I hate to be paranoid, but I'm wondering if there's somewhere else we could all plan to meet besides DU if needed?

[usonian]

3. Think "underground", obviously.

The underground had highly trusted meeting places, totally excluding others, and means of sharing information between them.

That would need to be set up as small, free forum instances (I was an early Moodle adopter, so something of the sort that allows collaboration and a bit of a knowledge base, which most forum software lacks). For example, could you plan something on DU? Hardly. It would be a shoehorn effort.

Tonight I proposed that we write our own democratic platform, given the invisibility of the party between elections, WHEN ATTITUDES AND MINDS ARE CHANGED!
See my post
https://www.democraticunderground.com/?com=view_post&forum=1002&pid=20649225
In this thread:
https://www.democraticunderground.com/100220648755
"What IS the unified Dem vision?"
A. Let's write our own if others don't and let's beat on oligarchy, which others fear to do. (IMO)
I gave some "starter" ideas.

So look to sites like nokings and indivisible for examples, and riseup.net has tools and software instances that you can sign up for (and I think, actually host) I did set up Moodle instances on servers and laptops, if only to store documentation of my projects. The fact that others could collaborate and comment on the info there was a plus that was never needed. (and TBH, a content editor that puts this markup to shame, but I understand the risks involved in getting away from it)

Matter of fact, looking at https://riseup.net it's a goldmine. I use their VPN at times.

snippet:

Why Riseup is needed

Can you rely on a corporate email provider for confidentiality of your sensitive email communications? Not only do they typically scan and record the content of your messages for a wide variety of purposes, they also concede to the demands of governments that restrict digital freedom and fail to have strict policies regarding their user’s privacy. Not to mention their obviously commercial interests put commercial email providers at odds with what we are doing. The U.S. government practices “full pipe monitoring” and association mapping, which gives them the ability to build a detailed map of how our social movements are organized, worse this gives them precise information about what linkages should be disrupted in order to disrupt large social movements.

We believe it is vital that essential communication infrastructure be controlled by movement organizations and not corporations or the government.

We strive to keep our mail as secure and private as we can. We do not log your IP address. (Most services keep detailed records of every machine which connects to the servers. We keep only information which cannot be used to uniquely identify your machine). All your data, including your mail, is stored by riseup.net in encrypted form. We work hard to keep our servers secure and well defended against any malicious attack. We do not share any of our user data with anyone. We will actively fight any attempt to subpoena or otherwise acquire any user information or logs. We will not read, search, or process any of your incoming or outgoing mail other than by automatic means to protect you from viruses and spam or when directed to do so by you when troubleshooting.

Riseup’s Purpose

The Riseup Collective is an autonomous body based in Seattle with collective members world wide. Our purpose is to aid in the creation of a free society, a world with freedom from want and freedom of expression, a world without oppression or hierarchy, where power is shared equally. We do this by providing communication and computer resources to allies engaged in struggles against capitalism and other forms of oppression.

We value, support, and engage in struggles for human liberation, the ethical treatment of animals, and ecological sustainability. We join in the fight for freedom and the self-determination of all oppressed groups. We oppose all forms of prejudice, authoritarianism, and vanguardism.

We organize on the basis of autonomy, mutual aid, resource sharing, participatory knowledge, social advocacy, anti-oppression work, community creation, and secure communication.

We work to create revolution and a free society in the here and now by building alternative communication infrastructure designed to oppose and replace the dominant system.

We promote social ownership and democratic control over information, ideas, technology, and the means of communication.

We empower organizations and individuals to use technology in struggles for liberation. We work to support each other in overcoming the systemic oppression embedded in the use and development of technology.

Sounds better than starting from scratch and you may want to ask them the same question you posted here. How durable is the site and the tools there? and are they open source so that small groups can set up their own, perhaps on the onion/dark web, hard to find?

Signal Messenger offers secure messaging (provided nobody hands over unlocked devices) and conferencing. I try to get friends to use it, but the very small effort it takes to set up seems too much for them. Sigh.

I think you know the price of laziness.