Hi guys, same Iranian guy here, first I want to say I really appreciate you guys helping me, love you guys you all are genuinely amazing people.
I read all your comments in my previous post and one thing I realized I’m not qualified for this at all. This is too dangerous and puts my life and many of my friends at risk.
So in the spirit of being pragmatic here and finding best solution meanwhile I figure that out. Where can we have a private community with moderation and admin tools and multi-topic discussions on the fediverse? Is that even a thing? I know that’s not how fediverse works so the answer is probably a hard No. Then where should we go? Discord have all this but that’s not my preference at all. I know Reddit has private subs but I don’t like reddit like many of you guys. What is the compromise here what do you suggest I should do?


There’s Matrix. That’s more like Discord. And everything is encrypted. You can run your own matrix server. Have different rooms for different topics. Do private messaging between individuals. Verify each other so you know if someone’s device changes that you need to verify them again.
I don’t know how difficult it is to set up, but I know many people have done it.
If more than one of expenditure, storage or service continuity are a concern, I’d strongly recommend against Matrix, at least a self-hosted one. It’s one of those nu-protocols that’s quite resource intensive compared to perfectly serviceable alternatives from the '90s or '00s. I’d instead recommend something based on XMPP, such as a Prosody / Snikket server (with the advice that you’ll have to configure some more stuff for privacy). Client apps on Android and web at least are also readily available.
I’d also say that having your own Matrix instance is pretty much the only way to go when it comes to this topic.
Fluxer might also be an option? Although I’m not sure that it is as encrypted or secure as matrix. But definitely more like Discord. And self hostable.
Thanks for the mention of Fluxer! That sounds like a great option for some communities I’m on on Discord that might be open to moving away from US hosted, as in one they recently had one member have a giant issue with an account that got hacked. I can’t imagine anything much worse than Discords current management tbh.
Another option is Stoat