About
Deceit is built on open source and one server the project runs itself. This page lists the tools and services that power the project. A media literacy site should be transparent about its own stack.
The editorial sites are served from one rented server. Caddy answers the requests and gets the HTTPS certificates; the pages themselves are static files built ahead of time. Submissions go to a small service on that same server and are stored there. The nightly backup is encrypted before it leaves the machine, and only a key the operator holds can open it.
The admin desk, where submissions are read and posts are written, sits behind a sign-in on that service. It takes an email and password, then a code from an authenticator app. A session that has cleared only the password step is treated as signed out until the code is entered, and an account with no authenticator set up has to set one up before it reaches anything. Editor accounts are created on the server itself; there is no sign-up page. Repeated failures are rate limited by network address and by account, and signing out ends the session on the server rather than only in the browser.
Deceit uses system fonts only. No Google Fonts, no custom web fonts, no font files downloaded from third-party servers. This reduces third-party dependencies, eliminates a tracking surface, and keeps the site fast.
The editorial sites (deceit.media, deceit.site, deceit.blog) use self-hosted GoAccess analytics, run over our own server logs with visitor IP addresses anonymized. It reports aggregate page views and visits. No tracking cookies. No marketing pixels. No cross-site tracking. No third-party analytics service.
Whispers (whispersofdeceit.com) is excluded from analytics entirely. A site collecting anonymous pattern observations must not have any analytics, even cookieless. The submission page promises no tracking and keeps that promise.
The forum (deceit.forum) closed in September 2026. Every address under it now redirects to Rooms on deceit.world, and that redirect writes no log of its own.
Every analysis post cites its sources. Sources are linked inline and listed at the bottom of each post. We archive screenshots and embeds of the original material before it can be deleted. Short excerpts of third-party content appear for commentary and criticism under fair use. Deceit is not affiliated with the people, platforms, companies, or institutions it examines.
Whispers observations are community-submitted, editorially reviewed, and abstracted to remove names and identifying details. The raw submissions are never published. See the whispers guidelines for the full process.
The tools listed above are open source or have open source components. Astro is MIT licensed. Tailwind CSS is MIT licensed. Caddy is Apache 2.0. Sharp is Apache 2.0. SQLite is in the public domain. These projects and the maintainers who keep them working are acknowledged with gratitude.