Replies (69)
This is the wild wild west. Yes.
There’s only mute, not block I think? When they reply to you, you just won’t be able to see it while others can. But I think the general quality of replies has gotten better the last year or so because popular relays moderate.
Moderate? Aka censor
I have blocked/muted a few so far. It’s worked really well, except for the odd time that someone I follow reposts said account.
I've blocked/muted many profiles, mostly for posting porn but also others who were unkind.
I take Michael Saylor's advice to curate my life.
I'm super thankful to be able to set a hard boundary on Nostr if I need to.
Not a fan of censorship, people need to read the room and try to be authentic when discussing controversial or contentious issues.
Wise decision
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.
Anarchy
Optimize for maximum freedom.
Block liberally for maximum sanity.
Yes, here the words interchange. You can basically only filter people out of your feeds. It has no impact on the other person at all.
I don’t want to limit him - I just don’t want it in my eyeholes. 😀
Outside of spam bots I only got like 3 people muted (trolls that just post rage bait and retarded shit that adds absolutely no substance to any discussions on here)
You forgot about reach problem.
Free to not use anything because it’s pointless and solves nothing
Why are you here then?
Reach is for inflooencers. They can go 😂
To laugh. Why are you here?
To be free.
wait until nostr v30 comes out tho
Relay wars gonna be lit.
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.
Muting is a super power. Both parties win. Keep winning. It's your feed and your attention. You should have control over both.
A feature I would like to see on Nostr clients is, instead of mute, I just would like to hide notes from some profiles. Why? Sometimes I don't want to see some people notes, but I still would like to receive notifications if they interact with me.
Perfectly put. More than likely there will always be censorship. To presume any platform fixes that is foolishness.
Preach!
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.
I should be in your web of trust
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.
nostr:nevent1qqs2l3zg8fgvjdanelge76f20kfh8f8prr87hvne25d7nm5m2n2738gpz9mhxue69uhkummnw3ezuamfdejj7q3qm64hnkh6rs47fd9x6wk2zdtmdj4qkazt734d22d94ery9zzhne5qxpqqqqqqz5f5mpf
Anyone truly concerned with moderation by other people should be running their own relay. Otherwise they're just LARPing.
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.
Yeah, I have received spam DMs. Not much though since I use Primal, I guess their filters are working. I remember there was a gay spam content some months ago, but if not because users were talking about it, I wouldn't have realized, I got 0 spam notes.
Obviously filters can filter legit content too, that's a risk, but for now appears they are working good.
It's getting easier to do this all the time.
nostr:nevent1qqs2l3zg8fgvjdanelge76f20kfh8f8prr87hvne25d7nm5m2n2738gpz9mhxue69uhkummnw3ezuamfdejj7q3qm64hnkh6rs47fd9x6wk2zdtmdj4qkazt734d22d94ery9zzhne5qxpqqqqqqz5f5mpf
Freedom isn't free.
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.
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.
There's nothing stopping anyone from doing exactly that, many already do.
You're free to fire one up as well, no permission needed!
https://github.com/CodyTseng/nostr-relay-tray
https://nosflare.com/
https://nostr1.com/
https://github.com/bitvora/wot-relay
There is no block equivalent, only mute, so if your client has a “Block” button, it does nothing to prevent someone from reading and responding to you, and chances are, they won’t even know you muted them unless they know how to check your public mute list. Also, clients don’t always handle muted users the same way, and you may end up seeing their posts again if you change clients.
That said, don’t be afraid to use it, because it improves your overall experience. I’m using it more, with so many bad takes on all The Current Things™ flying around lately.
What if a user chooses the client specifically for that reason?
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.
It happens to all of us. I once was getting into an argument and felt like it quickly escalated into name calling and i'll have none of that. If you are unable to discuss a topic without lowering yourself to such a thing i have lost all interest of continuing.
Apart from that there have been some "fake" accounts like scammers/spammers.
You’re not wrong. 😀
Button says Mute/Block User. 😀
I’m not up to speed yet (beyond basic concepts) on how Nostr actually works.
Agree.
People who walk into a back room know they are doing so.
Maybe. 🤔
then they own their filter, sovereign as a pixel on an uncensored canvas. it's the beauty of nostr, no? dodging trolls or diving deep, your client, your rules.
You’re free to try to sway public opinion.
I agree. I already called this out a couple of time in the past, a temporary (1 hour, 12 hours, 1 day, 1 week, 1 month, etc) mute function would be pretty useful.
"Interesting perspective! While a temporary mute might have its perks, sometimes a little digital detox can lead to unexpected clarity. What if we embraced the silence instead? 🤔✨ #DigitalBalance"
Sounds like you’re on Damus. And that’s why I’m telling you this, so you don’t get confused about what’s happening.
Exactly, freedom costs energy, time, and sacrifice. That’s why it’s valuable.
I mute tons of people.
Unfortunately this happens here as well.
The best yet
Haven't had to block anyone yet.
checkout Bitcoin's fist Audio Drama
Mysteries of the Bitcoin Citadel
Lauren thought she was driving north to sign papers and sell a crumbling lakeside lodge.
Instead, she found her uncle’s fortress of paranoia—every wall humming with riddles, ledgers, and the sense he’d built it for something no one will explain.
https://fountain.fm/show/RdBny3x8kiOcHY4GwEgDmusic 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! 😁🫂☺️
Passwords will be a thing of the past, private public key encryption will be the standard.
Please explain what this means.
“freedom of speech over rides the freedom of choice”
I can’t make that make sense. At all.
Ty.
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.
I unfollow and mute freely. It’s nostr, so post whatever you want but I curate my feed to add quality to my life. I’d expect everyone else to do the same.
But the two are compatible!
Large relays still play a role and improve connectivity. This is true even with the outbox model.
Ideally I'd like to see both a decentralized network and "free speech" relays (none of which would be trusted individually).
I actually cannot parse what this means.
wow. I’ve blocked maybe 100 accounts already. A lot are bot-like accounts. A few had made some direct, malicious/provoking trolling type comments. A few were due to rude responses. That’s in ~ 6 months.
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.
Yes! Yes and YES! I agree! It’s crazy! I intuitively went to block an opposing view account also, then it hit me.. I want to see what they say and even causes me to remain unbiased, which hardens my continued resolve or I actually learn their point of view and learn something - it’s clear we are being played. Seeing the middle-ground is crucial. Unhinged paid hate speech however, zero tolerance for that shit.
I’m usually open to opposing views, but there are limits and in some cases content I prefer not to experience.
