• Damus, a Jack Dorsey-backed decentralized Twitter rival, was available in China’s Apple App Store for two days before being taken down by the Cyberspace Administration of China (CAC) for violating national speech rules.
• The open-source Nostr protocol provides the groundwork for a decentralized, censorship-resistant social network that can be accessed anywhere in the world.
• Dorsey has been an outspoken supporter of the need for more censorship-proof social media channels and allocated funds to developing a decentralized social media system in 2019.
Damus Banned In China
Bitcoin News reported on Thursday that newly launched decentralized Twitter rival ‘Damus’ has been taken down in China by the CAC. Apple cooperated promptly after being asked to by the authorities. For 2 days, Damus, a Jack Dorsey-backed decentralized, Twitter rival was available in China’s Apple App Store.
Nostr Protocol
The development of Nostr was funded by a donation of 14 BTC (about $327,000 at the time of writing) from the Twitter co-founder a year ago. The Bitcoin Lightning Network is also included in this app which is used for online transactions. The goal of this open source protocol is to provide the groundwork for a decentralized and censorship resistant social network that can be accessed worldwide thanks to cryptographic key pairs.
Applications Built On Top Of Nostr
An alternative to Telegram called Anigma and chess software called Jester are both developed on top of this protocol and Damus is one such initiative which is an alternative to twitter working on apple devices.
Dorsey’s Stand On Social Media Channels
Dorsey has been vocal about his support for more censorship proof social media channels and he allocated funds to create a decentralized alternative back in 2019 as CEO of Twitter then. Documents released later revealed his plea with Elon Musk when he took over Twitter asking him to move it onto an open source protocol funded by a foundation instead.
Conclusion
The objective behind creating apps with these protocols like Damus or Anigma etc is creating an environment where users have control over their data – something which we don’t experience with popular mainstream platforms like Facebook or Google today due to their centralized nature and power they hold over user data they collect from us every day!