# Who decides what to censor? (Farcaster, Nostr, Bastyon, Arweave, and Lens)

Source: https://simplifiedprivacy.com/posts/nostr/spam-scams/spam-scams-article/index.html

## Summary

The text rejects the spam and censorship approaches of Nostr, Farcaster, Lens, Bastyon and Arweave, proposing instead that each original poster decide which replies are spam. Under this model, end users can toggle a "criticism and spam" filter for replies, on the reasoning that followers trust a poster's judgment on their own subject, which decentralizes the decision to each individual poster. The text criticizes Nostr and Lens for letting client-side reports or follower-based votes silence users, Farcaster for a centralized official labeling list distributed to other clients, and Bastyon's and Arweave's node-based approaches as an illegal-content vote and a passive storage opt-out.

## Article

Nostr, Farcaster, Lens, Session, Arweave, and Bastyon all take different approaches. Who is right?

Nostr

Nostr and Lens solve the “spam and scam” problem by having the client decide. For example Amethyst for android will hide posts from accounts that others report as scams. These “others” are defined by people you follow, but this essentially puts it up to a community vote of large influencers to silence you.

Lens

On Lens, once you’re labeled spam, you appear in the “show more” of comments. This is a huge turn-off to new users with no followers, who are treated like lower class citizens.

Farcaster

Farcaster solves it in a similar way, but by having the official team label it, and then since their client is so large and influential, their list is often distributed to other clients. This is absolutely horrible and way too centralized. While it’s true that posts to your followers would still show up, they are effectively silencing your comments.

Session

Session has zero censorship for mass DMs in the way I use it, even under outright sanctions. The nodes don’t even know I am the sender, and I’m assigned new receivers if they drop me. That’s why I like it. But the market likes simpleX more because it rotates encryption keys, so it’s tough to get new followers. Can’t fight the market.

Bastyon

Bastyon solves the problem by a community vote for outright illegal content, to get it off the nodes, such as child porn and narcotics sales. The voters are picked based on their total upvotes, called “reputation”. I disagree with this approach, as if we’re going to vote, it should be the nodes hosting it (like Arweave does)…

Arweave

Files on Arweave have an unofficial vote, where the nodes can opt out of storing it. And if all the miners chosen in a block opt out, then there’s no financial penalty for dropping the content. But if they have the content and others don’t, then they have a financial advantage to mine that block over competitors. This approach is good for websites, but for a social network with permissionless replies, it’s way too passive.

Therefore:

I disagree with all these solutions.

In my view, the best way to handle spam (in a permissionless system) is to allow the original poster to decide which replies are spam. Then the end user can decide to toggle on or off “criticism and spam” for the replies. After all, if you’re following someone, you trust their judgment on the subject they are speaking about. And this decentralizes the decision to each individual poster.

Now I do the ironic thing, and turn it over to my replies. Do you think this approach is right?

If you really want to learn and take your privacy to the next level, Learn about HydraVeil, Access our VPN, and subscribe to our new content via: Podcast, Email List, Nostr, Bastyon, RSS, or join the Signal Group

## Comments

**mishaderidder.eth**: “In my view, the best way to handle spam (in a permissionless system) is to allow the original poster to decide which replies are spam. Then the end user can decide to toggle on or off “criticism and spam” for the replies. After all, if you’re following someone, you trust their judgment on the subject they are speaking about. And this decentralizes the decision to each individual poster.”

… so obvious actually, why is no web3 social doing this? 

**timdaub.eth**: I think it‘s fine to let spam be handled by the original poster. I even wanted to do that with Kiwi News eventually.

But there needs to be also a more global moderation system where the operator can censor, and that is because of free speech restrictions for which operators are often made accountable. 

**simplifiedprivacy.eth**: depends, for a system like kiwi where it's a website on a domain, yeah because you're on the hook.

for something like farcaster/lens on hubs or on-chain, there's less liability.   Lens would decide same as arweave nodes I'd think?

**timdaub.eth**: Kiwi runs the same hub system as Farcaster, I still have to comply with the regulation of running the website

**simplifiedprivacy.eth**: do you know if Layer 2 Farcaster can be seen by the layer 1?

Is there censorship on posting to channels if you're new?