Skavau comments on Why ActivityPub over Nostr?

Why ActivityPub over Nostr? - function only (feddit.online)

submitted 11 months ago by Cooper8@feddit.online to c/fediverse@lemmy.world

47 comments fedilink hide all child comments

I have seen some critical views on Nostr as a part of decentralized network discussions, but most seem to be focused on culture not function.

What are the functional / protocol differences that make you prefer ActivityPub over Nostr?

[–] Skavau@piefed.social 3 points 11 months ago (11 children)

Legal compliance is different from legally unnecessary moderation.

Right, so there would still need to be moderators. And if they can remove that, they can remove anything.

Not the topic of discussion, which is function & protocol.

Right, but you're just gunna have an unpleasant time here if you loath all moderation. It's that simple.

permalink

fedilink

source

parent

hideshow 11 child comments

[–] lmmarsano@lemmynsfw.com 1 point 11 months ago* (10 children)

And if they can remove that, they can remove anything.

That's why there's no limit on the number of relays (events usually publish to multiple) or subscriptions to them (clients usually subscribe to multiple).

unpleasant time here if you loath all moderation

Still off topic, and the moderators here aren't reddit moderator scum so far. The modlog offers decent transparency.

permalink

fedilink

source

parent

hideshow 10 child comments

[–] Skavau@piefed.social 2 points 11 months ago (9 children)

That’s why there’s no limit on the number of relays (events usually publish to multiple) or subscriptions to them (clients usually subscribe to multiple).

I'm lost. If a mod removes child porn on NOSTR, it removes it for everyone, right?

Still off topic, and the moderators here aren’t reddit moderator scum so far.

Well, sure, but you can still be moderated.

permalink

fedilink

source

parent

hideshow 9 child comments

[–] lmmarsano@lemmynsfw.com 1 point 11 months ago (8 children)

I’m lost. If a mod removes child porn on NOSTR, it removes it for everyone, right?

No moderators. A relay operator can remove it from their relay. There's any number of relays. It's roughly like usenet with respect to server-side content removal.

Strange to ask me when authoritative information is public online. Seems you don't know much about nostr.

permalink

fedilink

source

parent

hideshow 8 child comments

[–] Skavau@piefed.social 2 points 11 months ago (7 children)

So the child porn still remains present, effectively.

So Ada described Nostr like this:

"Nostr uses relays. In some ways, a relay is like an instance on the fediverse. Where they differ though, is that a) relays don’t talk to each other and b) users can sign up to many different relays and pull/push content to all of them.

So in practice, in order to see a wide amount of content, you need to end up connecting to multiple relays. And even though a relay does have some moderation capabilities to block content, unless every relay you use blocks the content from the bigoted account, you’ll see it.

If you signed up only to a single relay, and that relay had good moderation, then in theory, your Nostr experience wouldn’t be terrible, but a single niche relay like that will mean you see basically no content. And as soon as you connect to a larger public relay to get more content, you lose all of the moderation advantages offered by your first instance. Which means in practice, there is no incentive to run a well moderated instance.

And so all of the moderation ends up on the end user, who has to manually block accounts only after they appear and dump their load of hate (at which point, the bigot will just spin up another account). Some people prefer that experience, but when you’re the regular target of hate, that approach just doesn’t work for many folk."

This is accurate?

permalink

fedilink

source

parent

hideshow 7 child comments

[–] lmmarsano@lemmynsfw.com 1 point 11 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago) (6 children)

So the child porn still remains present, effectively.

Compulsory legal compliance still exists: it's the free, open internet. Did you know laws existed before, too?

Ada

Don't know about that. I think the brief descriptions on websites like nostr.com did a good enough job: there's not much to get.

It's a protocol, not a platform. There's no global moderation/censorship just like there isn't on the whole internet. Relay operators have full discretion over the content available on their relays: if they want to do more than the bare minimum, they can. Clients are free to subscribe to other relays or multiple. It's technically free association rather than anti-moderation.

A user can choose to see only the content of followed users: that should eliminate most unwanted content. Apart from that, there's no perfect moderation solution even on centralized platforms, so there isn't here.

Client-side filtering remains the best approach for those who care. It doesn't have to be manual as I mentioned before.

I recall earlier days of the internet when no one gave a fuck about this, and internet rage was just entertaining, easily ignored nonsense. Then it became eternal September, and tightass n00bs started acting like moderating the entire internet & foisting their dumbass expectations on everyone made perfect sense without ever having to learn the zen of not giving a fuck. That was the start of when it all turned to shit.

permalink

fedilink

source

parent

hideshow 6 child comments

[–] Skavau@piefed.social 2 points 11 months ago (5 children)

I think you will find that most forums before Digg and Reddit did have rules. There is some revisionism from muh free speech types that seek to redefine them as free speech zones, when many were not.

Moreover, many clients and apps that were had much smaller userbases.

The point about the CP here is that you are saying that it would remain technically on the systems you are referring to.

permalink

fedilink

source

parent

hideshow 5 child comments

[–] Cooper8@feddit.online [S] 2 points 11 months ago (1 child)

My understanding is that the content is essentially self-hosted, so content removed from relays still exists on the posting user's client and can be accessed directly, just like a website sending out RSS. So saying it "still exist on the network" is technically true, but only in the same way that you would say that about say bittorrent or the open web. What people host/post is present raw, what is amplified/"curated"/relayed is filtered. Client settings/config sets default and custom user content interaction, like a browser which can have adblock or not.

In principle, this seems like a decent solution, but I can see why different users prefer different protocols, differing to moderation takes a burden off of the user to vet inbound content. The same can be achieved via relays but the culture of "curation" seems weaker because the pressure from the userbase is lower to optimize it, as users are not solely reliant on any one relays. An odd network effect, but a truly invested curation/admin team could just as easily build a well "curated" relay as a well moderated instance.

permalink

fedilink

source

parent

hideshow 1 child comment

[–] lmmarsano@lemmynsfw.com 1 point 10 months ago

My understanding is that the content is essentially self-hosted, so content removed from relays still exists on the posting user’s client

The relays are the hosts, not the clients. The only data the user carries is their unique public-cryptographic key to identify themselves & sign their messages. It's independent of client or relay, so they can use any at will.

Curation/moderation doesn't require relays. It can be done via the proposals/features mentioned before, which is distributed independent of relay.

permalink

fedilink

source

parent