Exactly this @dk. Censorship would be saying you can’t say something, can’t link to something, can’t publish something. Personal control is saying, I started this conversation, if you’re reading this because you’re following me, then you’re asking for my filtered and curated content, including replies. 

I could imagine a relay implementing functionality which would check to see if user A has muted user B, and then not serve up any of user B’s content which tags any user A posts. This again would only be censorship if all relays implemented this policy. As it is, each relay has full rights to decide what content it hosts and serves to clients. That’s why Nostr has multiple relays, and you can and should host your own relay. 

Imagine for example that I would make an AI powered bot that took pictures of you and then placed you in scenes of graphic and disturbing porn or violence, say your face and body in being raped or murdered. And they made that bot as a reply to everything you posted on Nostr. You can mute that bot, but then everybody else would see these posts except you. It would have a big negative impact on you. Or maybe it’s text, just some AI that makes up defamatory bullshit about you, but using everything you’ve posted as a basis, so to a new observer it looks like maybe, it’s real. You would want to be able to label that content and mute it. But you want other people to be able to use your label. 

The bot can post links to your content, it can build its own audience, but it shouldn’t be able attack you without recurse in YOUR threads. Let it post endless quote posts, and build its own audience. 

We only get a censorship resistant platform if it is also a place where people get to define their own rules for themselves. Want to see everything and ignore what the original poster has to say about their trolls, go for it. Use an app that ignores mutes. I have a lock on my front door. I invite most people come over and visit. But if you shit on my living room sofa, I’m going to ask you to leave. You can shit on your own sofa, or on the park bench, but I don’t want to have everybody else I invite in to my home to have to see your shit everywhere.  

 I know I’ve been a vocal advocate for algorithms…

and algorithms complicate these things a lot, but the same principles should apply 

 An obviously malicious bot like that would be reported and muted by your web of trust, via kind 1984. For something like self-curated feeds, NIP 72 may be suitable 

 @Hazey Except most clients aren’t using WOT for 1984 events either. My app does, so does Amethyst, but others just ignore 1984 events. And I regularly get called a censor for publishing 1984 events.  

 I use 1984 all the time because I hate spam. I would not use a client that can't use nostr's way of cleaning up your feed. Fixing it on the relays is not the solution to clients that are basically broken