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Anarchism group on Nostr (monero.town)
submitted 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago) by jack@monero.town to c/anarchism@slrpnk.net
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Hey, there is now an Anarchism public group on Nostr. Nostr is a very simple protocol which aims to become the ultimate decentralized social network, already fulfilling functionality of Twitter, Reddit (not very advanced tho), Twitch, Telegram and more. It is also uncensorable.

It is also more anarchist than the fediverse because your identity there is not bound to a server/domain which can be shut down or moderated at any time.

To join the group, you have to search for this ID: nevent1qqs05w7vklg8ewh4g7u8rafp3dsvtcw3j7v9j4v7n4k5fxxewaggjdspp4mhxue69uhkummn9ekx7mqpz4mhxue69uhkummnw3ezuerpw3sju6rpw4esz9rhwden5te0dehhxarj9ehhsarj9ejx2assy2425

On Android the app Amethyst is very good. With Nostr, the client handles everything. The servers are just dumb relays which don’t need to be trusted. That’s why there are a lot of different clients. Each one is implementing different aspects of the protocol and they are always evolving.

If you want to have a peek at the group you can also check here: https://coracle.social/chat/note1lgaued7s0ja023acw86jrzmqchsar9uct92ea8tdgjvdja6s3ymqa579ar

There are a LOT of Nostr resources available and you can decide how deep you want to dive into it. A very basic and easy introduction is https://usenostr.org/ . The devs website nostr.com also does a good job of getting the point across. There is an awesome list which can point you to any Nostr related resources like which clients to use and also what other introductory guides are availabe: https://github.com/aljazceru/awesome-nostr

Popular clients including web, desktop and mobile are also described here: https://nostr.com/clients

Note that Nostr is very decentralized and that some clients implement features which other clients don't (yet).

This video can also show you visually how the relationship between clients and relays/servers works: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yIccRIEr2gQ

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[-] ProdigalFrog@slrpnk.net 5 points 10 months ago

your identity there is not bound to a server/domain which can be shut down or moderated at any time.

Is moderation not possible on Nostr? I think having good moderators is pretty important in online spaces, and is part of the reason I enjoy this lemmy instance as much as I do. It keeps the tankies and trolls from bringing the community down.

[-] jack@monero.town 0 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago)

The "censorship resistance" is most decisive for the Twitter-like aspects of Nostr, no one can be cancelled. Reddit-style communities are heavily moderated right now for example (every post must be approved by mod before it goes public).

To understand of what nature this censorship-resistance is: Clients/People post their content on as many servers (relays) as they wish, so even if some relays block my content, people who want to see it can still get the content from other other relays if they want to. You can also host your own relays to guarantee that your content is never lost.

For group chats for example you can report messages or block the user. If your client is smartly implemented it can decide not to show you messages that were reported by 3 (e.g.) users already. The client handles everything and I am sure smart algorithms for moderation will evolve over time.

On the fediverse, however, when you are registered on lemmy.world and the admins decide to defederate with an instance, you can no longer access the content from the instance with your account. You would have to make a new account. Also, if the server shuts down for some reason (as happened with some lemmy servers before), all the content of your account is lost. That would not happen on Nostr.

[-] ProdigalFrog@slrpnk.net 0 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago)

I guess that's cool, but to be honest I think Nostr missed the boat. Most people unsatisfied with Reddit have already moved to Lemmy or other places on the Fediverse, since the infrastructure there was good enough for people to feel that switching would be worth it.

I'm assuming the Nostr protocol itself is ready, but the apps around it are seemingly still in an alpha state, and certainly don't have enough polish to draw in anyone but the most early of adopters who are dissatisfied with the current Reddit alternatives.

Personally, my experience with Lemmy has been excellent, and the potential downsides that Nostr attempts to rectify are unlikely to happen to me with my instance.

Also, Lemmy has just about reached a self-sustaining critical mass, and gets the job done well enough that I think Nostr will have a pretty hard time gaining significant adoption now that everything has settled.

But that's just my 2 cents.

[-] jack@monero.town 2 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago)

Yes, I see your point. My goal with this post was not to start a lemmy exodus to Nostr. Nostr is not ready to replace Reddit/Lemmy. Just letting you guys know there's an anarchist group you can join if you want :)

[-] cerement@slrpnk.net 3 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago)

um … and where can I browse this on the web without an app? without signing up? without logging in?

[-] jack@monero.town 1 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago)

I've updated the post with more resources. To answer your question: https://coracle.social/chat is a webclient where you can view the contents of this group without signing up. Actually, you shouldn't need to sign up in any client, as all of the data is available publicly, including messages in group chats. "Signing up" also just means on Nostr that you create a personal key that you can use to authenticate yourself in any client. No big deal if you create a key for some testing and then never use it again.

There are a lot of different clients, each implementing more or less of what's possible with Nostr. I specifically mentioned the android app because that one has implemented a lot so you can get a better idea of what is possible (and it is also pleasant to look at), but if you just want to check out the group you can also use for example the webclient I linked above

[-] cerement@slrpnk.net 3 points 10 months ago

it’s just that without an open web-first front end (like Mastodon), it runs the risk of becoming either yet another walled garden or yet another niche protocol (like Gemini) – people are getting tired of having to download even more single-use apps …

[-] jack@monero.town 1 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago)

I don't see how it could ever become a walled garden, ALL of the content is publicly accessible on public servers/relays. The implemented crypto is so you can pay/donate to someone if you wish and there are also relays which you have to pay in order to post content there, but that is to avoid that a relay is spammed by bots. You don't have to pay those relays.

Gemini and Nostr are not comparable on a "niche-protocol" scale in my opinion, as Gemini is literally only for sharing text over the web while Nostr is hyper-extensible and has more and more use cases as time passes. So definitely not a single-use app. It is also endorsed and actively used by Jack Dorsey (former Twitter CEO with huge fan base) and Edward Snowden, again, not comparable with Gemini.

[-] Five@slrpnk.net 0 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago)

Exploding-heads is a 'vaccine-skeptic' lemmy instance that has been defederated from most of the Fediverse (slrpnk.net included) due to embracing trumpism. The admin of the nazi-pub is planning to close up shop, and move to Nostr. I think that tells you most of what you need to know about the 'censorship resistance' of Nostr. It's an environment where sane voices can be easily drowned out with the financially motivated professional posters selling cryptocurrency, boner pills, and Russian propaganda.

It's primary feature is that the login mechanism doubles as a cryptocurrency wallet, and you can use it to tip other people in bitcoin. The richest can easily broadcast their views, to the applause of thousands of sycophants, looking to follow the groupthink and collect their satoshi-scraps. It is full of grifters and gullible, and the only thing it deserves from anarchists is derision.

[-] jack@monero.town 2 points 10 months ago

Yea, that's just not how Nostr works. Take a look here: https://github.com/nostr-protocol/nips These are implementation possibilities that the protocol enables. Every client must implement NIP-01. All of the other NIPs are optional so every client that you use (an app for example) has decided to implement different NIPs. You decide which client you use and how Nostr should feel like. Almost no client prioritizes content that received bitcoin.

Your "login mechanism" (private cryptographic key) has nothing to do with cryptocurrency. If you want to send btc to people you have to set that up yourself, manually linking a wallet to your key.

[-] Five@slrpnk.net 1 points 10 months ago

I'm confused why you're downplaying Nostr's primary selling point - its close integration with Bitcoin. It's clearly a cryptocurrency capitalist con job.

Almost no client prioritizes content that received bitcoin.

That's not what I was saying, but I'm fascinated that you're implying it's much worse than I anticipated. Which clients have their priority linked to received bitcoin?

this post was submitted on 23 Aug 2023
2 points (62.5% liked)

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