Moderate? Aka censor
Discussion
Not a fan of censorship, people need to read the room and try to be authentic when discussing controversial or contentious issues.
You're free to post what you want.
Relay operators are free to host what they want.
You're free to host your own relay.
Users are free to block what they want.
Clients are free to block what they want.
Users are free to use whatever client they want.
It's hard for some people (including highly-technical Bluesky developers) to understand that either you have censorship by a central committee or you have real decentralization with any host being able to censor whatever they want.
Any claims to the contrary are likely to come from either clueless or malicious actors and eventually end in the first situation.
Perfectly put. More than likely there will always be censorship. To presume any platform fixes that is foolishness.
I don't think Nostr was ever intended to have no censorship at all, but to be censorship resistant.
I run a relay, and I limit notes it stores to people in my web of trust. Is that censorship? If someone mutes another user so they don't see their notes, is that censorship? Or is choosing what you see and broadcast actually part of your own freedom of speech?
I'm pretty confident I can get my notes out amidst any circumstance.
- I subscribe to a couple good paid relays.
- I run my own relay on a VPS.
- If all those fail, or refuse to host my notes, I have a relay ready to go on my home PC that I can start in an instant.
- If that fails I have a relay setup on my phone, connecting over tor, that I can turn on.
I don't know of any other protocol that gives me those kinds of options.
Resistant vs proof. Exactly right. But I think many believe it’s proof. And ironically, you will see notes from people thinking there needs to be more filtering at the relay level since clients are limited.
Now that outbox is getting to be widespread amongst clients I think relays filtering is less of a problem. It's not just a few main relays anymore, there are thousands, and you don't need common relays to pass notes. Anyone with a minimum of hardware and technical knowledge can run one, for just themselves, or for a community.
This is incomplete, but still relevant. I know nostr:nprofile1qqsdfx5syw3pmwsm8jpsdj3kn0ejg0vtgju0pdk3r9nq0aasny863hcpr9mhxue69uhhyetvv9ujumn0wdnxcctjv5hxxmmd9uq35amnwvaz7tmnv4hxg6t59ehx7umxd3shyefwvdhk6tce90cwc has an option using CloudFlare I should add.
Anyone truly concerned with moderation by other people should be running their own relay. Otherwise they're just LARPing.
Running your own client is even easier than running your own relay and you can use it to fetch content from any relay. If a client censors content, users can and should dismiss it.
Preach!
When you say “any host being able to censor,” that’s really just each relay applying its own filtering policy. That’s not the same as censorship by a central committee; it’s decentralization in action because users can choose other relays or run their own.
This distinction matters a lot. We encounter the same confusion with Bitcoin: people call spam filtering “censorship,” when in fact filters are local choices that nodes make about what to relay or prioritize. No one can stop a valid transaction from spreading if peers decide to forward it. Confusing censorship with filtering makes it much harder to have a clear discussion about spam.
You’re not wrong. 😀
Exactly my point - standing on business —> #BSVchain for #NOSTR code host. #Github will become a #Rugpull #SafeHarbor is #BSVchain <— the most hated red headed stepchild for the win! The BSV NOSTR Relay #DAPP should be called #BlackSheep.
The freedom in question also includes the freedom to create and host free speech relays and free speech clients. And I think the presence of free speech relays is necessary for effective overall censorship resistance.
It's getting easier to do this all the time.
To be clear, I was referring to public, general use, "free speech" relays, with expressly permissive policies, as opposed to running one's own relay for one's own notes, which is also a good idea but a different thing.
None could guarantee those relays wouldn't censor, but if there were enough of them, and people preferred them, the overall resistance would be good.
Nostr isn't for everything. For many tasks a central database works better. By a similar principle, platforms which aren't by design technically censorship resistant should have free speech policies and users should prefers platforms that do.
There's nothing stopping anyone from doing exactly that, many already do.
You're free to fire one up as well, no permission needed!
I agree, of course, I wan't suggesting anyone was preventing anyone from doing it.
In fact, I'd love to see relays run by existing free speech organizations, as it would be well within the mission of furthering this fundamental human right.
It is one way to do it.
I think making relays easier to run, and having more of them is a better solution though. Having single large relays run by someone else makes points of failure that could be exploited. They would increase centralization.
If people are instead running their own relay, on their own server, desktop, or phone the network becomes more resilient, and harder to take down. Maximize decentralization.
Freedom isn't free.
Exactly, freedom costs energy, time, and sacrifice. That’s why it’s valuable.
You’re free to try to sway public opinion.
The best yet
music to my ears! 👏
I find it fascinating that people forget that the first rule is: freedom of choice which you enumerated. People believe that their freedom of speech over rides the freedom of choice!
People get mixed up. We have the choice to do what is right by you and for you. If you feel offended by those choices because it affects you, exercise your own freedom of choice: 1. Accept it, 2. Change it or 3. Remove yourself completely from the situation. No need to complicate things! 😁🫂☺️
Please explain what this means.
“freedom of speech over rides the freedom of choice”
I can’t make that make sense. At all.
Ty.