Italian Tech Collective Autistici/Inventati Shuts Down Following US Terror Sanctions

Immediate cessation of operations

On 6 September 2026, the Italian digital collective Autistici/Inventati announced the complete shutdown and suspension of all its independent online services. The collective operated for 25 years as a non-commercial digital backbone, providing free and privacy-focused communication infrastructure to social movements, independent bookstores, committees, and individual activists. The decision to halt operations arrived eleven days after the group was placed on the United States list of global terrorist organizations on 26 August 2026. In an official farewell statement published on its website, the collective explained that continuing to host services under active sanctions threatened the safety of its entire user base. It stated that maintaining its original mission of providing non-commodified, secure digital tools had become impossible in the face of disproportionate state repression.

Every day we stayed online starting from 26 August was a victory, but we must stop today.

US designation and rapid infrastructure blocking

The United States Treasury Department sanctioned Autistici/Inventati on 26 August 2026 alongside Palestine Action and Masar Badil. United States authorities accused the Italian infrastructure provider of supplying technical services to entities labeled as violent left-wing extremists, placing the organization on an antifa-related terrorism blacklist. Autistici/Inventati rejected the accusations, maintaining that it provided neutral privacy tools to social movements and civil society. The consequences of the sanctions escalated within 48 hours of the announcement. The main domain autistici.org was removed from the general registry without advance notification or a court order, while payment processors and financial institutions, including PayPal and Banca Etica, moved to freeze the collective's accounts and deposited balances.

Scale of disabled communication services

The domain cancellation and server freezes immediately cut access to tens of thousands of communication channels hosted on the collective's infrastructure. Across Italy and internationally, the outage rendered 16,000 email inboxes, 10,000 blogs, 5,500 mailing lists, and 1,500 websites completely unreachable. Activist groups, independent publishers, and non-profit associations lost direct access to their historical records, internal coordination mailing lists, and public campaign platforms. The collective stated that it will issue technical instructions to assist users in rescuing whatever data remains salvageable from their blogs, websites, and mail archives. However, the group cautioned that further unpredictable technical interruptions could occur before users complete their data recovery.

Prevention of secondary sanctions against users

The primary motivation behind the closure was the prevention of secondary sanctions against individuals and partner groups who interacted with the platform. Secondary sanction rules create administrative, financial, and criminal exposure for third-party entities that maintain operational or financial ties with designated organizations. The collective affirmed that it refused to expose participants, community members, or their families to investigations by foreign and domestic agencies. Addressing its user base, the group stated that it held no desire for heroic posturing or martyrdom, concluding with an appeal for activists to redirect their efforts toward offline organizing.

The concrete possibility of being the cause of criminal or financial consequences for someone close to us, or who even just interacts with us, leaves us no other choice.