Got Banned From Mastodon. Now trying Nostr. It is also decentralized and censorship-free. Is it? Let's find out.
Here's my profile. npub134n90zt5w0na8zt3sjvawahkke26jupa4cs9dyx57fexvqxna4usrsgj94
With Nostr, it is a peer-to-peer network of relays which act as servers which publish “notes.” You can be banned from a relay, but you cannot be blanket banned from the entire network in the traditional sense. You control the crytographic keys to your profile. This cannot be wiped out of existence, so you identity is not destroyed like what happened to me on Quora. This is different from the model used by centralized, corporate walled gardens like Twitter, Facebook, or Quora.
Like other social media platforms, you can still personally block users who are harassing you. The drawback to using Nostr is that there is a learning curve to it. When you sign up, you are provided two sets of public keys and one private key. The private key is what you sign in with so you can post new messages and interact with the network. This must be kept secret. The public keys enable others to view your public profile. Those can be shared. Never lose your private key because without it, you cannot log into your profile ever again, and it cannot be recovered by any central authority.
Nostr is the protocol. You interact with it via client apps or desktop browser. You could also be banned by these client apps. We’ll see that actually happens or not. I am currently using Snort.
Relays help you interact with more people. Here’s a directory. This can help you get started and find some larger accounts to follow, apparently.
In order to not have to keep signing in over and over you can use a browser extension to sign in for you. That way you can save steps and the Nostr-Snort experience is more fluid.
