eleven
1. Don't Take the Bait
They want violence to justify crackdown. Recent incidents gave authorities the excuse they needed to remove safety tools, citing threats to officers. Stay disciplined. Document their provocations. Non-violence isn't weakness—it's strategic strength that denies them what they need most: justification.
2. Protect People, Not Abstractions
Concrete humans matter more than ideological purity. When digital tools disappear, adapt quickly. Build phone trees, encrypted channels, analog networks. Help the person facing deportation. Feed the family. House the vulnerable. Direct action saves lives while theory debates definitions.
3. Build Small, Build Trusted
5-10 people who know each other personally. Face-to-face for real plans.
NEW REALITY: Corporate platforms comply with government demands. All major tech companies folded when pressured.
YOUR ADVANTAGE: Small cells using end-to-end encryption are harder to infiltrate, harder to provoke, and more resilient than mass movements dependent on corporate infrastructure.
4. Make Their Operations Expensive
Don't cooperate. Work slowly. Require paperwork. Follow every regulation precisely.
NEW OPPORTUNITY: Corporate compliance creates internal friction points. When companies cave to pressure, employees can slow-walk implementation from the inside. Internal resistance multiplies costs far beyond what external protest achieves. Death by a thousand bureaucratic cuts.
5. Document Everything
Timestamped photos. Video. Witness statements. Federal overreach in detail.
NEW PROTOCOL: Don't rely on corporate platforms alone—they can remove apps and content at will. Download important documentation. Multiple backups. Independent servers. This isn't just for now—it's building the historical record they can't erase when accountability comes.
6. Drop the Partisan Framing
This isn't left vs. right.
NEW CLARITY: Corporate executives praise authoritarianism as "pro-business" while sacrificing users' rights. This exposes the real divides: Constitutional limits vs. executive overreach. State sovereignty vs. federal domination. Worker rights vs. corporate compliance. These principles cross party lines and build broader coalitions.
7. Support Existing Organizers—And Build Backup Infrastructure
Don't start from scratch. Find who's already doing the work. Ask what they need.
NEW IMPERATIVE: Create alternatives to corporate platforms. When app stores remove organizing tools, communities need analog systems, independent apps, decentralized networks. Digital resistance requires non-corporate infrastructure. Provide money, time, skills, technical expertise to those building parallel systems.
8. Accept You Can't Fix Everything
Pick one thing you can actually do. Do it consistently.
NEW WISDOM: You can't boycott every company that capitulated—that's nearly all of them. Focus your energy strategically where it creates actual impact. Don't paralyze yourself seeking perfect intervention. Small sustained action compounds. Grand plans exhaust.
9. Maintain Relationships Across Divides—Including Inside Corporations
People defect when they have somewhere to go. Keep channels open to potential allies.
NEW ALLIES: Tech workers are not their CEOs. Worker unions at major corporations are fighting for job security and protecting vulnerable colleagues. Build solidarity with employees pressured to implement authoritarian policies. They have access, information, and growing discontent. You need them later.
10. Survive With Integrity Intact—While Building Alternative Systems
This is a long fight. Pace yourself.
NEW FOUNDATION: Corporate infrastructure cannot be trusted—companies protect profits over principles. This isn't despair, it's clarity. Build mutual aid networks. Create parallel institutions. Develop decentralized communication. Process trauma. Rest when you can. Communities that care for their members outlast those that burn them out.
11. Prepare for Independence (Additional Strategy)
When government demands removal of apps or services, corporations comply within hours. Companies suspend programs globally based on executive orders.
THE REALITY: Banks may freeze accounts. Social media may ban organizing. Cloud services may terminate. Payment processors may comply.
THE OPPORTUNITY: This clarifies what we must build—cash networks, alternative platforms, independent infrastructure. The apparatus of modern life is being weaponized, so we build outside that apparatus. This isn't paranoia. It's preparation. And preparation is empowering.
What This Means
Corporate compliance isn't the end of resistance—it's the clarification of terrain. We now know exactly which institutions will fold and which infrastructure we must build ourselves. This knowledge is power.
The tools that worked in previous eras relied on corporate neutrality that no longer exists. So we build new tools. We build systems that don't depend on the goodwill of boardrooms or the stability of stock prices.
Every authoritarian regime in history has eventually faced the limits of what it can control. Communities with deep trust, diverse tactics, and independent infrastructure have always been the hardest to break.
We are harder to break than they think.
Get Off Your Ass
Do one concrete thing today:
Download encrypted messaging apps and learn to use them
Create an offline contact list of trusted people
Find one local mutual aid group and attend a meeting
Learn a practical skill others will need (first aid, food preservation, basic tech security)
Set aside cash for emergencies
Introduce yourself to neighbors you don't know yet
Small actions create resilient networks. Resilient networks create durable resistance.
The fight is long, but you're not fighting alone.