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    Privacy App Damus Banned in China 48hrs After App Store Nod

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    Damus, a Twitter-like client app built to comply with the decentralized protocol Nostr, was banned in China for publishing “illegal content” just 48 hours after it became available for download on the Apple App Store. it was done.

    Damas announced Twitter approved the App Store on January 31st. The app has generated a lot of excitement among cryptocurrency and privacy enthusiasts on social media due to its promise of privacy, decentralization, and censorship resistance.

    Also Read: Social Networks Truth Social and Parler Boost Web Traffic Significantly

    Jack Dorsey is the co-founder of Twitter who donated $240,000 in Bitcoin to support Nostr. explained Launch of the application as an “open protocol milestone”. Nostr is already available for his Android device on the Google Play Store. amethyst app.

    The latest approval means Damus, which quickly climbed to number 10 on the Apple App Store’s list of most downloaded apps, is now available as an app for users of iOS devices such as iPhones and Mac computers. increase.

    Damus Ban

    But Chinese officials are not impressed. They banned the application less than 48 hours after it was published on the App Store. Damus has generated a lot of interest among users in China, where the government restricts the flow of information.

    At the time of writing it totaled about 8,000 download There are 23,700 in mainland China, second only to the United States. In Hong Kong, he reached 4,200 downloads, more than double his numbers in the UK and Canada. Overall, app downloads reached a total of 56,000 worldwide.

    “I am writing to inform you that, upon request from the CAC (Chinese Cyberspace Administration), your application will be removed from the Chinese App Store because it contains illegal content in China,” Apple said. wrote to Damus. response on Twitter.

    “Apps that solicit, promote, or facilitate criminal or demonstrably reckless activity will be rejected,” Apple said. According to the CAC, Damus violates Internet-based information security law provisions and is “belonging to public opinion or capable of public mobilization.”

    Lumps are still available outside of China. As early as February 2, Bitcoiner and Jan3 CEO Samson Mow predicted: [is] It will soon be removed from the Chinese iOS App Store. ”

    What is Nost?

    To understand Damus, it’s important to first understand the protocols your app supports. As MetaNews previously reported, Nostr is an open protocol that says its developers “can create a perfectly censorship-resistant global ‘social’ network.”

    The protocol allows users to compose posts (like tweeting) and “like posts, follow or unfollow someone, retweet/repost”. githubGenerally, the terms “post” or “note” are used to refer to making a post on Nostr.

    Fiatjaf, creator of Nostr, To tell Protocols are good at “broadcasting”. The developer said that besides social networking, forums, Reddit-like apps, prediction markets, and markets for physical and digital goods fall into the “broadcasting” category.

    Nostr is used to build a variety of applications, including a chess engine called Chesstr and distributed autonomous organizations (DAOs). Chest is a new virtual chessboard that allows users to “play chess with friends anywhere in the world”.

    All users of the Nostr protocol are identified by a public key, a long list of random letters and numbers. It’s like Jack Dorsey viewing his public profile on Twitter. All posts are signed and the client or user facing app verifies the signature. His one such client is his Damus.

    According to its developers, Damus is “your Twitter”.

    Created by Bitcoin Lightning developer William Casarin, Damus is an app for iPhone, iPad, and MacOS that implements the Nostr decentralized protocol. The app allows users to post notes, tag others, repost, like, or reply to participate in notes.

    Damus claims to support Twitter-like social networking and display messages from channels. Users do not need a phone number, email or name to create an account. Your messages are end-to-end encrypted and you can tip your friends’ posts with bitcoins.

    “Built on open internet protocols, no platform can ban or censor users. You control your data and your speech.” website“Messages are delivered via decentralized relays. There is no infrastructure to run and no single point

    According to the developer, the app is “your personal Twitter for friends and businesses.” However, at the time of this writing, Damus’ web version of him was down “due to someone trying to steal the private key by exploiting a loophole in the browser.”

    “We do not recommend using the web client at this time. Damus iOS is unaffected,” says Katherin Said to the site.

    Big tech companies have been criticized for violating user privacy by using cookies to compile data and sell it to advertisers, Damus said. write On the App Store:

    “No data collected. The developer does not collect any data from this app. Damus does not store any information about you other than the posts you create. If so, it will be published to other relays.

    On the other hand, the official Twitter app Disclosure The Network says it collects data including purchases, contact information, browsing history, usage data, location, user content, identifiers, search history, diagnostics and other data.

    Risk of decentralization

    The launch of Damus on the AppStore has had its fair share of problems.In some geographic locations, users complained The application was not working at all.

    Decentralization tends to create incredible horror, the creation of a world without authority where bad actors can carry out malicious activities. one of her Twitter users asked. [Nostr] If everyone could do what they wanted, would you close accounts that post child pornography and such?

    In response, Nostr’s pseudonymous creator Fiatjaf said: Events are published to relays. Each relay determines who can publish what. ”

    “Relays are free to censor child pornography and whatever they want. Users can choose where to read from and they can easily filter out bad relays,” he added.

    Nostr is one of the emerging decentralized social networks aimed at giving users the personal and financial freedom to act according to their conscience rather than political dictates.

    Over the years, major players in Bitcoin and the web3, primarily entities on the receiving end of US government intervention, began disapprovingly reassessing the monopoly of the dominant social networks or severing their ties. I was.

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