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Chiefmonkey
ec79b568bdea63ca6091f5b84b0c639c10a0919e175fa09a4de3154f82906f25
Laser cutter bitcoin and freedom tech art… founder of Plebeian

👌 nostr:note1f5e2epf6c5yr4nptuh6jyslxtuchlgrgzn03pnvyrllvzmhn458svjddmc

So this is pretty damned exciting... a submersive bitcoin/nostr coding experience for promising plebs, nostards and 80IQ'ers unhealthily happy about a future here

Follow and speak to:

nostr:npub1s0veng2gvfwr62acrxhnqexq76sj6ldg3a5t935jy8e6w3shr5vsnwrmq5

Also putting their weight behind it:

nostr:npub1l2vyh47mk2p0qlsku7hg0vn29faehy9hy34ygaclpn66ukqp3afqutajft &

nostr:npub1dergggklka99wwrs92yz8wdjs952h2ux2ha2ed598ngwu9w7a6fsh9xzpc

https://sovereignengineering.io/

Replying to Avatar miljan

Dust has finally settled on the “Primal censorship” drama. That’s good to see, but I don’t want to sweep this episode under the rug. It is probably appropriate to do a post mortem, assess what has happened and see what we can learn. Let’s make sure that Nostr is a better place after this episode.

Two weeks ago, Primal’s trending algorithm was attacked by bots. The attacker generated hundreds of thousands of reactions, propping his note to the top of our trending feed. At the time, our only defence was a simple “can’t trend” list, so we put the attacker on it. He immediately posted on Nostr, accusing us of censorship, but his note never took off. The attacker then selected a few well liked Nostr accounts and started stuffing the ballot box for them. We saw a bunch of bogus notes with massive bot engagement, so we resorted to the only blunt tool we had. The attacker jumped on the opportunity to publicize the fact that some well liked accounts were being suppressed on Primal and accused us of “shadowbanning”. The whole thing exploded on Nostr.

What followed was a pretty tough week for Primal. Many of our users turned against us. They took the idea of shadowbanning seriously, as they should. Most feedback was in good spirits, people making fun of Primal via memes. But we also got a fair bit of hate from complete strangers, which was super-weird. All in all, Nostr users were clear about what they think of censorship. This was the Nostr immune system reacting. Being on the receiving end of it really sucked, but still it’s beautiful to see!

The crazy part is that those “shadowbanned” accounts were actually perfectly visible throughout the entire Primal site. They had *exactly* the same level of visibility as they do on Damus, Snort, Coracle, and other Nostr clients. They just couldn’t show up in our trending bar. I tried to explain, but there was little room for nuance with the drama in full swing.

So we decided to disengage temporarily, focus on building, and let our product do the talking. We made our trending algorithm more resistant to bots and removed everyone from the “can’t trend” list. We also built a new content moderation system for Nostr, giving complete control to the user. This is our best take on how to do content moderation on such a radically open network. I cover the features and our reasoning in my blog post below.

So Primal is strictly a better product after this episode. But what about Nostr itself?

Attacks can be useful. While they disrupt our systems and really suck for us and our users, they do force us to improve and become more competent at operating in an adversarial environment. However, we should be careful about making it socially acceptable for Nostr devs to attack other projects in broad daylight. That’s not the most productive way to collaborate. It also creates weird vibes which I think we don’t want here. Nostr is in its infancy and the way we act will set the tone for things to come. There is so much to build and we are all working as fast as we can. At Primal we build open source software and run services for Nostr. If you don’t like the way something works, fork it and do your own thing. If you want to contribute, we accept PRs. If you have found a vulnerability, there are multiple good ways to disclose it.

As for Nostr users, I think you all reacted perfectly. Push back hard at any whiff of censorship. When in doubt, mercilessly create memes, point out things that are wrong, and don’t let up. Even if the target is Primal.

If Primal is real, it can stand the pressure. 🤙💜

https://habla.news/u/miljan@primal.net/1693416828339

Trolls are gonna troll

Grifters, scammers never change

They make us stronger… you handled it brilliantly 👌

We’ve had regular attacks on nostr:npub1market6g3zl4mxwx5ugw56hfg0f7dy7jnnw8t380788mvdyrnwuqgep7hd and each time we learn, we improve we evolve

Reputation Analysis will help the community immensely and that’s a long road we are just about to head down ourselves

We’ll no doubt meet you along the way 👍

Evolution

Handled perfectly 👌 nostr:note13rgfufl5qggvfax3fm82ehjkyyg4aralc6mysu68555fv9j2rrgq7lpl45

Somebody give this man a job before we do @PlebeianMarket

We’re going to be recruiting again in a month or two

Austin is looking now nostr:note1sde4rx2wlxq6hd6as0vf8jsr5xnnld4hmqldtxx5vlqnj6k6w7zswt5hlf

Brilliant man, incredible human, selfless, courageous, in service of mankind

This is why we #bitcoin 💪🧡 https://video.nostr.build/0f0ceace5caa66f0ab6f33cdd0120f853640dbdded4325dcd3ae4cf2a47a2d4f.mov

👌 nostr:note1umv4ajtjuj4t37va65nkjydqv2y4kpk7s4lprktxkys6gf78tsls5jd58n

😂 why not ? It looks fantastic… quite the statement of the world right now

Similarly I have made a smaller piece out of the leftovers of the original…

I’ll be auctioning them both on nostr:npub1market6g3zl4mxwx5ugw56hfg0f7dy7jnnw8t380788mvdyrnwuqgep7hd once the new 100% nostr version is live

nostr:note1u4yn249swg5xtwekgrsle5tdzp4qzj8l3flcnugs58egektw6zwsm36vue

Sweet holy app Satman!!!

Looking forward to seeing this nostr:npub155m2k8ml8sqn8w4dhh689vdv0t2twa8dgvkpnzfggxf4wfughjsq2cdcvg 👏👏👏

nostr:note13d8z6s8f3n7e0u67awwr03s0v3lay92wj88qd5q74p02nqss2r7slr0ava

Sweet holy app Satman!!!

Looking forward to it nostr:npub155m2k8ml8sqn8w4dhh689vdv0t2twa8dgvkpnzfggxf4wfughjsq2cdcvg

Cheers @Bitko much appreciated my friend

Looking forward to the next meetup

💯 FACT CHECKED nostr:note1rv8es4utkz9l7ql0q6kye6ug8c4kcf23rwyagxz6j2w2gm7kdgasqa72th

nostr:note124u8f2zu6nsrvrmuzh2jx7cqzjvuf5xh38r6t6e83m3n4ultkpqq8su36u

The 99%