I’m no Nostr developer, or Damus like developer on top of it, but I find it hard to believe you couldn’t censor what you liked in this app if you so had the will. I could be wrong of course… but, if you could, to me that’s a “decentralised” kind of decentralisation that a lot of altcoins boast about.
Discussion
I could censor client side but then people would stop using my app or fork it to not have that. I have no ability to censor the actual data since I don’t control that.
It’s all open source. There’s nothing to “believe” or “not believe”. The code doesn’t lie. Nostr and Damus are indeed censorship resistant.
Ethereum is open source too
That doesn’t have any relevance to what I just said?
I’m not trying to deflect. I think I’m making an apt point. “No ceo” as about reliable as a qualification as so many cryptos that exist. Bitcoin truly has no ceo. Nostr is not the same
Very true. Just because something is open source doesn’t mean it’s good. What you may be missing is when you combine an extremely good free speech protocol and open source you get a killer product.
Nostr truly has no CEO either. I encourage you to read the spec. https://github.com/nostr-protocol/nips
Censoring is controlled by USERS (block, liberally) and by RELAYS (who can ban npubs).
The censorship resistant aspect takes place at Relay level - so long as ONE Relay accepts your posts, you can be seen by those who subscribe to that Relay.
Right now, Relays don't censor, because no one is willing to pay them to.
But nothing stops you offering, let's call it "Disney" Relay or "Church" Relay, and then actively monitoring it, and banning people who break the rules, and thus offering a form of walled garden for like minded people willing to pay you $1-$5pm ish to be part of your Relay (and, probably, no others, or other similar).