Nostr continues to raise the bar on private, uncensorable online discourse

  • Note: "relay" is the nostr term while "instance" is the AP/Mastodon/Lemmy term. They are functionally very similar and offer the same abilities to ban annoying users from "public square" type spaces. Moderation works identically.
  • In AP/mastodon/lemmy you are connected to one "main instance" and then connect to other instances "through" that instance. In nostr, you are typically connected to multiple relays and access content more directly.
  • Nostr is an underlying protocol like AP is for Mastodon/Lemmy. The main use of nostr currently is as a twitter/mastodon clone, but it has other interfaces as well (calendaring, video sharing, etc) that I am less familiar with.
  • Both networks are decentralized in nature

AP/Mastodon/Lemmy

  • Instance admins on your instance and the instance of the user you are DMing can read your DMs, block them, or modify them without your knowledge or the knowledge of the receiving user
  • If your instance goes down, so does your access to the wider network. It will take your DMs with it, and your identity.

Nostr

  • Relays cannot read the content of your DMs as they are encrypted. They can only see that user A is DMing user B and approximate DM size. (This upgrade reduces that visibility further)
  • Relays cannot manipulate DMs as they are encrypted and will fail a signature check
  • No relay can prevent you from DMing another user as your client will automatically route the DM through another relay (unless that user has blocked you, which they can do).
  • You can receive DMs from anybody as long as one relay lets your DM through (and you are usually connected to several)
  • Your DMs and other content is replicated across multiple relays. Downed relay? No problem. You don't lose your content or your identity as your identity is a private/public keypair not "user @ instance dot com"

Bluesky

Idk anybody care to fill this section in?

Image source: nostr post

interdimensionalmeme ,

Moderation belongs client side.
Server side moderation is the original sin of sicial media.

pedroapero ,

It seems to me that there will be much less relays than there are AP nodes. Users won't publish/subscribe to hundred of relays (if they did, relays would not scale). Hence more bad content to less moderators, and poor moderation.

Adding client filters would just shift the censorship power to those maintaining them.

Sekoia ,

I checked out Nostr relatively recently and it seemed to me it was full of cryptobros and extremely right-wing people (libertarians, Trump fanatics. A ton of racism and queerphobia, also a bunch of conspiracy thinking). Has anything changed?

glowie ,
@glowie@h4x0r.host avatar

Libertarians are not right-wing lmao

poVoq ,
@poVoq@slrpnk.net avatar

They are in the USA, just not of the specific MAGA lunacy.

glowie ,
@glowie@h4x0r.host avatar

You must be American. You should research Libertarian. It's one step before Anarchist.

poVoq ,
@poVoq@slrpnk.net avatar

No, I am European and I am painfully aware of the right-wing ursupation of the originally anarchist term "libertarian" in the USA.

DavidGarcia ,

Lemmy is absolute garbage on privacy. I would love a private Lemmy with fine grained privacy controls.

Zagorath ,
@Zagorath@aussie.zone avatar

Lemmy is absolute garbage on privacy

I mean, yeah, it is. But that's because privacy is not what it's trying to do. If anything, privacy is fundamentally antithetical to what it does. Saying "Lemmy is garbage on privacy" is a bit like saying "Microsoft Word is a terrible IDE".

possiblylinux127 ,
@possiblylinux127@lemmy.zip avatar

I'll just stick with Lemmy as Activity pub is where it is at

greywolf0x1 ,

Nostr isn't a Lemmy alternative, it's a Mastodon/Twitter/BlueSky substitute with more decentralized, secure and private features and i think OP should have pointed that out.

And since Op was comparing the secure and private features of both protocols, ActivityPub surely has improvements to implement for greater privacy and security.

SorteKanin ,
@SorteKanin@feddit.dk avatar

Nostr is an alternative federated protocol. It can be used to make a microblogging application but there's no reason you couldn't make a Lemmy clone that uses Nostr instead of ActivityPub. But generally I'm not a fan of the stuff I've heard and read about the Nostr protocol so far.

FutileRecipe ,

But generally I'm not a fan of the stuff I've heard and read about the Nostr protocol so far.

Can you elaborate?

SorteKanin ,
@SorteKanin@feddit.dk avatar

First of all, it seems too technical for normal people. It requires users to keep their own public/private keys in order. I don't find this realistic for general users.

Secondly, this kind of "anti-censorship" retoric and features. Yes, of course excessive censorship is bad, especially when done by governments. But a forum moderating users requires censorship and it's not a problem, it is the solution. I'm not sure I like the idea of relays instead of instances.

Lastly, the whole Nostr community is overrun by crypto-bros, which should tell you enough about the kind of people who are excited about Nostr.

glowie ,
@glowie@h4x0r.host avatar

Instances mean you're at the mercy of the admin not to ban you. No one can ban you on Nostr.

Also, it isn't crypto bros. It's only Bitcoiners. No one supports the degenerate pump and dump crypto scams.

SorteKanin ,
@SorteKanin@feddit.dk avatar

No one can ban you on Nostr.

Thats exactly the problem with Nostr. You can't get rid of the bigots. It's doomed to become a nazi bar.

Also if you don't like your admin on an ActivityPub instance, you can just go to an instance with admins you trust better or make your own instance.

glowie ,
@glowie@h4x0r.host avatar

The entire purpose of Nostr is about true censorship resistance and speech autonomy. That doesn't exist with AP. Even if you self host, others can block your instance and no one will think twice about why the server is on the list.

Nostr gives you more granular control. You can block the nazis or anyone else. There are projects in the works building the equivalent of a Fediblock if you want to take it that far.

SorteKanin ,
@SorteKanin@feddit.dk avatar

The entire purpose of Nostr is about true censorship resistance and speech autonomy. That doesn’t exist with AP. Even if you self host, others can block your instance and no one will think twice about why the server is on the list.

That is by design in AP. If you self host and your instance gets blocked, that's between you and the other instance. You can still speak all you want, the other instance is just not listening any more. You've been excluded from the instance that blocked you because you didn't follow their rules. So participate in other communities and try to follow their rules and you probably won't be excluded.

"True censorship resistance" and "speech autonomy" sounds dangerously close to "free speech absolutism" ("freeze peach").

thegreekgeek ,
@thegreekgeek@midwest.social avatar

Let's not forget that one of the of the core developers is a fascist and Jack gave them 14BTC:

That anonymous Brazilian is Giovanni Torres Parra, a developer who has also built at least two webpages devoted to disseminating the work of the far-right conspiracy theorist Olavo de Carvalho. Before he died in 2022 after contracting COVID-19, de Carvalho — known as Olavo — praised Brazil's military dictatorship, claimed that Pepsi-Cola was flavored with stem cells of aborted fetuses, preached that tolerance for homosexuality was "incompatible" with democracy, and had an office in Virginia decorated with portraits of Confederate generals.

poVoq ,
@poVoq@slrpnk.net avatar

That's an interesting point. Where are you quoting this from?

thegreekgeek ,
@thegreekgeek@midwest.social avatar

Ope, here you go

poVoq ,
@poVoq@slrpnk.net avatar

I’m not sure I like the idea of relays instead of instances.

Relay operators hold almost the same power as AP instance operators, but are much less visible to public scrutiny and accountability for their actions.

SorteKanin ,
@SorteKanin@feddit.dk avatar

I have a hard time trusting something that advertises itself as "uncensorable". Good moderation requires censoring (and this is an okay version of censoring, it's not like your human right to be on a specific fediverse community).

Not being able to censor sounds like an easy way to become the nazi bar. Or in the case of nostr, I guess the blockchain/cryptocurrency bar.

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