I don't believe users would care that much to follow a politically motivated block list. I'm not sure about the relays. On the other hand the architecture of nostr is supposed to be resistant to that kind of censorship.
Discussion
You're free to run a non-censoring relay
People do care! Didn';t you see it with FediBlock for the past two years?
What good is the architecture of Nostr when it will be extremely difficult to know of any other instances because of censorship and you will be cancelled by instances just by associating with "a bad instance"
The question is what is blocked?
Public keys aren't likely to be blocked because the worst offenders (for relay performance and UX) is trolls and spammers who create keys very easily, not like emails/phone numbers on twitter.
Content will be blocked, mostly.
If a government or public campaign against a person results in a public key block, it only requires one relay and some other communication mechanism, outside Nostr, to get the word out. It's very easy to add a relay.
> Public keys aren't likely to be blocked
They will be.
> Content will be blocked, mostly.
That is not how censorship-happy people operate. They want you cancelled from all forms of speech, even life.
> If a government or public campaign against a person results in a public key block, it only requires one relay and some other communication mechanism, outside Nostr, to get the word out
Nostr Relay amins are looking at blocking IP's now of 'bad actors". What good is adding a relay when nobody will be able to see it? Add a million relays, go ahead, barely anyone will know of it and want to interact with it because they will get cancelled
You're adding a relay that you, or someone sympathetic, owns, not just another random one. It can't be IP blocked, you're running the host itself, too, by necessity.
This is a losing fight. You can't require someone platform your speech. The censorship-happy people aren't wrong there. The issue is that our current internet and speech mechanisms are run by only 1 or 2 major operators and your ability to spin up an alternative (Truth Social) is extremely limited and unviable in its ability to attract users, and also very expensive.
Nostr fixes THIS, it doesn't fix the censorship-happy people themselves. They'll still exist, that's true. It means there are now 100,000 platforms, equally viable, and you can run your own and spin up an alternative. You platform yourself. You just need to get people to follow you, really follow you, to this new platform. This is very easy and barely a thing, if your speech has even a minor value to people. It's simply adding one 'free' relay.
You are not getting it
>You're adding a relay that you, or someone sympathetic, owns, not just another random one. It can't be IP blocked, you're running the host itself, too, by necessity.
Nobody will be able to find your relay if it is being blocked! The damus relay is going to block "bad IP's" now
Yes, Truth Social is Mastodon remember, which has a better user experience than Nostr, years ahead and people don't like it. Alt-tech always serves a small niche group of people.
>Nostr fixes THIS, it doesn't fix the censorship-happy people themselves.
You are still not getting it. You must be really new to alt-tech. People always prefer larger relays in alt-tech because small relays are usually dead and have low-engagement Look at matrix and XMPP rooms and even small Fediverse instances. Relays will block you by association with relays and this will make it very hard for you to get anyone on your relay
I believe that if you're worth hearing, you'll be heard here by those who value it enough to do the bare minimum. But I'm interested in seeing how it plays out. We'll see. I'll keep using as broad a relay setup as possible to experience it myself. I'm here to witness and judge it for myself. I intend to resist any censorship just because I demand to hear all voices. I demand to be in control of such a choice, as is the intention of Nostr.
Currently I don't see what they can do to prevent my efforts there.
I have a list of free speech relays here
What you don't understand on this example? #[4]
Perfection is the enemy of the good. We can't have perfection. We can't fix the people themselves, which is what it would take to do this non-violently. Without some ideological authoritarianism for this issue.
You see, your definition of 'free speech' is a violation against others. It is outcome based, not opportunity based. You want an outcome that any speech, even the most disgusting, MUST be hosted and broadcast by others and may not be moderated for any reason, even performance, resisting DDoS/spam.
Forcing others to carry your speech is a violation of the liberties of the relay/host and your liberties end when others begin. Adapt. Go door to door to get to the grandmas. Do the work to get them into your relay. You have the means. You have the opportunity.
You are just another mentally ill liberal. You all say the same thing like from script. That is not FREE speech you retarded clown. You are the tool of censorship.
The FediBlock is only viable because the lefties control most instances and instances control what all their users are allowed to see. The politically neutral people join the biggest servers and they don't even know (nor they care) about FediBlock or other political fighting on "Mastodon". I'm not sure if this is possible here. The user can subscribe to multiple relays. If "mastodon.social" boots you, you don't have to lose you account or your followers. Gleasonator etc. will be there to relay your shitposts to the network.
The people here are acting just like the lefties though. I am telling you this is possible and they are already discussing it.
> If "mastodon.social" boots you, you don't have to lose you account or your followers. Gleasonator etc. will be there to relay your shitposts to the network.
You do loose your account! You have to create a new one on Gleasonator.com. Nostr solves that problem which is cool.
I agree. I meant the corresponding "mastodon.social" instance / relay in nostr. If we assume there is such a thing.
You don't seem to understand what is censorship and how it works.
1. The basic sociology proves you wrong. They don't need to follow that list per se. They follow as default behaviour of ignorance. The mainstream relays/clients they choose (path of least resistance) work as default blocklist. Majority of users will stick with default for ignorance.
2. I said it on second day using nostr, it was obvious that claim "censorship-resistant" is oxymoron. Censorship is social behavioral problem, not protocol problem.
It's not one evil entity censoring all the victims. It's most of the victims that agree with being censored. Every aspect of censorship is communism. So if the majority of population's thinking is communist nothing protocol can solve.
It's more or less same as on fediverse. There is no free speech if everyone is communist like Eugen. There is only free speech because of the Volk behind The Great Wall of Marxtodon.
Basic sociology proves me wrong but you seem to agree with me that users wouldn't care to change the defaults and follow a block list by themselves. On the other hand I would trust sociology any more than astrology either to be hones.
And yes, as I wrote I'm not sure about the relays. Or clients for that matter. If it is possible for them to collude and ban wrongthink as the default then it will probably happen.
Here is how it's supposed to work:
https://nostr.guide/nostr-protocol-for-a-censorship-free-social-network/
"On Nostr, a user can be blocked from publishing on a specific relay, but they can still publish on other relays and maintain their identity and follower base. To make it easier for users to find new relays, the client software can automatically add recommendations for new relays to the list of relays it queries whenever someone you are following posts a recommendation.
If a user wants to migrate to a new relay, they can publish a recommendation to their previous relay and move their data. If a user is banned from many relays and cannot broadcast their own recommendations, they can still let their close friends know which relay they are publishing on through other means, and these friends can publish recommendations to the new relay. This process can help the banned user’s old follower base find their posts again through the new relay. The same process applies if a relay ceases operations."
I don't know how this works practically though. How can I post a relay recommendation? Do clients implement this feature? Anyway the fedi will stress-test the censorship resistance of the network for good and we are going to find out soon :p
Yeah it's all nonsense right now.
This is the future of Nostr here: