Fediverse

You're probably looking for something like phpMyAdmin. A lot of hosting companies offer it (I had to log into my own to look up the name of the software). I would host in a European nation if you could (people love Hetzner; I haven't used any outside the USA). I believe that's a relatively save route to data sovereignty and I doubt they'd honor a court order from your country demanding records or access to your data, but you should research carefully and not trust some half-knowledgeable / half-ignorant guy on the internet (me) if you're putting yourself at risk.

I think people on Lemmy will be genuinely friendly about answering questions if you demonstrate that you've put in an honest effort to learn things on your own and don't ask people to basically do the thinking for you. Unix / Linux / network / server nerds like talking about this stuff and are happy to help each other learn so long as there's a sense of respecting other people's time by trying to do things on your own and only asking for expertise because you tried first but got stuck. That's been my experience, anyway, over the years (big old nerd right here).

I think what you want is a private forum. Someone will have to pony up some light server costs, but as long as you aren't using a lot of bandwidth — you could disable image uploads, and make your users upload to Imgur and the like instead — it shouldn't be much.

I remember seeing a private forum. It was for the movie Boys Don't Cry — or rather, the trans man the movie was about. He was a real guy, and he was murdered for being trans. There's a forum out there (or, there was 20 years ago) and all you can see is the name. You need a password to see anything else. Don't have that? You're probably not getting in. It's a place for his friends and family, and probably some trusted friends they've made along the way.

I ran a forum once, about 15 years ago. I think I paid $10 or $20 a year for the dot-com, the URL. And I was paying a company called Invision something like $10 a month for them to host their forum on their server. I had admin access, I could do anything I wanted with it, but I had bandwidth limitations, and I had space limitations. It was fun for a bit. I ran it for almost two years. I wanted out, and a guy on the forum wanted to take it over. I said he could even keep the name, but I wasn't going to keep paying for the address. I didn't sell it, I just transferred ownership over. I never got charged again. I didn't keep visiting it. I heard he shut it down a few months later. It's not for everyone. If you're not passionate about running a forum, get someone else to do it for you, and just have them maintain it. You don't even have to be a mod. You let people apply and you tell your guy who you want to be a mod. He runs it from the shadows, only there to do upgrades. Maybe he posts the rules, too. But doesn't participate in conversations. Maybe once in a blue moon you see him, but he's not what you'd call a forum regular. Or he's a snarky arsehole, I've seen admins like that.

You really can't have a super private Lemmy comm. Not sure about instance. With the comm, you can make it so only approved people can post, but I don't think you can hide it from everyone by default. That's not what Lemmy is for, and we're too small anyway (though, I don't mean to speak for the people in charge). I think the forum thing might be your best bet.

There's Matrix. That's more like Discord. And everything is encrypted. You can run your own matrix server. Have different rooms for different topics. Do private messaging between individuals. Verify each other so you know if someone's device changes that you need to verify them again.

I don't know how difficult it is to set up, but I know many people have done it.

Matrix could be a good option: it supports encryption, self-hosting, though do not support topics in a way that Discord does, in terms of UX. There is also a Discord-like platform called Stoat. It does not support forum-type channels but the UI and UX is very similar to Discord and it is also a self-hosted platform. However, I am not aware of security part of it, it is easy to check. Self-hosting is always a quite a challenge to maintain, no matter what platform you choose. Matrix, on the other hand, is designed around security very hard, so I definitely would trust my data and security more to this platform.

I know Reddit has private subs

They're not actually private. They're just hidden from other users, Reddit itself can see everything posted there, and you have no control over who they share the data with.
On the Fediverse, nothing can be private. That's just not how the software works.

For private communication, you can use an anonymous encrypted messenger like Threema.

If you are looking for safety, your best bet (and I know this sounds bad but stick with me) is to go the Truth Social route and stand up a threadiverse instance and defederate from everyone. There really isn't privacy in fedi, but if you don't federate, it'll limit your exposure to only the admins of your instance.

Lemmy 1.0 will have 'private communities', which are communities whose posts can only be viewed by approved subscribers. I wouldn't trust this though, you can't guarantee other instances running other software will keep the posts private, so I'd only trust this if you host the instance and allow list vetted instances, which just opens you up to the problems mentioned in the other thread.

Your best bet is an e2ee messaging app with group support. People will recommend Matrix, but the moderation tools kind of suck and it can be very resource demanding to host (from what I've heard, I don't host Matrix). Signal is what most privacy people will recommend but I don't know how accessible it is in Iran given it's centralised nature. The XMPP people will inevitably speak up and they're probably even right, buy I've never used XMPP so can't speak on it.

I read all your comments in my previous post and one thing I realized I'm not qualified for this at all. This is too dangerous and puts my life and many of my friends at risk.

I think that protest, organization and resistance are inherently risky, especially in the context of an authoritarian regime where you don't have adequate constitutional rights or legal protections for speech. The man and women protesting the government and morality laws in Iran are putting themselves at considerable risk, as are the people protesting against Putin in Russia, and people who make small acts of rebellion in places like North Korea. There's probably no way around that, I'm afraid.

With that said, deepening your understanding of privacy and security technology puts you in a position to allow you do the kinds of things you want to do while limiting the personal risks to yourself. This means learning about things like Linux, encryption, containerization, VPNs, VPSs, TOR, cryptocurrency, etc., and understanding that tools exist to allow people to communicate anonymously. If you haven't already, I would start first by improving your knowledge of cybersecurity.

Do you have an encrypted email provider like ProtonMail? Do you use encrypted messaging tools like Signal? Those are a good starting point.

Discord have all this but that's not my preference at all. I know Reddit has private subs but I don't like reddit like many of you guys.

Discord and Reddit are corporate, specifically American corporate. As such, neither of them are truly "private" or anonymous, and to some extent they are beholden to American corporate interests, and thus, American government interests. Much like TikTok's relationship with the Chinese government, I think that platforms like Discord and Reddit can only be trusted to the degree that you trust America in general, if that makes sense...

With that said, Discord and Reddit are popular platforms, and it can be easy to create a reasonably protected space there if you can vouch for the people that you are allowing in the room. (Remember that every person who is allowed in the space is a potential vector for leaking of data out. And so, for example, if one of the members of the room was to be captured or coerced in some way, they could provide access to the room to people who you may not want to give access to.) "Security through obscurity" is not a great strategy on its own, but there is something to be said about getting lost in a crowd...

So, as much as I prefer the Fediverse as a key tool against corporate social media, I can see how Discord and Reddit could be useful tools. (Discord was absolutely instrumental in organizing very effective protests in Nepal just a few years ago!)

The best approach is probably something broad, where you use some combination of the fediverse and legacy social media together, but only after you've gained the appropriate knowledge and privacy/security tools needed to protect yourself.

If you want a community that is, at its foundational level, private, then you don't want it to be in the Fediverse. I don't mean it in an empathetic level but rather on a technical level. There are far better tools such as forum services for small communities, and you would be not wasting the second most distinctive feature of fediverse software (that of federation).

As for where can you have such a community, that is better split in two questions: 1.- what software to use and 2.- where to host it.

Question 1 suggests the use of any of a myriad of forum solutions, suchas phpBB or Discourse, that can be hosted or even self-hosted; as well as suggest the use of some goof practices such as having a back-channel communication system between high-level collaborators that uses a different medium/platform (say, Signal).

Question 2 highly involves your threat model if you want to do something that might put you and other people's lives at risk, but does not really mandate or prescribe which solutions you'd pick for question 1 otherwise. As I have not followed your conversations that closely, the most I can do is to suggestlow-tier VPS platforms that offer wide-range services (everything from forums to videoconference to blogs) so that there is less of a chance that it gets blocked; or otherwise use some sort of local net mesh (eg.: radio).

I missed the previous post and don't have advice, I just wanted to say I hope you get some helpful answers. Sending love from my part of the world to yours my friend

I don't understand. You say being on the Fediverse is "too dangerous" but also looking for ways to continue on the Fediverse? If you're looking for private, secure and anonymous communication platform, make a SimpleX group.