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Bluesky and Mastodon users are having a fight that could shape the next generation of social media (techcrunch.com)

submitted 9 months ago by Wilshire@lemmy.world to c/fediverse@lemmy.world

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[-] makeasnek@lemmy.ml 18 points 9 months ago

Nostr vs Mastodon on Privacy & Autonomy:

Relay/instance admins can choose which content goes through their relay on either platform
On nostr, your DMs are encrypted. In Mastodon, the admin of the sender and receiver can read them, as can anybody else who breaks into their server
On nostr, a relay admin can control what goes through their relay, but they can't stop you from following/DMing/being followed by whoever you want since you are typically connected to multiple relays at once. As long as one relay allows it, signal flows. Nostr provides the best of both worlds: moderated "public squares" according to your moderation preferences, autonomy to follow/dm/be followed by anybody you want (assuming that individual user hasn't blocked you).
On mastodon, your identity is tied to your instance. If your instance goes down, you lose your follow/followee list, DMs, etc. On Nostr, it's not, so this doesn't happen. Mastodon provides some functionality to migrate identity between instances but it's clunky and generally requires to have some form of advanced notice.
Both have all the same functions as twitter: tweet, reply, re-tweet, DM, like, etc.

Why I think nostr will win https://lemmy.ml/post/11570081

[-] blueberry@diagonlemmy.social 3 points 9 months ago

Have they by now come up with a way to moderate things?

[-] makeasnek@lemmy.ml 2 points 9 months ago

Read the first bullet point:

Relay/instance admins can choose which content goes through their relay on either platform

[-] blueberry@diagonlemmy.social 1 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago)

Ok, but can they also delete it once its through? Either all incoming messages are checked beforehand and are filtered by the admin, which is even worse of the bad censorship in the Fediverse nostr fans keep crying about, or its passed through and the user has to deal with toxic content. I'm not sure how that should work. The moderation has to happen somewhere, it sounds like nostr is heaving that onto the user.

Usually, if people say "its the best from both worlds" actually means "there is a tradeoff, but I like this adjustment of the tradeoff more". If you want less "censorship", which is ok, you use nostr, but have to live with a worse moderation situation.

[-] makeasnek@lemmy.ml 1 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago)

A relay admin controls what goes through their relay. A user controls who they follow and who follows them. If you want, you can just auto-ignore all DMs directed to you by people who aren't in your follow list. Also remember that your DMs have to come through a relay, presumably you are connected to relays you trust the moderation policy of, so toxic users can't use those relays to DM you.

[-] blueberry@diagonlemmy.social 1 points 9 months ago

Then if its filtered - why is it better against cencorship?

[-] makeasnek@lemmy.ml 3 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago)

Because you can choose which relays to connect to and you typically connect to multiple relays. This is all seamless. On Mastodon/fedi, an instance controls your entire view of the fediverse unless you make a separate account elsewhere and check it separately. You can't follow or be followed by users or instances they block even if you want to. They also control your identity, since it's tied to a relay/instance. If your relay shuts down or your account gets banned, you have to make a new account elsewhere, re-follow everybody, get everybody to re-follow you, etc. It's a mess.

On nostr, instance/relay admins only control that goes through their specific relay. Relay admins can, of course, share common blocklists if they want for anti-spam or anti-abuse purposes. If you want to follow somebody blocked by a relay, you are connected to other relays and the signal can flow through there. You don't need to check multiple relays separately. If your relay closes, you don't lose your account/identity.

[-] blueberry@diagonlemmy.social 1 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago)

Ok, now I get it. It's an interesting concept. However, I think usability is a trade-off here and that means limited scalability. The average user wants to join a server and that's it. I continue to place my bet on the federated concept ;)

[-] makeasnek@lemmy.ml 1 points 9 months ago

It's just as scalable as fedi, I'd say it's even more scalable since relays don't need to communicate with each other, which reduces the cost to run a relay. The average user experience is basically identical. They download an app, it connects to a set of default relays (or they can choose some manually if they want), they tweet.