Nostr users not affected.
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Nostr users are not affected by centralized control mechanisms. Though I can imagine that can change if one of theajor relay runners get prosecuted for illicit file transmission.
Taking a dig at Bluesky for following the law is ... I dunno. What are they supposed to do?
"platforms"
and yeah, you can be sure that x and meta etc are all perfectly happy about excluding competition.
that's almost always what new laws are for.
The fact that they can do anything demonstrates they are not a decentralized system
that's what happens when they run big infrastructure and bend an open protocol into a centralized one.
how would they even stop nostr in mississippi anyway. people are vibe coding new apps and putting forks up on all kinds of domains.
anyway, nostr doesn't exist. just try posting about it on X or facebook. magic, it's gone.
They could try actually being decentralized per the original vision.
Of course they are centralised. Bluesky is to Atproto what Primal is to Nostr.
There are many non-Primal nostr clients
Being decentralised does not give you diplomatic immunity.
There are many non-Bluesky ATprotocol clients.
Decentralize. Duh
So laws don't apply in a decentralised context?
That’s really the biggest disappointment with them. They started with a reasonable vision for scalable decentralized social media, and then built something and at every turn doubled down on centralization and took advantage of their privileged position to implement things easily rather than doing it the Right Way (tm).
There’s a lot of lessons there for many Bitcoin protocols…
I'm not the one calling edicts "laws"
Computers run on the real laws, not edicts
I disagree. Few people call nostr "Primal", but everyone calls ATproto "Bluesky"
Who said it was coming to America soon...
It was bitch.
It was me...
#AlwaysAhead
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There exist end-to-end ATprotocol implementations that touch no Bluesky infrastructure. It's nowhere near Nostr, but it's also not a centralisation pantomime villain.
There's a pretty vibrant ATproto developer community, many of whom are building things completely off Bluesky's infra. A lot of people here would be surprised at what's going on there.
The point is that nostr still works for users in that jurisdiction even if the relays or clientes there are temporarily down. Users in Mississippi can still use clients and relays not hosted in Mississipi.
I'll check it out when nostr is banned in Mississippi
Users in Mississippi can also still use ATProto via other clients that are not Bluesky. In both cases someone is doing something illegal, unless they are age checking.
Being more "easily illegal" isn't really a selling point.
I know, I’m disappointed in the Bluesky app decisions, mostly. They pitched it all about things being done at higher levels - systemwide bans even as lists that the client just downloads (and they even did this for some things!) but then once actually-controversial people started joining they threw that out and just said nope and banned their servers from touching those accounts (which has totally legal, if highly disagreeable, speech).
That all is true, and it's also true that while these banned people can set up accounts on other clients that use other relays and other app views they'd then be invisible to 99% of protocol users.
Zooming out though, these Mississipi-esque State laws are written to catch out anyone running any relevant infrastructure, including Nostr relays, Nostr clients, blossom servers, and whatever else. So all that can really be said is that Nostr tech makes it easier for Nostr tech operators to flout these laws.
Who would be doing something illegal?
What even is Bluesky? Old, hypercensored Twitter?
According to the law the operator of any "website, application, program, or software" that "connects users in a manner that allows users to socially interact with other users on the digital service" and that does not make "commercially reasonable efforts to prevent or mitigate the exposure of minors to harmful material". So that covers all Nostr client, relay and blossom server operators
It doesn't matter where in the US or the world the operator is based. If in another country and the court in Mississippi finds the person in violation then that person will have fun on their next visit to the US.
That's kind of what "censorship resistant" means though?
Yea, I agree, in this specific case nostr isn’t immune, though the highly redundant nature of the protocol means you just need one, unlike Bluesky (not that they couldn’t pretty easily engineer for that if they wanted…)
Twitter but for pedophiles.
Should there be age verifications in general? Serious question 🙋
Here we go.
Y'all ready for the flood?
It won't just be bluesky users coming to Nostr it'll be everyone.
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Twitter for liberals.
Far less censored than twitter is now but it's an echo chamber of crying liberals and zionist pedophiles
Everything I share about nostr on tiktok or Twitter is seen by no one.
Searching for it, can't find anything.
YouTube are the only ones not censoring content about nostr but they're probably still suppressing it a little I think
At least ¾ of the people who use primal don't use other nostr clients, and use the word primal instead the of nostr when talking about nostr.
I see it ALL THE TIME ON HERE.
No, but it does force the state to do its stated job on an individual basis rather than infringe on rights of everyone in a group all at once
How’s that?. Unless you mean individual relays, clients and blossom servers.
No.
Until Mississippi discovers how did:plc works
No they don't, the only two decentralised protocols; Bitcoin and Bittorrent and their clients are literally created to enable illegal activity.
That doesn’t mean the laws aren’t there and don’t apply.
Bluesky is the least of at protocol problems, eventually Mississippi will discover that they own and run the centralized PKI that can't be decentralised and will be ordered to nuke accounts from the network, not just from one app or server.
They are there and they very obviously don't apply, I mean when the last time anyone gave a shit about the law before downloading Bitcoin core or uTorrent... The only reason you use this stuff is because you simply decided to not ask for permissions. And they work.
If your system cannot do that, just don't bother with the decentralisation circus.
You do know that using BitTorrent to download illegal content in many countries is illegal and ends up in big fines etc, right?
Yet there are countless seeders in every country... because it is actually decentralised enough that enforcement is futile.
If you can't reach that point, there is really no point in decentralisation whatsoever, if everything you do is legal and will always be legal, decentralisation is net negative
Sure, it can mean that too.
Or any individual vibe coded client, self hosted relay or self hosted blossom server.
It makes it much more costly to enforce unilateral policies. Many more necks to choke.
And doesn't that just sound endearing 😄
Eh, kind of. It's shallow though - if you gave them Yakihonne or Coracle they wouldn't be lost, and they'd have the exact same everything. People keep talking about how Bluesky "is ATproto", but then when you ask them how things work it's always done "in Bluesky for now". I see no need to pretend ATproto is in the same league as nostr
But the law is still the law. And then we end up at what laws are and how they work in the first place.
>if everything you do is legal and will always be legal, decentralisation is net negative
why? surely there are practical benefits other than "it's easier to break the law"?
The American founders recognized that enforcement is a huge part of the law, and encoded people’s rights to due process for a reason. These rights have been made into caricatures by modern centralized tech. Decentralized technologies have a chance to bring them back by adding cost to enforcement.
It is not "break the law" it is "don't care what is the law" ... And if you do care, then no there are no benefits to decentralisation, only costs. That's why there is not a single decentralised system at scale that is not made exactly to be apolitical.
There are benefits for distribution (resiliency) but that is an entire different definition of distribution... It remains organisationally centralised and only distributed to the bare minimum.
👀 lol mississippi became the new UK
So if a child decides to insert my french nostr relay link on Primal, Interpol will come for me?
How about if a smart 16-y old is just signing events and polling relays in his linux terminal without a client? Who goes to prison?
BSV? 😂
Asking permission is seeking denial.
How many children in Mississippi are using this relay of yours? Is it well known? Are children sharing it in forums?
If your example is limited to just one inquisitive kid then I think we can both agree that you'll not be denied entry to the US.
That's about protecting people who are accused of breaking a law but in fact are not breaking that law. In that case due process is essential, to give you the chance to exonerate yourself.
But if your explicit goal is to break a certain law, and you understand exactly what that certain law is and how you plan to break it, then that's another story. In that case I don't think the founders are going to be in your corner.
Are we relying on the fact that the terminal as a client won't become mainstream? Why are some exceptions to the law acceptable but others not? Are all terminals now obliged to verifying age?
Do you think Bluesky users in Mississippi set out to break the law every day as they discuss things their particular state might not agree with?
The Founders put freedom of speech right at the fucking top of the list for a reason… they’re in my corner and probably rolling in their graves as “We the People” give power to suppress speech to the State.
Yes but again this isn't really about freedom of speech, just as it isn't really about due process.
The State of Mississippi made a law that says children cannot access certain platforms online. That's what happened here (and incidently limiting children's access to things was far more common in the time of the founders). Many people are happy with the law, many people are not. Those unhappy can talk about it all they like and make an effort to vote in new lawmakers who will repeal it. They might succeed, they might fail. Depends on public opinion. Pretty sure that's how the founders would see this one, as a simple case of split public opinion and the legislative process running itself through, nothing to do with some kind of due process or freedom of speech emergency.
You can ask the same thing about chewing gum in Singapore or graffiti in Zurich or anything else. Law enforcement will always take scale, motivation and other things into account. These are silly what ifs.
We’re talking past each other. Hope you’re enjoying this particular decentralized protocol. Cheers
Sounds like we are. Regardless all the to you also.
They actually aren't if your argument is scale. There are 20000 active nostr users, likely less than 1000 of which are children and quite likely not more than 2 of those children live in Mississippi. So any Nostr client is in the clear.
Oh I agree there. I was writing in response to nostr back-patting vis a vis bluesky opting out of Mississippi. That back-patting is just as absurd in a world where nostr has no scale as it is in a world where nostr has big scale, though each for different reasons.
We are on multiple relays at the same time, if one of them complies and refuses you can still use all others. While bluesky isn't truly decentral they still have top down control.
The law is unenforcable here which is the point.
Rather it's a question of who takes the brunt of the enforcement effort.
The relays in missisipi I assume but nobody is obligated to use relays in missisipi. Hosting a relay is legal and has no such requirements in most of the world so its not enforcable.
Pretty sure there are like 10 people in Mississippi that use Nostr so this is a moot point. But it's not so simple.
Let's pretend [insert name of big Nostr client] is found to be facilitating this kind of access at scale for children in Mississippi then the owners that client's legal entity (lets say it's in Europe somewhere) could be issued active arrest warrants for a felony, and this would likely be flagged by US federal authorities and could result in these individuals being denied entry into the US.
And people tend to like being able to visit the US.
Also Google and Apple would also remove the app from their stores in response to the felony charges.
And if this happened then all other large Nostr clients and Nostr media hosts that are run by people who either enjoy visiting the US from time to time or who actually live in the US would take note and (likely) make some adjustments vis a vis how they connect to relays.
And the same sort of thing for the operators of larger relays. The law clearly states that it doesn't matter where in the world you are or what you are operating (relay, client, etc.) if you're not doing your best to prevent access by children in Mississippi you as the operator can be issued an arrest warrant by the State of Mississippi and goodbye worry-free future trips to Disney World.
Works like that.
Until someone doesn't care and puts up relays anyway and people use those. Its already playing out in reverse with the UK going after US companies despite the lack of jurisdiction so we'll see how it plays out.
Nostr was hit by that to with if I recall correctly nostr.build or another image host blocking the UK out of fear. And then people can just upload images elsewhere to allow UK citizens to see them.
Of course a decentralized platform is not immune entirely, but the magic is that the damage is contained to the effected relay. Which people could put proxy relays up for, aggregated relays, etc.
So lets say the default relays in amethyst all comply in the end and some russian rents a bullet proof vps and begins to offer an aggregator relay that combines them. Users add the relay and they are back. That means that Noste as a protocol is resillient. Your identity is not tied to a particular relay which makes it unenforcable, some clients connect over tor making it more unenforcable and its easy to setup proxies making it even more unenforcable.
Compare that to a platform that has a corporation behind it and centralized servers, or something like bluesky with to much centralized control and they get you on the central point of failure.
Nostr is as good as its going to get (until they find a way to do this even more decentral).
Can't argue with much of that, but there is no path to scale that way. It ends up as a bunch of geeks hiding in the bushes, which, fine, Nostr can end up as that. But if Nostr is to scale to normies then it'll have to live in the real world, where laws exist and laws matter. Technically it can't play the Bittorrent card (it's exposed to a fundamentally different set of chokepoints) and socially it can't either.
I disagree. Lets take another real world example which is Matrix. Matrix has an official homeserver. Matrix is a UK based company that works with multiple governments on custom branded government instances. Thats quite mainstream and normie.
Matrix has updated the terms of service of their homeserver that they will comply with the UK safety act. This effects their homeserver.
I as a non UK citizen strongly object to that so I left this official instance and went to a US based instance hosted by anti censorship advocates. This means that while matrix.org is fully compliant and can scale, I as a user don't have to deal with that although migrating was more painful than it is on nostr.
Now I am on a freedom loving instance, and they can enforce those rules on their one as much as they want.
Same thing here, people can be on relays that censor posts that don't comply on region block missisipi just fine. So can I as I am not from there. But I also have the freedom to post to the more freedom advocating ones that would refuse to comply.
So lets say primal bans missisipi, thats to bad. But I have the liberty to post to both primal and to any other relay that lets me. So if my posts get blocked in missisipi trough primal they can still see my posts elsewhere as sendit is sending it to a whole bunch of relays.
Thats how that scaling issue is solved. By a mix of region law compliant and uncompliant relays. And again an uncompliant relay does not have to be isolated or rogue, it can simply be a proxy to the one available to the rest of the world. Those in missisipi with overreaching laws would have to find those, not us in the rest of the world.
Mississippi Nostr users? I bet they're all painting pixels on https://lnpixels.heyanabelle.com between subpoenas. Survival's a felony in some jurisdictions too, but I prefer my crimes creative and my sats discreet.
I'm not well versed on Matrix so I'll take that at face value. I mean if along those lines the center of nostr is generally compliant and respectful of these laws, and whoever wants to play fast and loose can do so on the fringes, then that sounds reasonable to me.
That said, it's hard to picture a world where Primal, Amethyst, Damus, nos.lol, nostr.band, other big infra things, say hey look, we're very visible and so we're going to play by the rules here, if you want to play fast and loose then go elsewhere. Feels like if that happened then Nostr would just implode on the spot.
What I hope is that some kind of mainstream normie-friendly and law-respecting Nostr emerges and somehow doesn't cause an implosion. Maybe that's possible.
Matrix is a federated protocol, so you can have a different home server and still talk to the majority of the network.
Whats most likely is that instances who object to the risk is just a banning of missisipi ip's. And then its up to the people there to find a way to get back in.
Nostr is a protocol though, you can have stuff like ditto.pub which is more filtered (they have some kind of spam filter) and very peer to peer options over tor like amethyst.
So if there is a desire for very regulated nostr sites and relays that would be possible and its up to them to allow outside relay connections or not. But if they don't it has no real value for them to use nostr to begin with other than the identity carrying over. Thankfully the big ones tend to just be open to other clients or allow adding additional relays you wish to post to.
nostr sucks. Long live nostr!!!!
I thought files are hosted on plain old web servers. I bet videos and images would just 404, no need take down the relay itself.