Groups & communities
Group chats and community spaces multiply both the value and the risk of a conversation: more people means more places your words can travel. The goal here is to organise safely, choose platforms that encrypt group content, manage membership carefully, and avoid tools that expose every participant's identity or metadata. These guides are written for organisers, families, and communities alike.
Tools compared
Can the platform (or an admin) read the whole room?
- DiscordVisitdiscord.com
Not end-to-end encrypted; Discord and server admins can read messages, and content is scannable.
- Slack
Workspace content is readable by Slack and by workspace owners. Built for work, not confidentiality.
- Facebook Groups
Public or private, the content lives on Meta's servers in a readable form.
- Telegram groups & channels
Not end-to-end encrypted at any size; Telegram holds the keys regardless of how private the group feels.
- WhatsApp groups
Group messages are end-to-end encrypted, but Meta still sees membership and metadata.
- Signal groupsVisitsignal.org
End-to-end encrypted group messaging and calls; even group membership is protected by Signal's private-group design.
- Matrix / ElementVisitelement.io
Open, federated chat with end-to-end encrypted rooms. You can self-host for full control.
- Olvid groupsVisitolvid.io
End-to-end encrypted groups with no central user directory.
Verified July 2026 and not exhaustive. “Readable by the provider” means the content can, in principle, be scanned or handed over. We take no money from any product listed here; where a tool sits can change, so check its current documentation.
Guides
- Moderate a group chat without becoming a data hoard How to keep a community healthy while collecting as little personal data as possible, with practical retention, logging, and transparency habits.
- Organise safely: privacy for activists and journalists A calm, practical approach to threat modelling, vetting members, cutting metadata, and protecting sources for people whose work carries higher stakes.
- Run a private community without exposing its members How to host a group, club, or support network on tools that encrypt the conversation and do not put every member's identity on display.