On the 26 August, 2026, the U.S. Department of the Treasury sanctioned Autistici/Inventati (A/I), an Italian collective that offers free digital infrastructure such as the noblogs.org platform. The Department of the Treasury designated A/I as a Specially Designated Global Terrorist (SDGT), alleging that it has provided financial, material or technological support to “Antifa cells” and the PKK. As a result, Banca Etica informed the collective that it will close its account. The questions below were sent before A/I announced that it was shutting down, and answers received afterwards.

What are the likely effects of these sanctions on groups who use your platforms in the US?

If a US citizen has dealing with us after the wind down period they can face a trial for supporting a terrorist organisation and this can lead to many years in jail. I think you should ask a US lawyer to have details; and translate what you can find here. Sanctions will be effective from 25 September. Until then US citizens can access our services to download backups and take all necessary precautions before shutting down their accounts.

What is A/I doing to fight back against the sanctions? Is a legal reversal of the sanctions likely?

At first we were working to keep the services up in the aftermath of the suspension of autistici.org. Together with our legal team we have looked into appealing but we quickly understood it to be beyond our possibilities. The bank has now closed the account keeping our money from us. This will be followed by a legal suit from our legal team. This is one of the reasons (even though not the main one) we have to stop.

Many activists and organisations in the US who would describe themselves as antifascist do use A/I’s platform, but the same logic could be used against other encrypted communication platforms such as Signal, Proton, or even WhatsApp. Do you think that it is likely that sanctions placed on A/I are the first in a broader attack on the digital infrastructure used by activists?

Surely we’ve been hit because we are a small entity and not a multi-billion dollar company. Surely we’ve been hit because in this manner they also hit the American activists that oppose their government policy. Lastly this could be just the first of their targets to check how the European institutions react to this.

Earlier this year, a series of groups in Germany such as Anarchist Black Cross Dresen, the Deutsche Kommunistische Partei, and Mehring Verlag as well as many others faced debanking due to the US government’s authoritarian push against “antifa”. Is de-banking a risk that anarchist organisations should be more prepared for? If so, how?

Everybody should be concerned about this case, because it shows that even in absence of any evidence the de-banking risk is there any minute. We never supported bitcoins so we are not going to suggest this way, anyone can take its stand on this particular way to circumvent the de-banking, but the problem is to restore some democratic legal framework around this or any authoritarian system can weaken European society and its humanitarian organisations. We think it’s probably time this problem is addressed at international level because financial sanctions have long gone hand in hand with repression.

Finally, how can people both within and outside the US continue to support your efforts to provide a secure platform for activists and organisations?

Of course we are happy of the huge solidarity and we are of course open to someone helping out on the legal front, but there are more fundamental contributions to be made. We need to bring back the principle that those who operate a service are not directly responsible for the contents hosted by its users: this would allow some freedom to any group to build their own infrastructure. At the moment anyone will have to think twice or at least be sure not to be dissenting with the current US regime. And apart from this we need 1,000 more infrastructures of dissent to be born, new, safer, stronger. Even if it’s not us.