When Edward Snowden Said This App Would Replace Twitter And Instagram

Former U.S. intelligence contractor Edward Snowden in January hailed Nostr, a censorship-resistant global social network, as a replacement for Elon Musk‘s Twitter and Meta Platforms Inc.‘s META Instagram. 

What Happened: Snowden tweeted that Nostr doesn’t limit people to express themselves to just “280 characters.”

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He had attached a screenshot of his post that read, “The problem is that most major states are pressuring corporations to limit speech. The solution is to remove the ability to limit speech from corporate hands. By moving the content layer of the Internet to a neutral, ownerless protocol, nobody can delete the things you share. Nobody can destroy the things you create. I feel like I’m looking at the future.”

Nostr’s official website describes the platform as a decentralized network based on cryptographic key pairs. The platform was created anonymously and no company has yet been revealed to be behind this new social media site. 

Why It’s Important: Last year, it was reported that Instagram suspended or deleted several accounts created by legal operating businesses and content creators for posting information related to cannabis. 

While Instagram had specific rules against advertising the sale of cannabis, there were no defined rules against posting content regarding the same without the intention of sale. 

Earlier this month, Musk reacted to a post by author Michael Shellenberger that contained some emails showing Mark Zuckerberg-led tech giant reassuring the White House about “censoring ‘often-true content’ that ‘does not contain actionable misinformation’ but was ‘discouraging vaccines.'”

Photo: Courtesy of Wikimedia Commons

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This story was originally published on Jan. 24, 2023