Apple Removes Twitter Rival ‘Damus’ from App Store in China

Image: Damus

Apple has booted Damus, a Twitter alternative that’s gaining some momentum, off its Chinese App Store merely two days after approving the app’s listing — reports TechCrunch.

According to an App Review notice Apple sent to the makers of Damus, the Cyberspace Administration of China (CAC) demanded the app’s removal because it “includes content that is illegal in China.”

“The decentralized nature of the app no doubt led to its short-lived debut in China where information is under tight control by the government,” noted TechCrunch.

“Social networks legally operating in China all have censorship tools baked in to eliminate illegal content or information banned by the authority. Anonymity is non-existent as user signups are linked to people’s real identities.”

Damus is built on Nostr, a decentralized social networking protocol backed by Twitter co-founder and former CEO Jack Dorsey. Nostr is built to resist censorship, using “relays” to distribute posts to users. It also completely does away with first-party moderation of participants and content.

China’s action against Damus is limited to iOS since Android’s Google Play isn’t available in the country in the first place. What’s more, Damus’ removal from the App Store only cuts off the app’s distribution in China, not its access.

Users that already have Damus installed on their iPhones can still access the platform from within China, at least as of writing. Chinese Damus users remain able to view and comment on posts without having to get past the Great Firewall, China’s censorship system that blocks or slows down certain foreign websites.

Damus “now has about 300 relays and people can make self-hosted relays, so it’s quite difficult to shut it down,” said Frank Hu, COO at web3 infrastructure startup ByteTrade Lab.

Twitter alternatives have been seeing significant growth since eccentric entrepreneur Elon Musk acquired the popular social network in October of last year.

That said, they have also found themselves in Musk’s crosshairs. Back in December, Twitter briefly banned users from sharing links to its rivals, including Mastodon, Truth Social, Nostr, and more. The company has even killed third-party clients for its own platform.

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