Staying online during a conflict

First of all, we hope that there won't come a time where you need to read this article. Nevertheless, since it may happen, here's how you can remain connected to the internet during incertain times.

Do note that this guide is covered for two scenarios: when your connection becomes less stable because of a conflict or when your country's slowly blocking social media platforms.

Element: a messaging app

Element is a messaging app that lets you talk with other users. If you pick a server in the region (e.g. one that you host yourself or one that the city's university hosts) then you won't lose your connection to the server.

Additionally, since this server can connect to any other Element (Matrix) server, you will always be able to communicate with the outside world whenever there's a brief connection.

This means it's very difficult to block. Your country cannot just block "the Signal server", they'll instead need to block every single hobbyist in the world that decides to set up a new server for Element.

Mastodon: Twitter unblocked

Mastodon uses very similar protocols to what Element uses: everyone can set up their own servers, which makes Mastodon hard to block.

Take a look at mastodon.social, ru.social, pleroma.chirno.tech, glasgow.social, witches.live, and many more.

Each of them hosts their own instance, that separately needs to be blocked from the internet. You can use instances.social to find a Mastodon instance that suits best for you.

PeerTube: when YouTube goes down

Do you need to share videos that YouTube may not want to share? Can you no longer access YouTube's foreign servers? Use PeerTube.

PeerTube allows you to broadcast your videos to whomever can see them. This can be very useful when your connection with YouTube is unstable and you'd like to share the videos yourself anyway.

Conclusion

Using these platforms, you will be able to remain connected with the world better - in situations where connections aren't always stable, as well as if the government may decide to block websites.

Take good care of yourself, and we hope these tips will be helpful for you.