The Trump administration and its supporters are attacking dissenting views on a terrifying scale. With so much of online communications compromised and censored, independent websites are a critical piece of social movement infrastructure that we need to promote and defend. If your nonprofit has a website, you are part of this essential communications work.
There are looming threats of financially independent nonprofits being censored under the guise of fighting “terrorism” or “sedition.”
Government websites’ content is being scrubbed of essential information, or even taken down completely. Many nonprofits receiving federal funding are self-censoring in hopes of protecting said funding. X, a critical communications platform, is already controlled by Elon Musk. Facebook and Instagram are complicit with the Trump administration, getting rid of fact checkers, and allowing hate speech to proliferate.
There are steps you can take to protect the sovereignty of your website. We recommend conducting a threat assessment to determine whether your organization’s site may be vulnerable. If it is, you may want to assemble a “go bag” for your website, to keep it safe and online should you or your hosting company receive orders to take it down.
We’re working with a couple of our clients now to research this kind of “go bag” protection for their sites. We’ll share back everything we learn with you as things evolve. But we’ve already identified some key things to have in your go bag, and we’re sharing them here to help you think ahead as well.
- Regularly back up your website to a secure location
- Move (or be ready to move) your website hosting to a web host committed to protecting free speech
- Transfer your website’s domain name(s) to a domain registrar openly committed to protecting free speech
- Develop a communications plan for potential censorship threats
Regularly Back Up Your Website to a Secure Location
Even in normal times, it’s essential that you are making backups of your website. Ideally this is automated. At DevCollaborative, we support sites on Pantheon hosting. Regular, automated daily backups are a default service running on all of our sites. Many other web hosts do the same. If you’re not sure, contact your web host to find out and request that they start doing that if they aren’t already.
The Threat: US Government or Third Party Issues a Content Takedown Request
Any government or third party can issue a content takedown request. This could force you to remove specific content from your website or even take down the website in its entirety.
When a government issues a takedown request, it is often accompanied by a gag order, preventing the web host from even telling you that your site has been taken down. In that case, you run the risk of both your site being down and being frozen from your account.
The Response: Back Up Your Website to a Secure Location
On top of ensuring you are backing up your website regularly, save those backups to a secure location, ideally remotely, and/or even locally on physical drives in your possession. This can be a manual task or you can work with your website support team to automate this. Having backups of your code, content database, and files makes it easier for you to spin the website back up with a different web host.
The Extra-Secure Response: Move Your Website to a Web Host Committed to Protecting Free Speech
For added protection against a content takedown request, host your website with a company incorporated in a country with stronger laws against censorship. If you are based in the U.S., chances are that your website is hosted on servers managed by a company that has all or some of its business based in the U.S. as well. That means that your website’s hosting is likely subject to U.S. law and court orders.
European Union countries have the strongest track record for protecting free speech. In particular, Iceland. This is something we’re still researching with our clients, and we will report back as we learn more.
Transfer Your Website’s Domain Name to a Security-Minded Registrar
Your website’s domain name is the URL people type into their browser to visit your website. The domain of this website is devcollaborative.com. You might have other domains redirecting to your organization’s canonical URL. For example, we also own devcollab.com.
The Threat: US Government Issues a Domain Takedown
Again, any government or third party can request that a domain name be taken down for illegal activity. The Trump administration could use defamation as an excuse to go after a website critical of their regime.
The Response: Transfer Your Website’s Domain
Sometimes nonprofits have purchased these various domains from different domain registrars. Make sure to get a comprehensive list of the domain names you own, where they are registered, and that your logins for those registrar accounts are stored securely.
This is a good opportunity to clean house. Choose a single domain registrar to manage all of your domains under and transfer the domains residing elsewhere to that registrar.
When choosing a domain registrar, choose a company with a track record of resisting censorship and fighting back against these orders. Ideally the company is also incorporated in a country with strong protections against censorship. As with hosting providers, we are currently researching this with our clients, and we will let you know when we know more.
Develop a Communications Plan for Potential Censorship Threats
The speed at which the Trump administration and Republican party are adopting authoritarianism is dizzying. In these times, it’s important to be prepared and know in advance the lines in the sand your organization is willing to draw.
The Threat: New Executive Orders and Laws Censoring Nonprofits
The censorship happening to government websites and nonprofits receiving government funding could ratchet up. The TAKE IT DOWN Act is now law. It might seem innocuous at first glance, but many experts are sounding alarms that they are written in ways that would cover the Trump administration going after dissidents.
The Response: Have a Communications Plan Ready if You Face Censorship
If, for example, the Trump administration issues an executive order demanding all nonprofits scrub their websites of government critique or they will lose their nonprofit status, how will your organization respond? Play out different scenarios and decide on a response to each. Doing so now, rather than scrambling in the heat of the moment, will help you to make grounded and strategic decisions.
You’ve Got This: Protect and Expand the Open Web
If your website runs on an open-source content management system like Drupal or WordPress, you own your website as well as all of its content, and you already have a huge advantage over what you can do in the face of repression. Unlike your accounts on corporate social media platforms, you get to decide what you say and who sees it. You have the freedom to move your website to whichever host you most trust. This decentralized format is called the Open Web. You’re a part of it, and it is something that we at DevCollab advocate and fight for. If you have follow-up questions or want assistance with any of what was outlined here, we are here for you. Let’s continue to protect one another, online and offline.
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