Is everyone in your Signal groups named something like "E" or "🥑"? Nicknames can help!

As ICE continues its invasion of American cities, kidnapping and murdering the people who live there, observers on the ground are increasingly relying on Signal groups to organize mutual aid and rapid response networks. In Minneapolis, people are using hyper-local Signal groups for their buildings, streets, neighborhoods, and schools.

If you, like me, are in a ton of newly created Signal groups full people you don't know, or just met for the first time, keeping track of who is saying what might be super confusing.

Signal has a feature called nicknames that can help. If you know that your friend Laura used to go by "Mmm 🌮" on Signal but recently changed her name to simply "🥑", you can click on the 🥑 contact and set her nickname to "Laura" instead. From now on, you'll just see her as Laura, and your Signal groups will be slightly less confusing.

To set a nickname, go to a Signal group and click on the avatar of one of your contacts. It will pop up a menu like this:

Tap Nickname. You can set the name that you want to know this person as, and you can also add a note about this contact if you want. Nicknames and notes are stored end-to-end encrypted only for you. No one else can see what nicknames you've set.

From this point on, once you set 🥑's nickname to Laura, you'll just see her as Laura. If you mention her in the chat using "@Laura", others in the chat will see you posting "@🥑".

That's it. Now people can use whatever crazy names they want, and change them as frequently as they want, and you no longer need to be confused.

Why is this even necessary? Infiltrators.

Signal is a usable, secure, encrypted messaging app. The tech is solid. That said, there are still two ways that Signal groups get compromised:

• Someone's device gets searched. This typically happens after they get arrested, or searched at a border crossing or other security checkpoint, or their home or office is raided. See Practical Defenses Against Technofascism for some advise on dealing with this.
• Or an infiltrator joins the group.

Infiltrators join groups with lax permissions. Or, uh, maybe Trump's national security advisor just adds them.

If you're not familiar with how Signal group links and permissions work, check out Using Signal groups for activism. Some groups have group links on and anyone with the link can join. Others might allow anyone in the group to invite anyone else.

With large groups – a requirement for mass movements – group permissions like these make it easy for new people to get involved. But at the same time, they also make it a lot easier for infiltrators to snake their way in.

Because of the risk of infiltrators, it's common – and in many cases a good idea – to not put your real name in your Signal profile.

If a single infiltrator sneaks in, they'll get access to a list of everyone in the group. It's much harder for a MAGA chud to dox and harass you, or for the government to investigate you, if they only know you as "🥑", without knowing your real name.