Dozens of neo-Nazis are fleeing Telegram and moving to a relatively unknown secret chat app that has received funding from Twitter founder Jack Dorsey.
In a report from the Institute for Strategic Dialogue published on Friday morning, researchers found that in the wake of the arrest of Telegram founder Pavel Durov and charges against leaders of the so-called Terrorgram Collective, dozens of extremist groups have moved to the app SimpleX Chat in recent weeks over fears that Telegram’s privacy policies expose them to being arrested. The Terrorgram Collective is a neo-Nazi propaganda network that calls for acolytes to target government officials, attack power stations, and murder people of color.
What I always wonder is why they don't go for something self hosted where they have the control over it.
Because they aren't doers, they are followers. They don't think for themselves and need to be told what to do.
I doubt that's the real reason. There are enough smart people on top who could set up and run a self-hosted solution.
It's easy to attribute nazis with a lack of intelligence due to their stupid and narrow minded beliefs, but we should never underestimate them.
I'd wager that the average fascist is just as much a "follower" as the average antifa sympathizer.
On top of that: Setting up and hosting a platform exposes the system to a single point of failure, whereas using existing third party infrastructure means that they have a "legit" operation as well, so the risk of a total shutdown is probably lower. Plus, there is a higher chance external security researchers/auditors will investigate the platform and point out vulnerabilities.
There is absolutely a corrolation between being stupid and being a neo-nazi. However, in this regard smart people are even more dangerous since they are not only capable of fooling themselves but others as well.