I was mostly curious cos it seem to be a native language -built app(?). I wouldn't know how to look into their code to see how 'safe' is was or whatever. Definitely cool that Chinese users are joining. Also, I'm surprised we haven't seen Russian clone apps in the style of vk, afaik anyway.

Wouldn’t privacy be a bigger concern than censorship in their situation? Lack of privacy could actually be dangerous for them, no?

I think there's acknowledgement of that, but users are aware from what I can see that nothing they post is private on Nostr. I don't see people using their real names and there's a tendency to use some desktop clients (phones are registered to real IDs). Actually a big concern has been getting relay access without VPNs. Technically VPNs are illegal as well and make content choppy. Having said that, user privacy is a huge concern and a slipup would be dangerous, yes. There is room to do more work educating people on that for sure. That said, it's a lot harder to tie down who you are from a private key - which is why a lot of Chinese people still transact with BTC/USDT despite the risk. Versus X or any other apps tend to need some way to communicate with you ex: email that can tie you down.

(Shout out to papa Xi? Or nah? 😄)

My only response to this: https://yewtu.be/watch?v=EX5hcbzZCow

Regarding the VPNs, if it’s possible to use Nostr without the normal internet, it could help. Like directly on Nostr, not HTTP?

In general, Chinese people are using relays that are not taken down to access Nostr without VPN. The Chinese government does block specific relays (ex: the default relays that Damus used on launch)

😄🤙⚡️

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thanks for the article, interesting read :)

I'd be curious to see if similar movements pop up in other oppressive or war-torn nations. Some of the first candidates that come to mind are Burma and Vietnam. #freedomtech View quoted note →

Thanks Brian, glad you enjoyed!

you didn't count me in🤣

Haha, followed so I don't make the same mistake again

Any mention of the deluge of spam? Consider using the spam to determine what relays are still accessible behind the firewall 🥳 Fun fact: Taiwan VPS's are mostly unblocked to mainland Chinese users. Always happy to rebroadcast notes from across the Strait 🤓

Yeah, I had noticed the huge amounts of spam when I manually searched, but actually the method I used seem to only return posts that seemed genuine. Unless the spam has evolved to the point where I failed the Turing test numerous times lol

The Chinese spam is rather unique, haven't seen spam of the same caliber 😏 porn or e-commerce spam seem to be the most popular flavors Honestly wonder why that is, don't see it in any other language. -- My head canon is Chinese users actively testing "can I really post this?" But Occam's razor tells me it's probably some middle aged pervert or SEO-junkie instead who got bored.

The porn thing is sus lol. or it seemed sus, I think on X or other places, someone would drown out critical hashtags with pornbots. I think now the government understands that the play is to empower a bunch of TikTokers with well-established followings to make videos etc. but who knows who is really doing all these things. Maybe it is just some SEO-junkie lol and my conspiracy hivemind needs to simplify.

I used to think that the brigading of politically sensitive posts must only be coordinated by paid actors (the colloquial term is 五毛) because how could anyone with a shred of decency actively ruin public discourse. (I.e. HK protests 2019) .... But the fact is indecent people use the internet too and outrage marketing is lucrative 🫠 When the state gets involved, they explicitly make their presence known with violence, follower counts don't mean much when they can just wipe people from existence (digitally or physically). Consider Jack Ma

yeah fair point, and I do think there are a lot more 小粉 than 五毛 these days

Sign of the times, increased reliance on the nanny state 🥲 can't increase social credit any other way It's a shame really, when times were "good" the Chinese internet was pretty entertaining with how users conducted themselves with their own internet slang to get around the censors, now that times are "bad" they don't even bother. It's a drastic shift even from an outsider looking in. Can't expect much from those who protest on their knees 🫠

I still remember the days when we were "too simple, sometimes naive"

I assume they expect to overwhelm the authoritarian machine in China. Will that work? If anything has the chance, it's the freedom tech, right? But will it work?

Not sure about that, everybody has their different reasons, but it sounds like Nostr is funner and has more privacy (no identifier to sign up)