stopice.net is self-hosted
A reminder of why self-hosting is important.
This Programmer Wants to Use Your Phone to Fight ICE (Mother Jones)
From the article:
Austin launched StopICE in February 2025, one of a constellation of digital tools that emerged in response to federal agents terrorizing communities. Users can text in sightings of ICE, which are then blasted out to other nearby users. This is legal: “Reporting on the activities of law enforcement is fully protected by the Constitution,” says Eric Goldman, who co-directs the High Tech Law Institute at Santa Clara University. “If the government is doing something in a public space, we’re allowed to report it, monitor it, catalog it, complain about it, protest it.”
Nevertheless, the Trump administration has declared war on ICE-spotting apps. In June, the agency’s acting director, Todd Lyons, accused one app, ICEBlock, of painting “a target on federal law enforcement officers’ backs” and contributing to a “500% increase in assaults” against them. Pressure from the administration prompted Apple and Google to remove the app and others like it, including Red Dot and Deicer, from their app stores in October. That same month, Facebook suspended an ICE watch group in Chicago.
Austin saw this crackdown coming. It’s why he designed StopICE as a text-based web service, not a downloadable app, which meant it survived this purge. “I built it this way for a reason,” he says. “I knew DOJ and DHS was going to pressure service providers to remove the apps.”
Apr 22 · 2 weeks ago · 🤘 2
6 Comments ↓
👻 darkghost · Apr 22 at 21:18:
Is this self hosting? 🤔 seems more like an unappification. I mean it is still decentralization
🚀 stack [mod] · Apr 22 at 22:20:
But (even if it's in the wrong sub), it's the missing piece in consumer tech.
Corporations are highly organized and use tech to track consumer behaviour. It is only right to use similar technology to track things we want to avoid (and thing we want).
Instead of cloning corporate crap, be it Windows or X, we should be focused on tools we need for ourselves. If it's tracking Ice or actually rating businesses without fake reviews or interferance. Not to mention setting up means of communication outside the surveilosphere.
👻 darkghost · Apr 22 at 22:39:
Agreed 6,000%
🚀 stack [mod] · Apr 22 at 23:06:
I think a generic tracking/reporting system would be a great app/distributed network.
It can be marketed as a bird spotting app, with the ability to start groups to track and report sightings of specific birds.
Could also be used to track other animals.
how do you stop spammers polluting the data of a decentralized tracking network ? I can't fathom
why not both? So many people strictly use app stores, so make apps for them. Also make it available via browser. Be prepared to get kicked off.
What would be really cool is some standardish data format that could be submitted over any transport. Like - make it so we can submit reports over text, email, XMPP, carrier pigeon, HAM radio. Make a PWA that can store data and submit it later when you're online.