It can be difficult letting people know about events. Social media is useful but not everyone is on it, or they don’t check it regularly (probably a good thing). There are often informal Signal networks to spread information about events, but only the people who are already connected are on those. How do we get more of the public connected and informed about what’s going on?

What

A “Leftist Announcement Signal Group” is a public Signal group (signal.org) where local events and calls to action are posted so that people in the community can find out about events without being on social media. They’re set up so that anyone can join but only admins can message.

We suggest working with other leftist groups in your area so you can all be sharing your events. This will also build some good cross-group connections and solidarity.

We’ve have had great success letting people know about events!

Steps

1. Send out invitations to other leftists to join. Explain the concept and invite local groups to join. Include some basic norms for the group and a list of who else you’re inviting. Here’s an example invitation.

2. Create the public Signal group and configure it. Create a new Signal Group.

a. Edit the group settings by clicking the name at the top, going to “Permissions” and change “Who can edit group info” and “who can send messages” to “admin only”.

b. Go to “Group link” and turn on the group link. Copy it. That’s what you’ll use to invite people to join.

c. Make the description some signal security warnings. Something like:
Security/Privacy:
* Hide your Signal phone number
* Don’t use your full legal name as your Signal display name
* Don’t message people you don’t know without a good reason.
* Report/Block generic spam messages from people you don’t know and let one of the admins know so we can remove them.

d. Add the other admins and make the admins of the signal group so they can post

3. Create an admin Signal group. This will be a group for all the admins. It’s a space where you can discuss anything that comes up as you’re using this group.

Set the admin group norms from the invitation email as the description.

Add the admins.

4. Publicize! Make a flyer that explains the group (example). Post it on socials, share in other signal groups, and print flyers.

You can make a QR code here: https://www.qrcode-monkey.com/

5. Post things and admin! Start posting event flyers and things!

There will probably be spam accounts that join. Be alert for random messages and remove them from the group. Encourage people to block/report spam messages.

It could be good to regularly send out the Signal security and privacy recommendations from the description for the people that don’t read the description.

 

Please send any feedback on this guide to guides@neighborhoodanarchists.org