I think you will find that most forums before Digg and Reddit did have rules. There is some revisionism from muh free speech types that seek to redefine them as free speech zones, when many were not.

Moreover, many clients and apps that were had much smaller userbases.

The point about the CP here is that you are saying that it would remain technically on the systems you are referring to.

So the child porn still remains present, effectively.

So Ada described Nostr like this:

"Nostr uses relays. In some ways, a relay is like an instance on the fediverse. Where they differ though, is that a) relays don’t talk to each other and b) users can sign up to many different relays and pull/push content to all of them.

So in practice, in order to see a wide amount of content, you need to end up connecting to multiple relays. And even though a relay does have some moderation capabilities to block content, unless every relay you use blocks the content from the bigoted account, you’ll see it.

If you signed up only to a single relay, and that relay had good moderation, then in theory, your Nostr experience wouldn’t be terrible, but a single niche relay like that will mean you see basically no content. And as soon as you connect to a larger public relay to get more content, you lose all of the moderation advantages offered by your first instance. Which means in practice, there is no incentive to run a well moderated instance.

And so all of the moderation ends up on the end user, who has to manually block accounts only after they appear and dump their load of hate (at which point, the bigot will just spin up another account). Some people prefer that experience, but when you’re the regular target of hate, that approach just doesn’t work for many folk."

This is accurate?

That’s why there’s no limit on the number of relays (events usually publish to multiple) or subscriptions to them (clients usually subscribe to multiple).

I’m lost. If a mod removes child porn on NOSTR, it removes it for everyone, right?

Still off topic, and the moderators here aren’t reddit moderator scum so far.

Well, sure, but you can still be moderated.

Legal compliance is different from legally unnecessary moderation.

Right, so there would still need to be moderators. And if they can remove that, they can remove anything.

Not the topic of discussion, which is function & protocol.

Right, but you’re just gunna have an unpleasant time here if you loath all moderation. It’s that simple.

Yup, better.

Why is that better?

Moderation should be opt-in & is better handled at the client: the user could opt-in to a “moderation community” that publishes tags their client would follow.

Debateable given that any community anywhere online still needs to remove CSAM and gore and other things.

And what do you mean by “tags” here? Just hashtags or something else? Because a hashtag under a no-moderation concept could still be hijacked.

Far better than moderators we don’t get to choose.

Well I suggest you go there then, because the fediverse will never be what you want it to be.

It’s not about that even if you reduce it to purely that. Without moderation every platform becomes infested by spammers, trolls, astroturfers. Topical communities lose focus and communities become little more than hashtags.

Fair enough.

My point is that the threat of legal action was enough that major sites decided not to risk it, and blocked Europe et al.

And has 4chan done the same to UK after Ofcom sent them any messages? No, they haven’t. There’s no meaningful difference between being blocked by a country and blocking them yourself. If we eventually block 4chan, then we do that - but no way would the current US administration accept any attempted fines against them.

4chan is hardly a financial/corporate entity (though they do seem to profit off traffic with ads), therefore much harder to go against, but blocking the service is still effective. It will be up to 4chan to see if they want to comply with the law and get unblocked or if they can live without Australian traffic.

Right, but that’s all I mean. They can’t do anything to 4chan otherwise.

(And this law, comically enough - doesn’t really apply to them in the first place because they don’t have account signups).

Some didn’t mind the loss of service in Europe and just cut Europe off. Some did. Bottom line is that the EU wouldn’t have been able to sue them because they had no assets in Europe.

What is it you imagine Australia could do to 4chan, other than blocking 4chan in Australia?

Yeah, but what I mean is that wasn’t a reaction to Australia here. Since your threshold here is 18, not 16.

Australia blocking 4chan in Australia doesn’t compel 4chan to do anything.

Why do you think American companies, even ones with no legal presence in Europe, still went along with GDPR? Same principle applies here.

They didn’t want to lose custom in Europe.

So how is Australia going to make other sites with no footprint in Australia do it then?

March? Over 18?

Reddthat presumably was reacting to the Online Safety ACT UK there.

Similarly UK has tried to get 4chan, kiwifarms etc but they have no UK footprint so they just ignore them.

No, that’s a matter of enforcement. UK is still trying to fine 4chan - but failing. Australia has just outright said the law doesn’t apply to them.

https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2025/oct/09/4chan-not-blocked-australia-under-16s-social-media-ban

Yes

Apparently aussie.zone is asking users to DM evidence of being over 16, and the implication is that of those who don’t - he’ll ban/delete their accounts.

But absurdly enough, 4chan is exempt from this because all activity on there is anonymous. Not through accounts. So if the Fediverse had anonymous, non-account posting on-top of regular account-based posting then people could post anonymously happily, but anyone with an account would have to verify.

Make it make sense.

Yeah, I know. That’s why I think other instances should also do it lol

About once a week there’s a post saying “Hi, I built a new reddit alternative!” there

And it’s usually just utter rubbish. Like yes, it works but it’s barebones and basics. What is it they are expecting?

Then the question is, why is it when users come from reddit they don’t hang around? they don’t tell their friends, hey this is a place that’s awesome!

Some do. I would argue that most social media websites sign-ups become dormant accounts very quickly. Whether its Reddit, a large Discord server, a reddit alternative etc. The retainment rate of most social media sites is and has always been quite bad. People are fickle, or not as interested as they thought, or just sign up to have a better look. I don’t think there’s anything special about Lemmy or Piefed here, and advertising it isn’t exactly easy nor even welcome.

Does Lemmy/Piefed have the best design? No. Is it uniquely bad? Not at all. I think Reddits is pretty poor in areas, but that doesn’t seem to be an encumbrance to it.

It’s slowly declining. I don’t think it has anything to do with usability, or lack of - but simply that these platforms usually get boosted by Reddit doing a scandal rather than anything else.