If Nostr relays begin censoring your new posts, it creates a paradox: the only way to tell your followers where to find your uncensored content is through the very relays that are suppressing it.

In Nostr, relays are the distribution layer. If your main relays stop broadcasting your notes, either due to moderation, rate limiting, policy changes, or silent dropping, then your audience may see only your old posts, with no way to know you’ve moved or that anything is missing. Even if you update your relay list or post a note announcing your migration, those updates won't reach your followers unless at least one of their connected relays overlaps with your new ones.

This breaks the assumption that Nostr is censorship resistant. You may still be technically posting to the network, but if no one sees it, you’re effectively silenced. Worse, it’s a quiet form of censorship, your audience may not even realize it’s happening.

Without out-of-band coordination or trusted indexers who check many relays, this problem can lock users into a censored echo chamber. The result is a fragmented web of disconnected voices, each isolated on their own uncensored islands, unable to signal to others where they’ve gone.

So while Nostr lets you publish freely, it doesn’t guarantee discoverability. And without that, free speech becomes free solitude.