# Autistici/Inventati Says It Will Shut Down After Years of Pressure
The Autistici/Inventati collective says it is shutting down and will discontinue the services it provides. In a public announcement on keepitfree.ai, the group says the decision follows years of pressure and a growing sense that continuing to operate now puts users and people close to the collective at risk. The event date attached to the notice is 2026-09-06, and the message is framed as a final break rather than a temporary pause.
The collective describes itself as having spent 25 years building free, privacy-friendly and autonomous digital infrastructure. In its statement, it says it can no longer sustain that mission under the current political climate. The announcement argues that allegations disconnected from reality can still trigger disproportionate repression, and that the possibility of legal or financial consequences for members of the network leaves it with no safe path forward.
The shutdown notice also makes clear that the group has been trying to preserve continuity for as long as possible. It says every day the services remained online after August 26, 2026 was a victory, but that the balance has now tipped. The language is unusually blunt: the collective says it will not ask anyone else to make sacrifices and does not want to expose users or nearby communities to further risk.
At the center of the announcement is a security and trust argument. The group says it exists to offer secure, non-commercial digital tools, but that the current environment has become too hostile to continue without endangering the very people it aims to serve. That makes this more than a routine shutdown notice. It is a statement about how political pressure can alter the operating conditions for privacy services, mailing lists, blogs and related infrastructure.
The post promises follow-up instructions for backing up blogs, mailboxes and websites, along with technical recommendations. It also warns that access problems may occur in the coming days, and that the autistici.org domain itself was previously made unreachable without notice. That warning suggests the collective expects the transition to be messy and potentially incomplete.
For users, the immediate issue is practical: preserving data and migrating services before they disappear. For the wider internet, the announcement is another sign that running independent infrastructure has become harder, not easier, for groups that position themselves outside commercial platforms. The statement does not spell out the specific legal mechanism that forced the decision, but it does say the risk environment has become severe enough that staying online is no longer viable.
