Assess The Press

Signal Democracy Group Welcome

We would like to take this opportunity to welcome you to our Democracy groups and explain our rules and expectations. 

Hopefully you have settled on a good profile name. Your profile name can be anything you want. Hopefully it is something your friends will recognize you with, but not enough of your real name for an infiltrator to look you up.

Pick a profile name and stick with it. Using your first name and substituting your last name with a descriptor, such as Dave Signal Guy, or Anna Bear, is the best solution.

Every time you change your name, EVERYONE in all of your groups are notified of the change. This is to prevent a bad actor from hiding their identity or pretending to be multiple people. If we only use our first names, there is a high chance of duplicate names, resulting in the need to change them. (More notifications.) So it’s best to create a good unique name before you join more groups.

To edit your name or avatar graphic, on your phone go back to your home screen, click on your avatar in the upper left corner, select settings, then select the avatar/name box at the top. On a computer, select the gear in the lower left corner of the window, then your name at the top.

If you haven’t been added to your local Democracy group, Directly Message (DM) an admin or someone you know for an invite. Once you are added to your local group, introduce yourself and maybe mention ways you could contribute your time. This is where you will become acquainted with others and can join other groups. So first things first, clue me in on where you are from so I can add you to your local area Democracy group.

The Statewide and Metro area groups are used for event notifications, activities, and group outreach. Not chat, opinion, or to answer questions (unless the answer is not easily obtainable and is important to the group). If you do post a video or graphic, be mindful of the visually impaired. Describe them with the information typed out in the same post so they don’t have to ask to be informed. If you post a link, describe in the post what it is about and why it is important.

Chat, opinion, and questions can be posted in smaller groups. We have Democracy groups across the state. If you have a Signal group you want to promote, let me know. Or post the link on a local democracy group. If your group is pertinent to the whole state of Kansas, then post it on the Statewide group. Planning should be done in small group chats, DMs, or face-to-face meetings. Then reported back to the Democracy groups for calls to action and outreach on your subject.

To help you understand the Democracy groups, think of them as a community bulletin board at the local gas station coffee shop. The people in the group make up the community, while important messages are posted on the board. Too many messages, and the board becomes messy and unreadable. Our time is important, and chat groups are efficient in that regard if they are not spammed by their members.

With a group numbering 500, your post will notify (chime) all 500 members, and all 500 may read it. If our time is worth $50/hr, to put a number on it, and it takes 5 seconds to read your post, the post costs the group $35 in time. Make sure your posts are relevant enough for our time. While smaller groups don’t have the same amount of time spent, our time is still stretched. To put it another way, Trump intentionally creates chaos to distract us and wear us down. By posting stuff that is not necessary or applicable to a group, we are doing Trumps bidding, so to speak. So keep it short, pertinent, and sweet.;)

At this point you may be confused. We invited you to a group chat and then told you not to post to it! In politics, power is local. The idea is not to create a large group for the sake of creating a large group. Instead, the idea is to introduce you to a large group so you can find your local group. The large group is only used to help you find information and resources more effectively.

Vetting Policy

These Democracy groups are not vetted. For all we know, an informant has found a way into our Democracy groups and is reading everything we post. Do not post something you wouldn’t want read back to you in court. Smaller more specific groups may be vetted, but that is up to those admins. The way we deal with potential bad actors is by limiting their access to us. Access flyers are only given to protesters. Along those same lines, do NOT post Signal group links on other social media, even if you think your group is secure. Facebook, WhatsApp, X, BlueSky, etc. are not your friends. Email may not be considered social media, but it is not secure either. Do NOT send a link for a Signal group via email.

Having said that, we do need to bring friendly people into our informational space. The best way to do that is through you. You know among your friends and family, who are safe and politically friendly. If they are a good match for our pro-democracy activism, add them to our Democracy groups. There is strength in numbers. The more we bring people into the fold, the more successful our activism will be. There are several different ways to invite or add people to a group. The key is through the avatars, the graphic circle next to the group or individual’s name. Click or touch on it for information, settings, and membership.

It’s important to remember most people are not as active as us. Some people have physical restrictions that prevent them from safely protesting. Just because someone is not holding a sign in the street, doesn’t mean they cannot help in other ways. Some people have a real passion for protesting, while others cannot due to work, time, or physical limitations. And that’s okay too, every form of protest has value. Help others get involved. Being limited to reading national news and clickbait is mentally wearing and gets you nowhere. Engaging in local politics does the opposite. Do your friends and family a favor. Get them involved.

Posting Guidelines

Use the message reaction emoticons (select the gray heart with a plus sign or touch and hold on the message). They only notify the poster, not the rest of the group. A new post notifies everyone. This allows you to be supportive of others without being a nuisance.

The same notification issue happens when leaving and rejoining groups. Every time you join or leave, everyone is notified. Sometimes you don’t want to be bothered. That is understandable. Groups can be muted. Select the group avatar, then select notifications. Pick how long to mute and you are done.

Notification settings are rather elaborate with Signal, so you can be very selective with your notifications, not only through the Signal app, but also your system settings.

And the no-no’s.

-No “I agree” posts. Use message reaction emoticons so you only notify the original poster.

-Personal (your own) audio/video posts are not an acceptable way of posting your message. However, sharing relevant links to audio/video and remembering to add descriptive text of the content is good. Personal audio/video messages may get you banned.”

-One long post is better than several short ones for notification reasons.

-Edit and add info instead of posting again if you make a mistake.

-Don’t use the groups to advertise your business or services. Giving stuff away or recommending something to benefit group members is okay. If in doubt, ask.

Suggestions

-If you need to respond to someone (event attendance, personal info, specific questions for you, etc.) send them a DM (direct message) by clicking/touching their avatar and choosing message at the top.

-If you need to respond to a post in order to clarify the information for the group, please respond to the post with the reply arrow (next to the +heart on a computer, or touch and hold on your phone). Everyone will still be notified, but it reduces confusion by linking your post to the original post.

-If you are creating a post that may require some kind of response, the poll feature on Signal is a good option. Responses to the poll do not create notifications, but you can see who responded (click on view votes) and how. For instance, find out if there is interest in creating a new group with a poll describing the group, with the questions being, “Yes sign me up.” and “Yes, and make me an admin.”

-We should protect people with trauma. People with traumas deserve to know something may trigger that trauma. So hide potential triggers with the “spoiler” formatting (grey box with diagonal lines). Those who wish to read it can touch the text to view the potential trigger. Like so:

Trigger warning: Epstein related

Triggeriasdfa sdfasdfsdfas fasdfasdf asdfas dng material

-Only create posts relevant to the group. The Signal Democracy groups allow us to inform a targeted audience with immediacy. One of Trumps objectives is to flood the media landscape with chaos to overwhelm us. By creating our own chaos in our Signal chats, we are only enabling him.

Sometimes things go sideways on Signal. The reason we are sending you this information is to prevent that from happening, but if it does, there are things you can do.

-Complain to an admin. They are the ones empowered to do something about it. Admins are identified in the member list under the group avatar.

-Block an individual in the groups. Blocking (select their avatar, scroll to bottom, select block) will stop you from seeing their posts, and they won’t be able to see yours. If you unblock the individual, the blocked posts will not reappear. They won’t know they were blocked, but responses to the blocked posts can be confusing.

These posting guidelines depend on the group, in that the larger the group, the stricter they will be enforced.

Signal groups

INFORMATION ONLY:

– the Democracy groups definitely fall into this category

– more open membership

-posting limits: who can post and how often, what can be posted
- limits on discussion – members should take detailed discussion into a personal chat between the parties Or else designate some info chats WITH DISCUSSION and others WITHOUT DISCUSSION

BRAINSTORMING:

– an active exchange of ideas, sharing of strategies. Membership limited to trusted partners. 
- Membership limited to trusted partners.

DECISION-MAKING: There are a great many problems with decision-making by chat. Face to face is recommended.

– Quick turnaround is the main advantage here. 
- Strong Facilitation of the decision-making process is key.

– All group members essential to effective implementation of the decision need to be available, involved and have access to the same information.

Danger: Issues raised at arbitrary times (though still with good intention) that may not be convenient for all those essential to effective decision making.

Create Your Own Group

Eventually you may want to create your own groups and invite local or statewide members to it. Permission to create a new group is not necessary. This is bottom-up empowerment, not top down control. Please try to find out if there isn’t already a group on the issue. No need to be redundant. Groups are easy to create. Members can be added during set up or invited with a link later. They can be as permanent or as temporary as you want. Groups are easy to leave, impossible to join without a link or invite. Think about potential members. Where are they from? Local? Metro area? Statewide? Will they be vetted? Will you post a link to the group on a Democracy group? How will you describe the group to create interest in it?

Do you want to create a Democracy group for your local area? Are you already a member of a local group and want to connect the members to a larger group like the Statewide Democracy group? Let us know. The people in your local area should control and advocate for the groups in their area. We have flyers that we can tailor to your area with advice on passing them out at your protests. Let us know what we can do to help.

Signal Security

-Back up your phone before you take it to a protest, if you take it. If things go sideways at the protest, reset your phone (System settings, General, Transfer or reset iPhone, reset). This will wipe all your data off your phone (like new). Afterwards you can restore your data from your backup.

-DO NOT USE BIOMETRICS. Biometrics are using fingerprint and facial recognition to unlock your phone. With biometrics on, the police/feds are legally able to access your data by forcing your finger or face to the phone. The fourth amendment kicks in if they have to ask you for a password. Then the phone has the same privacy rights as a locked home. Yes, it is a hassle to enter a security code each time you use your phone, but the convenience of biometrics is not worth the risk.

-Turn off message preview for a locked phone. If your phone is confiscated, and the Signal messages are displayed while the phone is locked, the feds don’t even need to unlock your phone to see our messages. All they need to do is place a security camera in front of the phone to record all of your incoming messages.

Again, welcome to our Signal groups 🙂 Keep active!