Background About the Rebel Federation 📕

The Rebel Federation has been a free, volunteer-run online community since 2007. Our goal is to bring people together who want to become a part of a dependable third space, cultivate interests and skills in a supportive environment, and make other online spaces we have a presence in safer for everyone. When we started in 2007, it was in the name of standing up to online bullies and bad actors who abused a video game we played. In doing so, our Members at the time developed a motto for themselves: “Fight the good fight”. This slogan represents the desire to do what is right—even if you have to fight for it—in every given opportunity.

In today’s world, “fighting the good fight” has never been more necessary, and our robust 17-year-old organizational framework is primed to organize a real resistance effort to fascistic online hate, racism, and xenophobia happening in the United States and around the world today. We will do this by building a federation of like-minded allies who understand fighting the good fight extends to activism in our respective communities, both on and offline. Using this website, we aim to create a network we can all rely on to support ourselves as individuals, while also working tangibly to make a positive impact in the world when we operate jointly.

The Rebel Federation also structurally consists of multiple “Divisions”, each focuses on a specific game or interest. The Rebel Federation Action Network is one of these, and is overseen by the RF Command Staff of the greater organization.

Reasoning for Establishing this RF Division 🏗

Major corporate platforms, such as Facebook, Twitter, Facebook/Instagram, YouTube, and TikTok—even Discord, which RF primarily operates on—make money from user data and ads. This data can track what you do, and what you say, and sell it to third-party companies. Furthermore, this data is weaponized by disinformation campaigns to elicit specific responses from people, to get them to vote certain ways or believe certain things, all mostly to aid an oligarchy of wealthy individuals. These sites also employ addictive algorithms to keep people engaged with their content (doom-scrolling). Basically, these platforms become instruments leveraged against the working and poorer classes by keeping us engaged, busy, and stuck in anti-social feedback loops that promote disinformation reinforcing late-stage capitalist priorities. Refusing to engage with corporate platforms deprives corporations of these tools against us, deprives them of their profits from ad revenue, and prevents them from weaponizing dollars and disinformation against us. Creating and becoming a part of a digital grassroots effort is one of the most effective ways to speak truth to power.

Moreover, and as seen with Twitter and Facebook/Instagram, what happens when these platforms deliberately strike down leftist/progressive/working class discourse? As seen with TikTok, what happens if specific platforms are continuously banned? The United States itself already has a history of working overtime against class-conscious discourse, and in a time when the ultrarich have a vested interest in keeping us powerless and unorganized, it’s in our belief that successfully achieving solidarity could change the world.

Most importantly, it’s our belief that having a way to communicate outside of traditional avenues on the internet is imperative today. The Rebel Federation as an organization existed before social media, and we will continue to exist under censored social media.