Are you serious? You don't see the problem with hiding mute lists on an "open" and "censor-resistant" protocol?

Hiding mutes is literally opening the door to shadow-banning. At a user level OR a client level.

A bad actor list forms, everyone adds it to their private mutes, weaponizing the function and shadowbanning a swath of users.

Encrypting mutes is terrible function, bordering catastrophic to the purpose of the entire protocol. 

I would much rather see an aggregation service that publicly shows how many people have muted each user. To verify batch muting isn't occurring. This is really bad stuff. 

 You are misunderstanding. Noone can reuse encrypted mutes, they are encrypted to your pubkey and can only be seen by you. Public mutes (what everyone uses today) are way worse and sounds like what you are describing. Although i believe the individual should be able to use any mute lists they want if they are public. 

 Could a user not take a public "bad actor" list, and mute it privately? 

Leaving no way for outsiders to audit the extent that batch muting is occurring, on a protocol-wide basis? 

 why do you want to tell other people who they are allowed to mute ? 

 I certainly don't want to tell people who they are allowed to mute. 

But if the entire purpose of the protocol is to resist censorship, and muting (a method of censorship) is opaque, then it's impossible to even know if abuse is occurring.

If mutes are public (as they should be), then at least if batch muting gets weaponized it can be exposed.

Without transparency, you get a shadowban, of an unknown extent. The exact same thing the protocol was created to deter. 

 users muting other users is not shadowbanning. It’s only if relays use public mute lists, but that can be detected easily and notified so clients can ban those relays 

 Nostr apps give choice of public, or private mute. You don’t owe anyone your attention. 

Alternative is Twitter mute list is seen and monetized by the corporate ad-lords. 

Nostr is an upgrade. 

 That's cult response.

There's nothing wrong with muting. Muting is excellent. P2P muting.

The second you add batch muting and private muting, the game changes entirely. A function can now be weaponized without anyone knowing. Creating a shadowban effect with no way of stopping it.

All mutes should be public. And a mute monitoring service should be paramount to ensure batch muting isn't being weaponized. This can only be done publicly.

If every Bitcoin financial transaction can be public, every Nostr event can be too. 

 this is why we’re not adding batch muting, but of course any client can and users can use those clients if they like. free market gonna free market. I don’t understand your argument against private mutelists though as they ameliorate the situation you’re describing. 

 Good that you aren't. As you mention, others will.

Batch muting will occur regardless. It can't be stopped. The key fight against it is being able to see it occurring. To expose + address.

The second we can't see it (private), we're hooped. 

I just put a post up, feel free to attack it. This definitely isn't a client-side or Damus issue, so not directed at you. Seems like a protocol-wide issue. 

 You can definitely see it. Just send the same note to multiple public relays and see which ones reject the note. Relays can’t use private mute lists so your concern doesn’t make any sense.

It sounds like you are conflating individuals private mute lists with private relay mutelists, they are not the same thing. The latter is easy to detect.