Nostr Web Client

Chatter on nostr today would indicate a potential balkanization of nostr relays and related services, due to the hassle of complying with or fear of the penalties from failing to comply with the UK's Orwellian Online Safety Act.

If this happens, nostr, in part, breaks for UK users. Not the protocol or the fundamentals, but many experiences will. And the rest of us lose by losing UK users.

Two opportunities present themselves which I hope we capitalize on:

1. For nostr builders to double down on and stress test the decentralization of relays and ancillary services, like media hosting (e.g. blossom). And for more nostr users to dig in, do the work, and self-host.

2. For UK users to circumvent, refuse to comply, and find ways to either opt out or get out. Godspeed.

Ed Hubstead 5mo ago 💬 1

Could you try and explain this to me in more technical detail? I thought the whole point of NOSTR was that it was completely censorship proof. How can people using NOSTR be attacked by the UK legal system? I don't understand it. Could you try to explain this to me very clearly? This is definitely something I want to help with.

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Discussion

Slimer 5mo ago 💬 1

It's not censorship proof. It's more censorship resistant than a single centralised service.

A relay operator is storing notes for people to access. I assume they will need to comply with UK law if people from the UK are using their service or risk jail/ fines.

Ed Hubstead 5mo ago 💬 1

So I guess there's nothing to stop someone from running nodes in countries that can't be affected by UK law enforcement.

Slimer 5mo ago 💬 1

If a relay operator probably running for free or at a loss wants to take on the British State, fair play 😂

Shawn 5mo ago

Thanks for the explanation. You've pointed out the key bits.

And nostr:npub1t3u2esysm92usp6v5jkkgvy4yk86uyy7e04mza595hkeejc33mgs3k4xy4, cheers for taking the time to record your thoughts. Yours is an important perspective.

The crux of this thing, IMO, is that "we" (nostr) are facing stress tests of how censorship-resistant the tech really is. The cretons passing these laws and using threat of global reach to enforce vs individuals hosting relays/nodes on the network—how fair a fight is it? I think it comes down to how trivially could an individual be located and identified as running a service, which comes down to how robust the anonymity provided by those services is.

Does this mean running over VPN, Tor, something else? I'm not qualified to make those determinations, as most won't be. But it's time to find out.