternative infrastructure and tools and divesting from extractive tech. Global Gathering programming proposals will also open on the 19th, so this is an opportunity to ask about programming themes, formats, and how to submit and proposal!

This is part of the monthly Digital Rights Socials. Check out the next one and previous ones here:

Notes

Community News and Project Shout-Outs

• "Safe Her Clinic is a for women, by women digital security clinic supporting survivors of technology-facilitated gender-based violence."
• Global Voices Services offers "expert translation, editorial, and mentorship services from a global community, fuelling the Global Voices non-profit mission."
• Don't Delete Art is currently collaborating with Free The Nipple to highlight how female-presenting-nipple censorship affects art and artists. Check out the 2-month campaign.
• The Global Gathering is now accepting programming proposals! Approved applicants will be able to submit proposals by logging into the GG ticketing platform and selecting “Submit a Proposal” from the dashboard. You can also read more about this year’s programming themes and formats on our wiki.
• SAQFE, a Moroccan intersectional Queer group, launched their documentary TOUGHYAN in March.
• "dokieli is a clientside editor for decentralised article publishing, annotations, and social interactions.

When individuals and orgs want to approach self hosting or finding alternatives to the most common "Big Tech" services, what are some of the initial questions and considerations they should take into account?

• at APC we self-host most of the services we use and some of those we also offer to members. These are tools like Mattermost, Nextcloud, BigBlueButton and others. Since we are quite a large team, around 60 people in the org, we put a lot of emphasis in capacity building and tech support. In our experience we see that this is the most crucial aspect, launching a VM and installing a service is just the start of the journey...
  • Is there any chance APC may broaden their membership categories to provide this service?
    • Lately we are trying to welcome new members in a slower pace to make sure. But we can discuss other forms of partnering if you need access to some of the services we host.
• I have some experience from the security side with activist orgs and media mostly in Latam, and while in most cases having a healthy stack of self-hosted tools and/or services hosted in friendlier environments is super feasible. Often I end up being the annoying uncle reminding people of some trade-offs of both approaches.
  • For self-hosted: there should be technical capacity and bandwidth to secure and keep the software updated. Already had a couple orgs that were compromised because of a super outdated nextcloud instance.
  • For services in better jurisdictions: the biggest problems here are money and knowing the providers. People with good reputation in the community, knowing the tech involved, the limitations, and alternative approaches could go a long way when migrating to other services
• For self-hosting, these days I am more focussed on edge networks/devices. Since [in India] it is quite difficult to host your own router or even have a bridge-router. Since all the major ISP use : TR-069 protocol and for the past few years they have moved to custom firmware where you cannot disable them at all.
• Grateful to have worked closely with APC team to learn and adapt secure autonomous digital infrastructure. There has been a real shift in our organizing with US-based activists who are seeing a need for alternatives to big tech in new ways. Trying to frame our FLOSS tools in ways that they can adopt more readily/easily. Eager to learn more from this space also about how folks are engaging with AI as well.
• I think one of the recommendations I got when struggling with if and how to divest from Google services was to really come to terms with that fact that you will not find one-to-one alternatives to Google and Microsoft etc. You have to understand that you won't get everything in the alternative you chose and it's about recognizing what you can and cannot live without and understanding that you need to adjust your workflow. Aaand, you can move to alternatives bit by bit. Maybe you can't find an alternative to one services Google provides, but you can move to alternatives for many other tools.
  • While I agree, I also think we give too much credit to these big giants. My colleagues who use Microsoft are complaining about it all the time, and tools like Nextcloud have gotten so good, they really don't feel much different.
  • Big Tech has become so entrenched in our digital lives, they've become complacent and have stopped innovating. We have gotten used to sh*tty tools because we don't realise the extent of our alternatives.
• For organizations, and I speak from an "operational point of view more than a tech one," it is important to understand that transitioning asks for time, commitment, support and a flexible heart. Learning needs to be ensured, modeled by the one who leads formally or informally. It's kind of going for a marathon or a long guided tour that does not leave anyone behind. We rise and fall, and in this we should laugh, see that all this moving away has a purpose called more autonomy and freedom, less surveillance. Our alternative buildings, houses, one-room flat infrastructure will never compete and should not with the 5-star hotel and service system of big corporation.
  • What torments me is how to build hubs for the ones who are in volunteer and grassroots organizing and face everyday so much that transitioning autonomously to a different infrastructure seems almost prohibitive... This is where we need to pull something together, with we being the ones who have or could have some resources to offer/share/maintain...
• Some important questions are:
  • How big is the user base for those services?
  • What are some must have features that need to be in the alternative?
  • Where will it be hosted?
  • Can we be able to maintain it in the long run?
• It is a big mindset shift...it is also important to recognize that you / the org will need to get the hands dirty, there is more work to do, more things to consider. Things that are all outsourced when you hire Google or Microsoft, when you take control back of your data you are also responsible for caring for a lot of other aspects. So it is not possible to compare apples to carrots.

For individuals and organizations who do not have the resources and technical expertise in-house to own and manage their own infrastructure, what options/approaches are there that still allow for more autonomy and security?

• ...What I find very interesting and fascinating is multiple groups coming together to share costs of services or sharing capacity and learning opportunity.
  • I love this idea of organizations coming together to share the burden when one org cannot. I wonder if this is an approach that more organizations within our digital rights space could adopt collectively?
• Among the "hardware services," we also desperately need "Migration Support Services"... Once the decision to choose new options is made, this is THE biggest barrier.

There are a number of organizations and cooperatives (some that have already been brought up earlier in the convo) that provide services like hosting, email, conferencing, productivity tools, etc. as alternatives to Google, Microsoft, Amazon and other Big Tech and proprietary options. Are there services that you have used and recommend?

• Shout out to APC members GreenNet and MayFirst who both offer services like email hosting, web hosting, and more. Orgs with great ethics and commitments since the early days of the Internet.
• Sutty is also offering a preservation service for old websites that are hard to maintain.
• We've had really wonderful experience with Cloud68 for their managed hosting, maintenance, and tech support - also deeply aligned values and great communicators (esp. important to me as someone without a tech background)
  • Cloud68 is established in Estonia, with main servers in Germany, and encrypted backups in France. This is by design to not have all it's eggs in one basket. The team is spread in various cities in Europe.
• Greenhost for VPSs, sustainable webhosting and more.
• Maadix "The online tools we use everyday, now preserving your digital autonomy, the privacy of your communications and the security of your data."
• Full Stack Journalism is "a community of independent newsrooms helping each other make informed choices about the technologies we use. We want technology to foster independent journalism, drive new revenue models, and improve collaboration - without compromising on the values that help us build trust with our communities."
• The Journalism Cloud Alliance provides infrastructure services specially designed for media organizations. People are worried about jurisdiction now more than ever, and they need a vendor that will back them when they would be censored. Also prices, commercial cloud offerings have been increasing prices to the point that it's now choking some smaller orgs. The 60 direct alliance members (IIRC) are based around the world and some of are regional networks.
  • At this stage the alliance is offering services with easy migration paths: VPS, storage, VPN, and we are also piloting workspace tools like nextcloud and big blue button only to teams already experienced in such tools. Ultimately the end the alliance would like to offer infrastructure, workspace and amplification tools (CMS, mass email, and other publication strategies). They have also received request for AI services, Devops and security services, which will not be provided at least for a year, so they are building a consultant network for these services.
  • If you are a media org or an ngo that is looking to switch infrastructure vendors, fill our the following form and it will be handled discreetly: https://eu.jotform.com/form/252582843235359.
  • If you are an AI/DevOps/Security service provider or any other service that you think the alliance will need in the future while building out its offerings, please get in touch.
    • Ping @erinm on Mattermost for contact details for the Journalism Cloud Alliance team.

Are there any resources that you recommend for individuals who want to learn more about alt infrastructure and services? Either for novices or more seasoned folks?

• Communal Internet Infrastructure report - APC
• Infrastructures-done-differently - APC
• Politics and practices of an autonomous technology, voices of the members of MayFirst - MayFirst
• OpenAlternative's self-hosted list that provides alternatives for almost all categories.