Dread + Pitch

(member quiz at the bottom)

Paris dropped a bombshell in a recent Dread post that went far beyond the technical recovery details everyone expected. Buried in his explanation of cluster resurrection and timestamp correlation was a single paragraph that broke years of unspoken tension between two of the darknet's largest forums. "You all should also join Pitch too," he wrote, casually recommending account creation on a platform that some Dread users historically viewed with suspicion or outright contempt.

That recommendation matters because Paris carries weight. Six years as a Dread administrator, [9,994 reputation points](https://darkwebdaily.live), 233 posts, and 4,327 comments give him credibility that random moderators can't touch. When he tells users to create accounts somewhere else, people listen. When that somewhere else is Pitch, the platform many Dread users spent years dismissing as competition, it signals a fundamental shift in how darknet communities approach survival.

The catalyst was corporate censorship doing what corporate censorship does best: making stupid decisions that backfire spectacularly. Reddit went nuclear on Dread's presence, completely shadowbanning any updates from HugBunter, the forum's owner who co-steers the massive operation alongside Paris. Reddit's deletion campaign eliminated Dread's primary channel for communicating downtime, maintenance, and status updates to users who rely on clearnet access for information about darknet services.

Paris's response recognized what many platform tribalists refuse to admit: different tools serve different purposes, and ideological purity loses to practical redundancy when the stakes involve keeping communities connected during crackdowns. "Reddit went nuclear with us and we are completely shadowbanned now," he explained. "So any updates of our downtime will likely be posted there. Follow at @dreadparis."

The Dread versus Pitch dynamic mirrors the
Reddit versus X relationship in ways that make the collaboration obvious once someone actually says it out loud.

Dread functions as the darknet's Reddit: in-depth discussions, long-form content, niche topics organized into specific communities where pseudonymous users focus on substance over personality. Content lives longer. Conversations develop depth. Community curation through upvoting and downvoting filters quality.

Pitch operates as the darknet's X: short-form content, real-time updates, news dissemination through individual accounts rather than community threads. Fast-paced information flow where immediacy beats comprehensiveness. Paris now uses [@dreadparis](https://darkwebdaily.live) there specifically because Pitch excels at exactly what Dread struggles with rapid status broadcasts that users can check without navigating forum structures.

X currently holds the top position among news apps on the iOS App Store, validating the entire premise that real-time information platforms serve needs that community forums cannot. The darknet ecosystem just learned this lesson the hard way when Reddit's censorship eliminated the bridge between Dread's onion address and clearnet users who need to know when [the forum experiences downtime](http://dailydwusclfsu7fzwydc5emidexnesmdlzqmz2dxnx5x4thl42vj4qd.onion/).

Paris

"A reminder that we are all in this together,...There is no us vs them in the darknet space. You shouldn't rely upon a single entity or person to do the right thing. Shit happens and everyone needs good alternatives. It is important to support the entire darknet ecosystem."

That paragraph represents the collision of reality with platform loyalty. Darknet services face constant threats from law enforcement, infrastructure failures, exit scams, and now increasingly aggressive corporate censorship campaigns targeting any clearnet presence they maintain. Banking on a single platform creates vulnerability. Treating complementary services as enemies creates fragility.

Paris recognized both problems and publicly acknowledged what operational security has always demanded: redundancy beats rivalry when your infrastructure exists under permanent siege.

Paris made this recommendation immediately after executing an insane technical recovery involving timestamp correlation across fragmented cluster states, combining hundreds of pieces into a single disk image, and forcing live synchronization with approximately zero margin for error. He pulled Dread back from what could have been catastrophic data loss through what he accurately described as a "hack job" that impressed even himself.

Fresh off that save, riding the high of resurrecting the forum through desperate improvisation, Paris used his victory lap to tell users: go make Pitch accounts. That choice demonstrates priorities.

Dread surviving one crisis means nothing if users have nowhere to receive updates during the next crisis. Pitch provides that function, so users should engage with Pitch regardless of historical grudges or platform preferences.

Some Dread users reportedly viewed Pitch with suspicion, seeing it as competition trying to fragment the darknet forum landscape or as an unnecessary alternative when Dread already existed. Paris openly promoting Pitch challenges that perspective from a position of authority built over six years of consistent administration.

Some observers might dismiss this as simple pragmatism forced by Reddit's censorship, which it absolutely is. But pragmatism forced by external pressure often reveals what ideological posturing obscures. The darknet ecosystem benefits from having both long-form community forums and real-time update platforms. Dread and Pitch serve different functions. Encouraging users to maintain presence across both platforms increases overall resilience against exactly the type of coordinated deplatforming that just hit HugBunter.

Paris's emphasis on supporting "the entire darknet ecosystem" rather than individual platforms extends beyond immediate crisis response. Law enforcement targets centralization. Corporate censorship targets visibility.

Single points of failure create opportunities for disruption.

Distributed presence across multiple platforms with different architectures, different administrators, and

different communication models makes the ecosystem harder to suppress.

Reddit's shadowban campaign against HugBunter proves that clearnet platforms will erase darknet-adjacent accounts whenever convenient. Twitter did it. Facebook does it. Reddit just demonstrated they do it too. Relying on corporate platforms for critical communications guarantees eventual deplatforming. Paris recognized this and redirected users toward a platform operating within the same threat model as Dread itself.

Dread remains Dread.
Pitch remains Pitch.

But the acknowledgment that both serve the ecosystem and both deserve user support represents a maturation of darknet community strategy. Platform competition makes sense when resources are scarce and services compete for limited attention. Collaboration makes sense when external threats target the entire space and redundancy determines survival.

Paris closed his post with "I'm going to raid the dread coke supply now. I've earned it." By publicly endorsing cross-platform presence and framing it as ecosystem health rather than betrayal, he pushed darknet community strategy toward resilience over tribalism. Reddit's censorship campaign accelerated that shift, but the underlying logic existed before corporate platforms proved again that they will always prioritize compliance and money over principle.

The real test comes when the next crisis hits, when Dread goes dark again or when another platform faces existential threat. If users actually maintain presence across multiple services, if administrators continue coordinating rather than competing, if the ecosystem treats redundancy as infrastructure rather than weakness, then Paris's casual "you all should join Pitch too" becomes the moment darknet communities figured out what clearnet activists still resist: your enemies control the platforms, so build the redundancy that makes platform control irrelevant.