Original Title: The Moral Imperative of a Distributed Social Layer
Author: pourteaux
Source: Substack
I’ve long been critical of the idea that Twitter is a ‘town square,’ where moderation is termed ‘censorship,’ and users are entitled to platform membership and a captive audience. Supporters of this view almost treat Twitter as a public utility and believe that moderating the platform is actually an unconstitutional restriction on free speech. Surprisingly, this is the stance of modern ‘new wave’ libertarians, who argue that Twitter’s massive network effect gives it a monopoly, and therefore it doesn’t deserve the usual protections afforded to private companies.
I support the view of long-standing libertarians: Twitter is a private company that sets its own terms of service, and the government should not make operational decisions on behalf of Twitter. No one should have the right to access services from a private company, and there should be unlimited freedom of speech in a space without specific platform audiences. Obviously, platforming hate speech is detrimental to Twitter’s business, as they would lose advertisers. The idea that you cannot compete with Twitter is absurd; it has many social networking competitors, such as Facebook and TikTok, as well as direct competitors like Gab, Mastodon, and Truth Social.
New wave libertarians argue that those banned from using Twitter “can’t just start their own social networks,” but this is exactly what happened with Truth Social after the former president was banned on January 6th. Furthermore, many who claim “censorship” actually have huge platforms and often use the term as a populist growth tactic.
As a private company, Twitter not only has the right to moderate speech as they see fit but a carefully curated platform can also make Twitter more user-friendly and profitable. Almost no one wants to see 4chan-like content on their Twitter timeline. Musk did us all a favor by taking over Twitter; he quickly proved to the right wing that the commitment to “free Twitter” is as restrictive in speech as the previous leadership of Twitter, if not more so. He did it more impulsively, with fewer procedures, and out of a bias towards the center-right, but the key is that he did it. A Twitter without moderation has always been untenable; a private company cannot create a truly unobstructed speech platform, and when they try, the platform becomes a cesspool that almost everyone ignores, and without a business model, much like 4chan.
So, you might wonder — why advocate for an open, permissionless, and censorship-resistant social network?
The new social layer allows us to meet the needs of those who want a completely open “town square” and those who prioritize carefully managed and curated experiences. These two views seem contradictory but are actually entirely consistent. In fact, I don’t think the groups represented by these two views have any disagreement; they just notice different parts of the dysfunctionality of modern social networks. For the past few years, private companies have been struggling to be champions of free speech and also attempting to be places with basic rules of etiquette, but have failed at both.
You can’t have it both ways. Government, advertisers, employees, and public pressure will force private companies to limit speech. Moreover, any management action could be abused in the future and could deprive many people of their rights.
Private companies cannot be public squares, but protocols can be.
Protocols like Nostr or Farcaster can be permissionless and censorship-resistant because in a distributed network, no one can send them deletion requests. Of course, this is an imperfect solution because if you stop here, all you get is a distributed 4chan, which almost no one would be interested in. You need a second layer of for-profit companies and clients to act as curators and moderators. Users can choose to join and pay for this management layer to provide a better experience. Depending on your worldview, you can pay for curation from the New York Times or the Joe Rogan Experience. Twitter itself could be a content curator from Nostr or Farcaster (or both) and provide ads next to the content to keep the platform free. The moderation decisions of all these different L2 operators may overlap to some extent, but there will also be many non-overlapping moderation decisions. Therefore, no one is at risk of being “deplatformed” unless you complete the impossible task of being banned by all the different L2 managers simultaneously. Even then, such a person’s posts can still be seen on the unmoderated L1 for those who can tolerate it.
Thus, the “social layer” meets the needs of both sides of the political spectrum: a social platform without the worry of a “censorship regime” and “deplatforming,” while also allowing users to choose a curated experience with trusted moderators!
The social layer offers all the benefits of permissionless and censorship-resistant L1, along with the optional curated experience in L2.
Let’s delve into two attempts at L1: Nostr and Farcaster. I’m excited to be using both concurrently and will provide my non-technical experience with both, along with what I see as their potential and limitations. I also want to thank fiatjaf (the creator of Nostr) for helping me understand Nostr, and Dan Romero (the founder of Farcaster) for inviting me to join Farcaster. I also want to thank Maciek Laskus, who provided thorough analyses of every issue and discussed the topic with me. Let’s start with a table:
Farcaster and Nostr both aim to decentralize communication but make different trade-offs in the process.
Nostr and Farcaster both use relays (referred to as “hubs” in Farcaster) to store social data (such as posts) and transmit it to users (software run by users is called “clients”). Farcaster uses an Ethereum-like architecture (for example, accounts use Ethereum key pairs), while Nostr does not use a blockchain (although you see a lot of Lightning Network transactions, theoretically it can support any blockchain).
It’s worth noting that Farcaster is a venture capital-backed company with a well-known team and an excellent product, while Nostr is not a company at all; it was created by an anonymous person with no funding (although it later received a 14 BTC grant from Jack Dorsey) and is clearly in an earlier stage of development. In conversation with fiatjaf, I confirmed that the only funding for Nostr is the Bitcoin grant provided by Jack; fiatjaf subsequently parted ways with jb55, who is developing the Damus client for iOS and macOS. Both Farcaster and Nostr have built clients and services on top of them (examples: Nostr, Farcaster), although Farcaster seems to have gone further in this process. In fact, some design choices made by Farcaster make development easier, while Nostr’s simplicity is a balance between recent difficult development and more potential use cases in the future.
For example, Farcaster currently requires full synchronization of all hubs in the network, which makes client development easier. In contrast, Nostr allows relays to host or remove any content, making client development more challenging in the short term but allowing for many potential business models for these relays and more open potential use cases. Relays on Nostr can subsequently charge subscription fees, display ads, or choose other ways to determine what content to include or exclude.
Currently, Nostr’s user base mainly consists of Bitcoin users, while Farcaster’s user base is primarily Ethereum users and tech entrepreneurs. This is reflected in the design choices of each platform in many ways. Like Bitcoin, Nostr prioritizes simplicity, neutrality, and the convenience of running your own relays (similar to nodes in Bitcoin). Also like Bitcoin, Nostr avoids venture capital, company formation, or having well-known founders. Running a hub on Farcaster is more difficult and expensive, but Farcaster asserts that certain design trade-offs still allow for “sufficient decentralization” while prioritizing more recent use cases and nearly retail-ready optimized products.
Simply put, Nostr seems to follow the cypherpunk and Bitcoin ethos, where simplicity and robust protocols are paramount. I am impressed by fiatjaf, jb55, and other contributors. Farcaster follows a more traditional tech startup model, with a polished product that looks very appealing. Both efforts aim to create a native social layer for the internet: something I see as a moral imperative. Much of the social dysfunction we see is the result of our current corporate social layers trying to be everything to everyone. A layered approach to social media, combining the cypherpunk principles of L1 with the importance of institutions in L2, serves to provide social experiences that meet everyone’s needs.
