Two days after its launch, Damus was removed from the Apple App Store in mainland China
Decentralization means that there is no central authority to decide who can participate or what kind of speech can be made on the platform.Original Author: Rita Liao
Original Title: Damus pulled from Apple's App Store in China after two days
Compiled by: Qianwen, ChainCatcher
Damus------one of the fastest-growing Twitter alternatives, was removed from the app store in mainland China just two days after being approved by Apple.
Damus operates on the decentralized social network protocol Nostr, supported by Jack Dorsey (Note: co-founder of Twitter, founder and CEO of Square). Damus shared the app review notice it received on Twitter, showing that the Cyberspace Administration of China (CAC) requested the app's removal from the mainland app store because it "contains content that is illegal in China."
Decentralization means there is no central authority to decide who can participate or what speech can be made on the platform. This made the approval process for Damus initially difficult, as Apple required the product to establish a mechanism for marking objectionable content, but Damus ultimately resolved this issue and successfully entered Apple's app store on February 1.
The decentralized nature of the app is undoubtedly the reason for its brief appearance in China. In mainland China, information is strictly controlled by the government. Social networks that operate legally in China contain censorship tools to remove illegal content or information banned by authorities. Anonymity does not exist, as users are required to submit their real personal information when registering.
Authorities have banned the download of Damus domestically through the Apple App Store. However, so far, it seems that the app is still accessible. As of February 3, users who have installed Damus on their phones can still view and comment on posts directly within the country.
Nostr achieves censorship resistance through a "relay system," where relays are responsible for receiving posts and distributing them to network participants. Users can publish their posts to multiple relay stations, and they can only see the content from the relay stations they are connected to. Therefore, if one relay station is censored, they can publish content through other relay stations. However, competition between networks also undermines the network effects of the platform, meaning Damus cannot become the ideal alternative to Twitter.
"It’s more like a news group, interest group, or fan club," said Frank Hu, COO of ByteTrade Lab, a web3 infrastructure startup supported by SIG (Sequoia Capital China).
"Users can choose relay stations and must adhere to the rules there. There is competition between relay stations, and also among relay station owners. Based on this competition, builders can create different communities—paid or free, with or without censorship, targeting different groups of fans. It’s a free market based on relays."
Is there any way to stop every relay station? Hu believes that Damus operates on "multiple centralized servers" rather than "a completely decentralized" infrastructure. So censoring Damus will be difficult. It currently has about 300 relays, and people can create self-hosted relay stations, making it quite challenging to shut it down.
In the coming weeks, let’s wait and see how the app's situation in the Chinese market unfolds.
