Relays aren't too bad to wrap the mind around. They're just servers by a different name.

Most platforms like TikTok or Twitter just have one server that everyone connects to. Makes things really simple, but also makes it really easy to ban people.

Additionally, the server where everyones data is stored and the applications used to access and view that data, are all owned by the same company, and in order to stay alive as a company, they need to keep their advertisers and their share-holders happy. This puts pressure on them to censor less savory content from their platform.

On Nostr, anyone can run a server/relay that stores data. There are some big public relays, like relay.damus.io or nos.lol, and there are really small, personal relays that only contain the notes from a single user.

In order to help keep Nostr censorship resistant, we usually post our notes to a few different relays. That way, if one relay owner gives us the boot for some reason, our notes are still available from other relays.

In addition to relays, anyone can create an app that can access and interact with the data stored on those relays. We usually call those apps clients. Maybe it makes us feel more sophisticated. I don't know. They're apps that access and display the data on the relays, the same way that the TikTok app accesses and displays the data on TikTok's server.

However, since anyone can create an app that accesses that data, users end up with a lot more options for which app to use to access the exact same data, displaying it different ways, and giving you different options for interacting with it.

All of that to say, this makes Nostr damn near impossible to shut down, and incredibly difficult to censor virtually ANY kind of content. Including the absolute spiciest content out there.