Too Hot for TikTok and Reddit

Summary

Soapbox Sessions Episode Summary

Episode Title: Too Hot for TikTok and Reddit
Date: May 1, 2026
Hosts: Heather Larson & Derek Ross
Podcast: Soapbox Sessions
Main Theme: Why centralized social platforms (like TikTok and Reddit) are increasingly inhospitable for open, truthful conversation, and how decentralized alternatives like Nostr are offering a new path forward.

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Episode Overview

This week’s Soapbox Sessions dives into the direct, personal experiences of Heather and Derek with censorship and account restrictions on mainstream platforms, specifically TikTok and Reddit. Through a mix of humor, frustration, and real-world examples, they illuminate the growing challenges faced by independent voices online. The conversation pivots to the promise of Nostr—a decentralized, censorship-resistant protocol—for those exhausted by content moderation, shadowbans, and arbitrary account deletions.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. TikTok: Censorship by Algorithm and Moderation

• Heather's Experience on TikTok:
  • Heather and her colleague Morgan did a livestream on Morgan’s large TikTok channel (~400k followers). Heather’s much newer account (~100 followers) was flagged, and they were both temporarily restricted for 10 minutes, simply by discussing bullying and harassment—not actually engaging in it.
  • Heather suspects the moderation system is “AI dumb” and unable to distinguish between discussing and committing harassment, leading to “double victimization.”
    • “I got bullied online, but now I can't ever talk about it and share because now I'm getting flagged as the bad guy.” (Heather, 08:46)
• Algorithmic Suppression and Viewer Limits:
  • Noted that TikTok throttles the reach of livestreams, rarely letting even popular creators surpass 150 viewers.
  • Discussion around how technical measures may throttle “undesirable” streams—glitchiness and lag as potential signs of intentional suppression.
    • “On a technical level, they could say we're going to flag this stream for whatever reason... now you're restricted to a small amount of bandwidth. So your stream sucks.” (Derek, 07:53)
• Broader Commentary:
  • The need for sanitized environments is contrasted with the inability to discuss real negative experiences, justified by platforms as protecting children.
  • Heather points out: “You can’t even talk about being harassed, otherwise you get flagged.” (09:38)

Memorable Moment:

• "I am a violator. I am a rabble rouser like our friend rabble." (Heather, 03:58)
• “Because all these big companies got in trouble for the mental health of children... now we have to create this sanitized society.” (Heather, 10:29)

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2. Reddit: Surprising and Arbitrary Bans

• Derek's Ban Story:
  • A long-time Redditor (17 years), Derek found himself banned from the popular Millennial subreddit for organically sharing his company’s Nostr-based app, Ditto. The original post lamented the loss of fun on the internet; Derek shared Ditto as a possible solution.
  • The post received enthusiastic responses and was even updated by the OP to recommend Ditto—but both were banned for “self-promotion/advertising.”
  • Attempts to communicate with the moderators led to a permanent ban, and a subsequent message of “WTF?” escalated into a full Reddit sitewide temporary suspension.
    • “So for being helpful I got fucking banned. Fuck.” (Derek, 16:43)
• Community Moderation and Control:
  • Both hosts discuss the pitfalls of rule-heavy, mod-centric platforms, where moderators—often humorously characterized as "neckbeards in mom's basement" (Heather, 18:39)—wield disproportionate power.
  • Heather: “There’s nothing wrong with telling somebody about something.” (18:18)
  • Derek reflects that self-promotion could (and should) be handled organically by the community via upvotes/downvotes, not heavy-handed bans. (34:33)
• Resignation and Principle:
  • Derek, in frustration, deletes his 17-year-old Reddit account out of principle: “You can't ban what doesn’t exist.” (16:43)
  • “I'm Nostr only, baby.” (Heather, 17:48)

Notable Quotes:

• “I will never go to Reddit again out of principle.” (Derek, 17:40)

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3. The Case for Decentralization: Nostr’s Promise

• What Makes Nostr Different:
  • One login/identity for all services; portable social graphs.
  • Built-in digital payments; no centralized owner to ban or shadowban users.
    • "Nostr allows for built-in digital payments that can come from anywhere... value flows as freely as ideas." (Narrator, 00:44)
  • Even in rare cases where an app/relay bans you, you can simply rejoin elsewhere; no platform “death sentence.”
• Personal Experience:
  • Heather: Never had a video held up in review on Nostr.
  • Derek: Even after being banned from one Nostr relay, it had “no big deal” impact since there are countless others. (20:38)

Important Segment:

• “In more than two years on Nostr, I have never had a video be held up in review, because there's no moderation on Nostr.” (Heather, 21:11)

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4. Critical Commentary on Society and Speech

• Loss of Nuance and Black/White Thinking:
  • Clear concern over sanitized discourse and the loss of environments where differing opinions can be shared without emotional overreaction or censorship.
  • Heather reminisces about times (post-9/11) when people could argue, disagree, and still be friends.
    • “[Back then] you could be friends and have friendly discussions with people.” (Heather, 24:38)
• Algorithmic Profiling and Narrowcasting:
  • Heather’s TikTok feed reflects an overly simplified, pigeonholed persona (“man-hating liberal woman who hates dating...”).
  • Despite efforts to influence the algorithm with her actual interests (e.g., music), it refuses to comply.
  • “We know algorithms are bad, but we're talking about you having to try to game the algorithm.” (Derek, 31:08)
• Proof of Work vs. Passive Consumption:
  • Nostr requires users to curate their own feeds—‘proof of work’—unlike passivity on algorithm-driven platforms.
  • “It's proof of work and not everybody wants to do that; they want to just be lazy and scroll.” (Derek, 32:11)

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5. Building Better Social Tools: Web of Trust & User Control

• Mute/Block/Curate by User Choice:
  • Extensive discussion of "web of trust" systems being built atop Nostr, allowing for personal or community-based moderation—without central authorities.
  • Users can independently choose what to see and whom to trust, eliminating the need for moderator overlords.
  • “Everybody can say whatever they want. And you're going to get the good and you're going to get the bad...but you have tools to control your feed.” (Derek, 38:01)
• Journalism, Monetization & Value Perception:
  • Nostr allows for immediate monetization for creators and journalists, regardless of follower count or hours viewed; value is determined by the user and their community.
  • “You don't have to wait until you reach a thousand followers... I can monetize from day one.” (Heather, 43:32)
• Future of Media:
  • They envision a decentralized media future where TMZ-style citizen journalism flourishes censorship-free, even potentially outpacing traditional outlets.

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Notable Quotes & Timestamps

• On TikTok’s Censorship
  • “I got bullied online, but now I can't ever talk about it and share because now I'm getting flagged as the bad guy.” (Heather, 08:46)
• On Reddit Ban
  • “So for being helpful I got fucking banned. Fuck.” (Derek, 16:43)
• On Decentralization
  • “I will never go to Reddit again out of principle.” (Derek, 17:40)
• On Algorithms and Control
  • “I'm trying to get banned at this point.” (Heather, 27:27)
• On Society’s Discourse Regression
  • “You mean, people that were on the left and on the right side of the political spectrum were able to be friends at the end of the day.” (Derek, 24:38)

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Timestamps for Key Segments

• TikTok Censorship Story: [01:26]–[11:19]
• Reddit Ban Story: [11:26]–[17:48]
• On Decentralization & Nostr: [17:48]–[22:13]
• Society and Black-and-White Thinking: [22:13]–[26:59]
• Algorithmic Profiling & Manipulation: [27:09]–[32:47]
• Web of Trust & User Control on Nostr: [37:22]–[42:14]
• Vision for Decentralized Journalism & Media: [42:30]–[46:16]
• Wrap-up & Future Outlook: [47:28]–[48:57]

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Tone & Style

The conversation is candid, irreverent, and peppered with humor—often self-deprecating or sarcastic. Both hosts are passionate about decentralized internet ideals, skeptical of big tech, and unafraid to take strong stances through personal storytelling.

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Final Takeaway

Heather and Derek use their own run-ins with platform moderation as cautionary tales, driving home the necessity of user-owned, censorship-resistant spaces like Nostr. They argue for a future where users—not corporations or governments—determine what they see, what they share, and how they connect, voicing hope that more people will demand such freedoms as centralized platforms become increasingly restrictive.

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"At some point it's going to be Nostr only for everybody because... these big platforms. Like we can't survive there."
(Heather, 19:14)

"We're going to obsolete them."
(Derek, 17:11)

Transcript

[Heather Larson]

Where can I go to share factual life experiences without being censored? Restricted, shadow, banned, deplatformed, Etc. It's a place called Imagine you're at a real life party and you're, you're just at a shindig, holding a drink, whatever. You're like, hey, so what are your hobbies? And some guy's like, well, I'm a very important moderator on Reddit and I kick people like Derek Ross off for promoting ditto pub that mother.

[Derek Ross]

And immediately Heather's like, sploosh.

[Heather Larson]

Like, oh God, what a great hobby you do. You want to be a Reddit mod when you grow up? Like, how fucking important are you? Like, stick that chest down.

[Narrator]

Welcome to the soapbox sessions. Imagine this. An open and free Internet where voices are never silenced, where causes aren't shadow banned, and where no one can be deplatformed. It's real, it's here and it's happening on nostr. So what exactly is nostr? It's a worldwide community of everyday people working to decentralize the Internet. On Nostr, you can build websites, communities, social networks, apps and more. Onelogin works everywhere. You own it and no one can take it away. No more juggling dozens of platform chasing audiences or managing a giant password list. And the cherry on top nostr allows for built in digital payments that can come from anywhere in the world. On nostr, value flows as freely as ideas. We're hooked on decentralizing the web and we think you will be too. So now let's hear from your hosts, Derek Ross and Heather Larson, who are working to grow Nostr one vibe at a time.

[Heather Larson]

All right, the conference is now over, but Derek and I are recording this before the conference happens and it's actually today, Thursday, April 3rd. And so we don't know what's happened at the conference yet, so we can't talk about that. So we'll record the full recap for you to hear in another week. But right now I want to go in a different direction. Derek, are you aware that Morgan and I got in trouble on TikTok last night? We got flagged.

[Derek Ross]

I did see that. That you got your wrists slapped.

[Heather Larson]

We got our wrist.

[Derek Ross]

You were being bad naughty women and got your wrist slapped.

[Heather Larson]

Morgan, I. Okay, so Morgan and I decided we're do a live. What happened?

[Derek Ross]

What happened?

[Heather Larson]

We, we go on her channel. Cause she's, she's got a. She's an expert tiktoker. She's got a huge channel, like 400,000 people. So we decided to do a Live on her channel to talk about soapbox things and you know, also kind of bring her audience into the loop because she hasn't been posting a lot lately since she's been working for us because we've unbrainwashed her, obviously coming from the big, big tech and big platforms that she doesn't like. She found us and we've been, you know, putting her through our indoctrination paces, right? So it' time for her to start doing some, some more lives on her. Her channel. So I joined her from my little infantile TikTok channel because I've only been screwing around with it for two months and so I have like a hundred followers or whatever. So my little channel, my little non threatening channel, Derek, I joined her big channel. We did this live and at some point she got in trouble for having me on.

[Derek Ross]

And your account's really new, right? Like you're only like a month old or something. Two months.

[Heather Larson]

Two months. I think it started on like the first week of March.

[Derek Ross]

Okay, okay.

[Heather Larson]

So my, my channel. And I've been censored previously as well. I had one of my videos going to review content review last week, so I'm already getting flagged as a new TikToker.

[Derek Ross]

All right, all right.

[Heather Larson]

You're.

[Derek Ross]

You're ruffling some feathers, I hear. Okay, I'm ruffling some feathers.

[Heather Larson]

Well, I was, I was talking about Ticketmaster and you can't do that on TikTok because TikTok and Ticketmaster are in bed with each other. Right? So I started getting flagged.

[Derek Ross]

They're. So they're coming after us here, but they're.

[Heather Larson]

You can't talk about big tech on a big tech platform. So I got her in trouble. It. We actually, it literally said that we were restricted for the next 10 minutes of the live because she wouldn't kick me off the live. It wanted her to kick me off the live. And since she didn't, she said no, I'm not kicking her off the live. And the only thing I can think of, because it said I was violating the guidelines, Derek, I was violating the TikTok guidelines, which I'm sure I checked off.

[Derek Ross]

Violating the guidelines.

[Heather Larson]

I am a violator. I am a rabble rouser like our friend rabble.

[Derek Ross]

So you violated the guidelines by saying something bad about Ticketmaster, but did you do it online?

[Heather Larson]

No, not during the live. Not during the live. We weren't talking about Ticketmaster on the live because now I've learned.

[Derek Ross]

Not to mention previously I Previously, previously ruffled in Trouble for ticket. You were a known bad actress and she invited you on the stream and it's like, hey, you have a bad person on here if you don't kick a bad person out.

[Heather Larson]

Well, you know what, I think we're

[Derek Ross]

going to restrict you for 10 minutes.

[Heather Larson]

Yeah. So I think what we were talking about, we were talking about just the nature of being a woman online and getting bullied and harassed and that tripped the triggers. We weren't actually like being bad people. Like I wasn't actually bullying Morgan or harassing Morgan. But just the mere mention of it got us restricted for 10 minutes on TikTok. So like, I don't know, we had like maybe 50 listening. So then we went like down to like 20 people like partake participating in the TikTok so that like. And you know, TikTok doesn't want to let you get beyond 70 viewers anyway, it seems. I've noticed that like not just with us, but with other bigger creators who have huge followings. They don't really get beyond like the 150 people is the most I've seen as far as people viewing somebody's TikTok Live. So it's like they get.

[Derek Ross]

They don't want you to go viral unless you're playing the game.

[Heather Larson]

Right.

[Derek Ross]

Unless they don't want you to say something controversial.

[Heather Larson]

Right. I think I was committing some interesting speak.

[Derek Ross]

I was committing some surprising that this happened.

[Heather Larson]

So isn't it. I'm not used to that because I want knobs.

[Derek Ross]

The United States government essentially now and other. And several other entities, but it's. TikTok is essentially state controlled media right now. The government, they all are, did a whole thing, you know, over the past year to take TikTok away from Chinese controlled media to make it United States controlled media.

[Heather Larson]

Could even argue that CBS is state controlled media, to be honest. But yeah, they're inappropriate.

[Derek Ross]

Not any better. It's not inappropriate.

[Heather Larson]

I think it's inappropriate that big tech has the influence over the social platforms that it does. And the government got involved with TikTok as it did. And now we're here where little Heather Larson commits wrong speak on Morgan's live. And I get Morgan, you know, well, pushed.

[Derek Ross]

She was bull. The fact that she was bullied, hey, kick this bad person out or you're. Or you're gonna get bullied. And that she didn't comply. She didn't kick you out. So she got penalized. She could have booted me out for.

[Heather Larson]

She got penalized. So yeah, we, we watched the amount of viewers Just shrink down. Like less people were being permitted to watch us.

[Derek Ross]

What are the current restrictions on her account and your account now? It was a just restriction.

[Heather Larson]

Now it was, it was, it was a 10 minute restriction. So the live was restricted for 10 minutes. In other words, like we're not going to let people view you for 10 minutes. And so it was like we literally watched the amount of viewers go down. So it wasn't being sent out to people. Like it wasn't being push to people. I presume new.

[Derek Ross]

New people weren't discovering it. I heard that.

[Heather Larson]

Okay. I also suspect the other thing I've seen go on with TikTok lives is that they get glitchy and so people jump out. This happened when you guys were doing a tik Tok live, you and her, when you were in Texas.

[Derek Ross]

Yes.

[Heather Larson]

Things were getting glitchy. So like the natural human response is this is glitchy. I'm going to log out and log back in. Or this is glitchy, I can't stand watching it, so I'm going to bounce. So one of those things happened. People started bouncing because of the probably glitchiness. I'm guessing it probably makes you glitchy, but the fact is it has the power to do. It has the power to hold up

[Derek Ross]

a video that I could have like QoS level. Like on a, on a technical level, they could say we're going to flag this stream for whatever reason and then. But, but we can't actually say that we're doing it because that would be hindering speech. But maybe we bump you down to a lower QO and they blame service level where you're now restricted bandwidth wise. I mean this 100% is technically possible. So now you're restricted to a small amount of bandwidth. So your stream sucks. So people aren't going to watch it because it's laggy, it's glitching, it's sputtering, buffering.

[Heather Larson]

Think that's what they're.

[Derek Ross]

And the platform can say, hey, we're not doing anything. We're letting them talk.

[Heather Larson]

Sure.

[Derek Ross]

The. Letting them talk on a Raspberry PI server. Like you don't have the full. You don't have full server resources behind you.

[Heather Larson]

But it's, it's a trip, you know. You know, it gets.

[Derek Ross]

It's 100% possible.

[Heather Larson]

You know, it was pissing me off about it later. Morgan and I laughed about it. She didn't kick me off the channel. We kept going for a little while longer. My phone was going to die anyway and so was her. So we had to get off soon after that. What made me mad was I thought about, like, I was not bullying anybody. I wasn't harassing anybody. I was merely talking about an experience I had where actually Morgan and I had been harassed by some. Somebody online. Both of us, but it's the same person. And like, the fact is, you can't even share your story because something. Something's listening. Some AI dumb moderation thing, some features, listening. And. And I've hit the trigger words. So there's like this notion that this human being might be harassing or bullying somebody else. It doesn't have the reasoning to say, oh, she's actually fine. She's just talking about an experience she had. So if you think about it, it actually is like a double victimization, right? So I got bullied online, but now I can't ever talk about it and share because now I'm getting flagged as the bad guy, right? So it's. It's like getting harassed all over again. I can't talk about being harassed online. I'm probably, you know, if I put this on YouTube, we're probably gonna get flagged there. You know what I mean? It's like. Like these are the magic words that. It's like I can't talk about certain experiences I've had in my life because if I use that language, it trips a trigger somewhere that says, she's evil, bad, wrong. She's talking about a taboo subject. Like, you can't talk about taboo subject. Even though I might be sharing a fact. Like, hi, I'm Heather, and I was harassed by a person online. I am sharing a fact, but I'm talking about a taboo subject. So I'm probably going to get flagged for it, probably going to get in trouble for it because we have to create this sanitized environment now because all these big companies got in trouble for the mental health of children, which they damaged and knew that they were perpetuating the damage. So now we have to create this sanitized society where we can never talk about negative experiences or taboo subjects. Because. Think of the children, Derek. Think of the children. That's what makes me mad, because I feel like it's.

[Derek Ross]

They definitely didn't think of the children when they had their algorithms that were damaging the.

[Heather Larson]

Right.

[Derek Ross]

Children's mental health.

[Heather Larson]

Right?

[Derek Ross]

So.

[Heather Larson]

But now they're punishing us, and they're punishing us.

[Derek Ross]

They are. Well, they went from one extreme to the other. Now. They said, whoa, whoa, whoa.

[Heather Larson]

Right?

[Derek Ross]

We went hardcore control and we Everybody up. So now we're going to go even harder control troll to unfuck everybody. But you're literally people again. Like, yeah, there needs to be literally, like, no way.

[Heather Larson]

Where can I go to share factual life experiences without being censored? Restricted, shadow, banned, deplatformed, etc.

[Derek Ross]

It's a place called I'll tell you where it's not. Heather, like, coincidentally, you and I are gonna have the same story. This episode, the podcast. I know, because coincidentally, you can't go to Reddit and have these types of conversations.

[Heather Larson]

Reddit is the worst.

[Derek Ross]

I was banned from Reddit. I was banned from Reddit yesterday.

[Heather Larson]

Congratulations. Let me, let me, let me, let

[Derek Ross]

me tell you about this.

[Heather Larson]

I knew Reddit wasn't banned from all of Reddit.

[Derek Ross]

So I've been on Reddit for 17 years. I love Reddit. Certain subs over the years, I have loved more than others. And, you know, you gravitate towards your community and you use the, the communities as you see fit. Every once in a while, you know, Reddit became a cesspool and I'm like, oh, I hate this cesspool. I'm not going to use it anymore. And then I just don't use that sub and I move on to a new sub. Right? You hop around Reddit communities, but it's still the Reddit hive mind. So I liked Reddit. So yesterday I was scrolling my feed and I saw a post called something along the lines of the Internet sucks and isn't fun anymore. And I was like, oh, this is what Soapbox talks about.

[Heather Larson]

That's our world.

[Derek Ross]

Yes, it's up our alley. So my read. So I read the whole post and there was a woman that just complained about how the Internet sucks, how social media has changed, it is not fun anymore. And she was nostalgic for the past. Ding, ding, ding. I said, you were like, my God.

[Heather Larson]

Hey.

[Derek Ross]

I replied. And I said, oh, my God. My company is literally building this. We have an app. It has themes, it has colors, it has a Tamagotchi virtual pet. It has fun. There's no algorithms, there's no ads. You can control of your attention, control your feed. You can customize everything, all the fun things that we miss, all the things that we market, why we built ditto on Nostr. And I said, this literally fits perfect. She replied, oh, my God, this is amazing. Multiple other people said, oh, wow, I can't believe that. This is really cool. This sounds fun and interesting. So the op. The original poster, she went and edited her Reddit post at the Bottom. And she said, one of us is building a fix for the inshinification of social media. Check it out. I just found this site, Ditto Pub. So she puts it in the post, the post blows up, gets like, you know, 700 upvotes. We get like, upwards of, like, a thousand people visiting Ditto. And then I get a message that I have been banned from the Millennial subreddit. I'm like, what the fuck? What did I do? I literally sent him to another website. And then after she replied to me saying, this is cool, I replied and she said something like, I don't have any rewards to give you. I wish I could give you an award, a Reddit award. And I replied back, I don't need. I don't need an award. Just please use the app and anything that you find that is broken doesn't work. Give me all your feedback. Send me all your feedback. Because that'. No, that's my job. I wanted feedback and that. I sent two messages, right? And I have this message now saying that I'm banned from the Millennial subreddit. I'm like, what the fuck? I. I didn't do anything.

[Heather Larson]

Well, you're too old.

[Derek Ross]

I didn't start a fight. I wasn't ov. I'm literally a millennial.

[Heather Larson]

Like, you mentioned ditto.

[Derek Ross]

I'm an. Like, I. I frequent the. The Xennials. The Xennials and the Millennials subreddit. And I love all the nostalgia in there. So I advertised something that I liked. I'm sorry, but it was a roots. Like, it wasn't like a. It was just completely organic.

[Heather Larson]

And you got banned.

[Derek Ross]

She got her post. She got her post. So I ended up messaging her and I'm like, hey, I got banned. I'm sorry if, you know, if you got banned too, you can see you

[Heather Larson]

can still message even though you got banned. I mean, that. That's optimism, right?

[Derek Ross]

Well, I mess. I messaged the op because I asked her for feedback. So I followed up and said, hey, if you have any. If you have any feedback, you can still get a hold of me through DMs, because you can't message me on that, you know, that post anymore. It's deleted and locked and all that, you know, good shit. So I was banned from that subreddit, and then I replied to the mods that banned me and said this was completely organic. This wasn't, you know, astroturfing. I didn't tell her to update the post to include Ditto Pub. She generally liked what I said.

[Heather Larson]

And replied with a fact, right?

[Derek Ross]

Like hey, like they, they the the mod team, the mod mail replied back to me saying that I was now permanently banned. I replied damn, Derek W. What the fuck? So Public Enemy. I replied back. I replied back to mod mail just via TF question mark. And because of that wtf, they then submitted my WTF comment to the Reddit admins and I got a three day temporary ban from Reddit for saying WTF to an unrightful ban. So things are escalating quickly. So obviously Derek's response is fuck you. You can't ban what doesn't exist. So apparently WC was rude foul. So I deleted my 17 year old Reddit account that I've been using. I mean you delete older than my chill. Older than my chill. Oh yeah, I went into the thing. I clicked delete account. Please confirm your password. Yes. Are you sure you want to delete? Yes, fuck you. And deleted. I. I'm done. I. I literally didn't do anything wrong. I was being helpful and that is, that is like my whole entire motto. So for being helpful I got fucking banned. Fuck.

[Heather Larson]

Well, fuck it. We have stacker news. Let's go hang out.

[Derek Ross]

We are going to obsolete them. Do you remember when it like that is. That is a phrase that is famous in the bit in the bitcoin community. You're legit obsolete you. You're mad. I used Reddit. I used Reddit every single day. I literally had a 7. A 7. I had a 700 day streak. They rolled out streaks. Two years ago I was working on my two year badge 700 days in a row. I used Reddit. I loved Reddit. But you, you know, I'll do a lot of dumb things out of principle and this is one of them. Account, account deleted. I will nap uninstalled. I will never go to Reddit again out of principle.

[Heather Larson]

Nostra only, baby. So nostra. Unless except for the accounts that is bots read on Twitter and LinkedIn. Yeah, yeah, like which is honestly with those.

[Derek Ross]

That's not me. That that's not me. That's bots. That's bots.

[Heather Larson]

No, but I like to smart ass your bot on there just in case you hadn't noticed. I figured you probably didn't. But no, like I expect to be banned on Tick Tock because I it is very policed. I feel like Reddit is worse though. That's why I don't like getting on Reddit because I don't want to do rules. I don't want mods determining how I behave. I don't want them determining my speech or its. And there's nothing wrong with telling somebody about something.

[Derek Ross]

Having guidelines for your community, though. I understand having guidelines.

[Heather Larson]

Make your own rules. I would have been. And I could have been okay.

[Derek Ross]

If they would have been. If they would have messaged me and like, hey man, just to let you know that we technically don't allow advertising. We're going to delete this comment. And I would have said, what the fuck? This was organic. But okay.

[Heather Larson]

Yeah, it was, it was not. Like you went in there like, hey everybody, have you heard of my company's website?

[Derek Ross]

I got people banned.

[Heather Larson]

Like there's no.

[Derek Ross]

They banned.

[Heather Larson]

You're not allowed to answer a question.

[Derek Ross]

And then when I replied, they permanently banned me when I tried to plead my case. Like some, there's no recourse. Some neck beard in their parents basement is sitting there in their parents basement.

[Heather Larson]

Yeah, you know, that's, that's the problem with the Internet is all that mom's basement energy. But yeah, rant over.

[Derek Ross]

I'm, I'm calm now. I'm not angry.

[Heather Larson]

That was good. Thank you. I laugh about the Tick tock situation because it kind of. That's two bands. That's two times I have been controlled or restricted by TikTok in the last week. So I'm probably just going to start posting the, the stuff I post on TikTok. I'll probably just like post it on Noster. It's. At some point it's going to be Noster only for everybody because like nobody. This is not an. These big platforms. Like we can't, we can't survive there. You know, you're going to get kicked off and I kind of. Morgan has a huge following there, which she doesn't want to lose. Obviously. She's, she's got a community that she really, she's working. She's. She's built that up. But that's the thing.

[Derek Ross]

At some point she's gonna be pushed to the edge.

[Heather Larson]

Yeah. If I get kicked off of TikTok now because I, I only have like 140 followers on, on TikTok. I looked at it today and I was like, you know this, there's no cost to me here. But I feel like there's a bigger cost for Morgan if she loses it. She has to go somewhere else and start over. And you know, Noster solves this problem because you have one Noster identity, one social graph goes with it. You take those people, that social graph with you forever. Whatever. Nost logging in Nobody can ban you.

[Derek Ross]

That's the no banning feature is that nobody can ban you. That's the thing is like case scenario, a relay or a client bans you and you say, cool, but that's using the protocol that hasn't happened to me. And you go and you use another relay and you go and you use another.

[Heather Larson]

I haven't had to do that. And more than I was.

[Derek Ross]

I was banned. I was on Noster.

[Heather Larson]

On Noster, on a relay.

[Derek Ross]

Satlantis banned me. The app Satlantis, Yes. Atlantis banned me about a year and a half ago. The. The owner of the application was upset at Derek and banned me and then blamed it on an application. Misconfiguration. Those things don't happen. They specific. And then I talked to their employee later and the employee admitted that they banned me. I'm now unbanned. That's nice of them. But yeah, they banned me for, you know, for petty reasons.

[Heather Larson]

Petty reasons.

[Derek Ross]

Literally. That's no big deal because there's a. There's hundreds of other clients, there's hundreds of other relays. So go ahead and ban me. And you made Plectus Nostr working as intended.

[Heather Larson]

You made your event app. It works as an intended. Well, here's the thing. In more than two years of being on Nostr, I have never had a video be held up in review because there's no moderation on Nostr. But I've. I'm so used to posting videos that I want to post on Nostr, they're the way I want them to be. I say what I want to say. There's no buddy, no human eyes, no AI eyes, no algorithm reviewing them before they get posted. Nobody can flag them and say she's spreading misinformation because they just don't like me because of their identity politics. Because that's what happens on all of the platforms. Oh, I don't agree with her politics. That's misinformation. I'm going to hit the button. So she gets moderated and then they're like super bad.

[Derek Ross]

Right. You know what needs to happen with our society? We need to grow up, go back in time when it was okay to have a difference of opinion.

[Heather Larson]

Right. I've noticed that with people. Have you noticed that?

[Derek Ross]

It's like, just because two people don't agree doesn't mean that one person is a hundred percent wrong. It just means you have a difference of opinions.

[Heather Larson]

Sure.

[Derek Ross]

All right. All right. Yeah.

[Heather Larson]

I have had instances lately where I have shared my opinion with other people, regardless of age, country, Background, whatever. And I have noticed that they are appalled that I think differently than them because they think what I think is wrong. I've noticed that. And I'm like, do you not realize that other people have differences of opinion then? And you're gonna have to get used to it. This is. This is. We live in a very black.

[Derek Ross]

Things are opinions, too. Like, yeah, there's so many of these cases where things are actual opinions. Like, there. There literally isn't a right or a wrong answer.

[Heather Larson]

Yeah.

[Derek Ross]

Because people think your opinion is different. They're like, oh, well, yeah. And people just differently than, you know, treat you like an or.

[Heather Larson]

Where did we get to where there's, like, a silent, like, idea that there's a majority that all thinks the same? Because when I hit people with a different idea from, you know, my life experience, background, whatever, I miss that, man.

[Derek Ross]

Like, no, because the chamber's boring.

[Heather Larson]

It is very boring. So it's like, I've seen people be stunned when I say, I don't agree with that. Here's why. And they're like. They don't know what to say. And it's like, you know, the black

[Derek Ross]

and white thinking is a problem. I don't have to agree with your reason for having a difference of an opinion, but I like to hear it just because it allows me to try to think, no, why does Heather think this way? People just feel this way. Let me think about her perspective, and then I can say, you know what? Her perspective, I understand it, and I don't agree. And I don't agree with that, and that's fine. But maybe I grew a little bit as a person because I could see where you're coming from.

[Heather Larson]

The last time I remember us as a society disagreeing peacefully with one another and maybe even having playful arguments about politics or world events or opinions or whatever was probably around the time of 9, 11. And then afterwards, as we were all trying to make sense of it, friends and coworkers, we all had different opinions about what was going on, and we actually discussed them openly with each other. And we still had lunch together later and moved on. Okay. And that's. That's the way. That's the way the younger generations are going to be shocked that this is the way it used to be, that you could be friends and have friendly discussions with people.

[Derek Ross]

You mean, people that were. Were on the left and on the right side of the political spectrum were able to be friends at the end of the day.

[Heather Larson]

And we used to even say incendiary

[Derek Ross]

things to each other.

[Heather Larson]

We would say the most radical things about one another's views and then we'd. I kid you not, laugh about it and walk away. And people don't do that anymore. It's become very black and white.

[Derek Ross]

It's because people used to. People used to be able to make fun of each other and pick on each other, and we can't do that.

[Heather Larson]

Bullying. Derek.

[Derek Ross]

The situation. Laugh at the situation. Laugh at the issue. Make fun of the issue. Because that's.

[Heather Larson]

You can't make fun of people, Derek. You can't do that. That's wrong speak. You can't do that because then TikTok restricts you. You can't even mention it. Or you get restricted. You get restricted with the wrong speak. You know, you can't say it, Derek. You gotta be regulated.

[Derek Ross]

Literally.

[Heather Larson]

My.

[Derek Ross]

My favorite thing to do is to make jokes and be sarcastic and make fun of the situation. I literally did that yesterday when I was. I'm a bitcoin maximalist. I made a shitpost about how this one aspect of a bitcoin maximalist literally is horrible, but I still do it. It was a huge shitpost about running a node. Like, 99 steps to run a node.

[Heather Larson]

But I bet you a lot of

[Derek Ross]

people, I'm like, guys, you know that I do this, right? Like, I can. I'm smart enough to recognize that it is a pain in the ass. I still do it because I want to do it. But I also understand that, like, literally, like, no one else in my family is ever going to do any of these things.

[Heather Larson]

You mean you use some discernment? Discernment. It's imbalanced thinking. Like, you actually, like, thought something through. You didn't. The problem with the black and white thinking in this day and age is

[Derek Ross]

not all of us fit inside the same box.

[Heather Larson]

No, but it's also. It's a cognitive distortion. And it means that your thinking, your critical thinking hasn't evolved yet. You see this in a lot of people in their early 20s. That's why we would send people to college. And now a society is changing, and maybe college is not so vital anymore as it used to be for a multitude of reasons, including economic. You know, maybe people aren't learning to get past their black and white thinking. And I think it's becoming a symptom of cope. And, you know, it doesn't mean you're less intelligent. You just haven't learned critical thinking skills yet. That much of life happens in a gray area and that you can't be using your black and white Thinking as. But that's my other so far.

[Derek Ross]

It's hard to develop critical thinking skills if you're not given the opportunity to develop them. You have to be in situations where you do have to think.

[Heather Larson]

Well, let's get back to TikTok. If a lot of people are using these social media platforms like TikTok, it's reinforcing the black and white thinking and it's reinforcing certain politics. Like I, I've been playing with, you know, I'll be honest, trying to get banned on TikTok. What can I get away with? What? Wait, wait, what can I get away with?

[Derek Ross]

You're actually trying to get banned?

[Heather Larson]

I'm actually, I'm trying at this point. So one day I posted, I collected a bunch of Trump memes and I made a post of Trump memes because I'm like, will this get me banned? Because they were kind of foul. Trump means. It was the week that he made fun of the Pope. And so I had a bunch of memes about that and I, I posted on TikTok like, Surely this will get, get me in trouble. No, did great. They love to push anti Trump rhetoric on TikTok. And again, my politics aren't one way or the other. I'm politically homeless. But I wanted to see what happened if I posted Trump memes. People fucking loved it and they followed me over it because I was sharing, I shared a whole post. It was a meme dump of Trump memes to some crazy song. And, and TikTok pushes, I would say far left views. I think it pushes Marxism and communist views to get more specific, you know. Well, so I don't think against Trump is that.

[Derek Ross]

But, you know, but I would have, I would, based on other things that I've read, I would see that, I would have assumed it was the other political spectrum that was being pushed, like right wing stuff based on other things.

[Heather Larson]

Well, so see I, I look at both on there and I, I don't get a lot of maga. I get a lot of, of liberal stuff, you know, pushed to me. I don't. But I, I love, I also love the one.

[Derek Ross]

Now here's the thing. I wonder if the algorithm thinks, thinks that's what you want, right?

[Heather Larson]

It does because there's this, there's this one lady that beats a Trump blow up doll with a stick every day and it's absolutely, it's hilarious because she's, she's got a stick and she, she talks to the camera, she talks about the Daily News and then she's like, and you're such an idiot. And she keeps hitting it with the stick and it's absolutely the most dumb but funny thing. And so I see it every day. It feeds it to me just, well, nearly every day. And I, I like it. And so now I am being fed every far left liberal, anti Trump thing, which is fine because I, I don't like Trump. I don't, I don't. Even if you voted for Trump at this point, you don't like him, right? I don't vote, by the way. I'm not registered to vote. I don't, I, I think that bitcoin is the way I'm going to change the world and not by voting. So I don't waste my time on it. But I still like, I watch all this stuff. And so yeah, TikTok has pegged me as many things. It knows where I'm geographically located, so it sends me Phoenix events and it sends me anti Trump stuff and it sends me. I'm in a, I'm in a man hating lo on there because I get fed the, the man hater algorithm of women who are, are fed up with dating. I get fed book talk, which I do want is like the one bit of content I want. I do get fed golf content, which I do want. But yeah, I'm, I'm getting. At some point it gets, it tests out what political content you might like so that it sends you more of that. It sen. It sends me a lot of.

[Derek Ross]

So what I'm hearing is, is that the algorithm has adapted to the type of content that you want.

[Heather Larson]

It has decided that this is what I want.

[Derek Ross]

Spoon feeding you that type of content.

[Heather Larson]

Yes, it's decided I am a man hating liberal woman who hates dating, hates Trump, wants to read books, wants to go golfing.

[Derek Ross]

I mean, I, I'm gonna say this as your friend. I don't think it's entirely wrong here.

[Heather Larson]

Heather. I don't think.

[Derek Ross]

I know, I know you. And out of all these conversations we've had, I'm now saying this algo actually has my friend Heather pretty well figured out.

[Heather Larson]

Like it's got me pretty. But it doesn't send me things that I really want. Like, it sends me some music things that I want. So I keep trying to like every music thing that comes across so it'll send me more music things, but it doesn't do that. It sends me, it wants me to be a tick tock creator, so it sends me that content.

[Derek Ross]

I'm also hearing something though, that, that, I mean, we know algorithms are bad, but we're talking literally about you having to try to game the algorithm. You want to see more music contents, you're like, shit, shit. I don't want to see whatever. I gotta start, I gotta start liking more and watching more music stuff so I can see more music stuff. That's just, that's just crazy to me. Like, why can't you have a feed of music stuff?

[Heather Larson]

Like, like, yeah, why can't you just direct to it?

[Derek Ross]

You can, you can do that, right? Like, why am I make a follow feed. You can make your hashtags, you can make your follow packs, you can pin those and you can have a feed of literally the things that you want.

[Heather Larson]

Yeah, I can be informed.

[Derek Ross]

There's a better way out there. Yeah, better way out there. Can I be able to be in control of your content, your algorithm, your feed, everything.

[Heather Larson]

I want to be able to understand

[Derek Ross]

why people still think that this.

[Heather Larson]

Because they don't know the alternatives live

[Derek Ross]

and die by the algorithm on Nostr.

[Heather Larson]

I have to do the work to choose what I see. But like the algorithm of TikTok has.

[Derek Ross]

It's proof of work. It's proof of work and not everybody wants to do that. They want to just be lazy and scroll. So we were talking about last episode. We need to change people's mindset, right?

[Heather Larson]

In the two months I've been on TikTok, it has decided that my desire to be informed about news results in me being assigned a personality where I'm a liberal man hating woman. Just because I am a woman who wants to know maybe some of the news vitriol that's out there. We won't mention it because again, I don't want to get us shadow banned on YouTube when I post this fucking video there.

[Derek Ross]

It's like a never ending madness.

[Heather Larson]

It's so obnoxious.

[Derek Ross]

This, this episode is going to completely derail our algorithm.

[Heather Larson]

I'm going to call it man hating liberal woman for the SEO to see what I'm going to get every single one of us kicked off of every single fucking social platform and we're just, we're just gonna exist in the end. That's it.

[Derek Ross]

What? Not. You know what? Noer only we. We'll be on Fountain, we'll be on all the podcasting 2.0 apps will be on Noster Podcast.

[Heather Larson]

You and I don't know how to act on the normal platforms now because we're used to the freedom of being.

[Derek Ross]

Apparently I was being helpful and I got banned from Reddit. I literally don't like what? What was I supposed to say? Ha ha. Like, I agree. Like, I couldn't be helpful.

[Heather Larson]

Haha. You probably should have said, michael, hey, I've got the solution for you. I've got the solution for you, ma', am, but you're going to have to DM me. I'm going to. You're going to have to slide into my DMs because I don't want to get banned for giving you the solution. Because that maybe it sounds like I want to send.

[Derek Ross]

Now that sounds like I wanted to send her like an unsolicited dick. Well, actually it's solicited at that point. Send her a solicited dick pic. Hey, slot into my DMs. I can help you out. Like, no, I just, I wanted to help in public so other people could be helped.

[Heather Larson]

Yeah, so frustrating. That's why I don't like when people were telling me Reddit was getting so popular like a couple years ago, I looked at it, I was like, I'm gonna get kicked off of this in two seconds because there's too many rules. I don't care. I'm not gonna remember if I want to talk about my product or service and that's gonna get me kicked off. Like, fuck that. It's the same thing with Facebook groups. Don't self promote. So how are people you won't promote.

[Derek Ross]

The whole self promotion thing is wild, right? If you, if I. Let's say I self promoted, I posted a link, whatever that. I'm not saying there's a rule for that or against that, but the community literally decides these things what it likes with upvotes and down votes. If everybody downvotes my self promotion, then it sounds like no one's gonna see it because everybody downvoted it. But if everybody thought it was helpful and they upvoted it, then it sounds like that's what the community wanted. The community can literally moderate the content. So why did a moderator have to go in there and choose what everybody was allowed to also vote or downvote by deleting it? Like how fast that happened, how people would upvote it?

[Heather Larson]

Are they just sitting there waiting for something to moderate because they have no fucking life? Because again, they're a neck beard in a mom's basement.

[Derek Ross]

I mean there's probably. So let's say, I mean there is an auto moderator bot. It automatically. Maybe they have it configured to automatically flag any post that has a link in it to see what the post says. And then maybe a mod Looked at it and said. He said this was an app that his company worked on. Oh, that's advertising. We got a band.

[Heather Larson]

Imagine.

[Derek Ross]

So what did. It had hundreds of upvotes and people thought it was helpful. No, we don't want to be helpful. We got to keep people on Reddit and keep them controlled, where I'm a mod and I can control their speech.

[Heather Larson]

When you're at a real life party and you meet somebody, you're like, calm down.

[Derek Ross]

Why am I mad again?

[Heather Larson]

You're mad. I just got you amped up. No, imagine you're at a real life party and you're, you're just at a shindig, holding a drink, whatever. You're like, hey, so what are your hobbies? And some guy's like, well, I'm a very important moderator on Reddit and I kick people like Derek Ross off for promoting Ditto pub. That motherfucker.

[Derek Ross]

Immediately Heather's like, sploosh.

[Heather Larson]

Like, oh, God, what a great hobby. Do you want to be a Reddit mod when you grow up? Like, how are you like, stick that chest out, brother. You've moderated people off the Internet. You've taken away people's free speech. Good, good for you. I did that. Make your day. I mean, come on. God, I'm g. Have to.

[Derek Ross]

That's what I should have done. I should have. Yeah, yeah. You're going to have to mute that for YouTube. Sorry, YouTube. We, we made it.

[Heather Larson]

Sorry, YouTube. We're trying to behave. I'm going to get us kicked off of YouTube. It's very easy to get kicked off of Tik Tok and Reddit is. What I've learned from this conversation is that Derek and I, we've been so used to our free speech so so far for years now, that we can't act right on the, on the corporate platforms, we immediately get into trouble. Like you and I, we can't take each other anyway.

[Derek Ross]

Thankfully, noster and decentralized media exists for us, so we can make. Make the dirty joke from time to time and not get kicked off or banned.

[Heather Larson]

I can use any word I want. I can also mute any word I want. And I do so that there's content that I don't see. I police my own content.

[Derek Ross]

This will talk about. Since we're talking about censorship, let's answer that question that you just alluded to. Somebody actually asked this on that Reddit thread that I was banned, when I said, nobody controls speech. Someone said, well, what do you do if someone says, you know something, you know, see, Sam, Type stuff, you know, what do you do with that? And I was going to respond, but Reddit took away my ability to do that. So I'll answer it now. So, sure. There is obviously, obviously all kinds of speech in free speech, unmoderated speech, because that means everybody can say whatever they want. And you're going to get the good and you're going to get the bad.

[Heather Larson]

But what is the dark side to it?

[Derek Ross]

Good and bad is highly, highly subjective to the individual. And then with, with your own community, you're given tools to control your feed so you can mute block whatever your client, whatever your app calls it, mute curate your feed however you want. And there might be some stuff in that you don't want to see. Boom, you don't have to see it. You click a couple buttons, press a few things and it's done. You don't see it anymore. And then there's other apps out there that have these web of trust mechanisms where it's essentially a self governed community where people inside this community can make the rules. It's almost like Reddit without a few people, you know, controlling the speech, where everybody can control the speech in, in that community. And these are the types of tools that we're building to make this better, where you give people as many tools, as many options, configuration items as they can so they can control and moderate the content that they want to see, not some neck beard in the basement.

[Heather Larson]

I have always marveled at the longer we do this, the more, the more I am struck by just how so many people use social media differently and how people use the Internet differently.

[Derek Ross]

And that's okay.

[Heather Larson]

Yeah, it's great. That's the way it should be. And so like for me, for example, I've covered damn near enough elections in my lifetime and I'm tired of, of them. And as a journalist, I'm tired of them. As a person, I'm tired of them. I also don't register to vote. I don't want to be bothered with any of it. And so the closer we get to an election in this country, the more the vitriol and people talk about it and the rage, bait and engage on every platform is hideous. So on noster, I'm like, well, this can be where I'm free of the election news. So I will mute the word election. I will mute the word ballot, I will mute the word vote so that I don't have to be subjected to any of it because y' all know I ain't going to the voting polls anyway. I Just, I don't even want to be bothered. It's not part of my life. I've opted out. And that is how I make my opt out on the Internet. On Nostr.

[Derek Ross]

I think it is important that everybody has this type of capability and that's why I'm currently, right now, I participated in my second one today. There's a watathon going on right now. Web of Trust hackathon, essentially.

[Heather Larson]

Oh yeah, it's a lot. It's the end of it.

[Derek Ross]

There's. Yeah, there's almost two dozen projects that are being built that utilize this web of trust in various shapes, various fashions and so forth. And the common goal is that all of these apps are giving all these services, apps, you know, products are all giving users an insane amount of control over their content, over their community, where everybody can configure and weight things how they like, like, like. Heather, if you like comments and music, that can be your weight. Like my weight is maybe zaps and likes or something. You know, I, I can have that be my weight and yours is like, we can still be part of the dev team community. But our feeds would be, but our feeds would be very different. Right? Like it. You can literally do that.

[Heather Larson]

And no two feeds are alike.

[Derek Ross]

Building this into all these apps, all these experience. Exactly. No two feeds are, are going to be alike. And there's no one that is in control because ultimately, let's say I'm using a web of trust curator provider that is working on the skill. I'm sorry, the, the number. What's the word I'm looking for the score. Yeah, sorry, wrong S word. Looking for the score number for everybody in your web of trust. If that, if that web of trust score provider, the attestation provider, if they're doing something wrong that I don't like, that's okay. There's others. I can move on to that one. I can move on to the next. Move on to the next. Or I can run my own if I'm more technically savvy. So there' single one person that controls Web of Trust scores. There's no single one person that is going to have the same score based on who they are and what they're like. Because everybody's weights are going to be different. Like you and I might follow the same people, Heather, but we have what might do vastly different weights and configurations for that individual person. And that's what's beautiful about this. We're literally giving people the tools to do whatever they want.

[Heather Larson]

I just want the chronological fire Hose of going into the nostril feed and just seeing notes and replies can, what are people talking about? You know, that's, that's, that's.

[Derek Ross]

You don't have to have the US government sanctioned TikTok feed and you don't have to have the Mark Zuckerberg sanctioned Instagram feed or the Elon Musk sanctioned, you know, Twitter feed. You know what, have the Heather sanctioned feed.

[Heather Larson]

In the long run, I would see where this, where this could go to where like I can even get away from the, the state sponsored CBS News, right? Because we could get real journalists onto Nost and reward them for their work that way so that they don't have to compromise themselves by working for a CNN or working for a cbs. You know, you can, you can do your own original reporting site, cite your sources if, if you're not doxing people obviously, but you know, site, site where you got the information report posted on Nostr where nobody can take it down and nobody can delete it. And then you're monetized on Nostr automatically. You don't have to reach a certain amount of followers. So you could be Joe Schmo from Iowa, journalist who's like, you know what, I'm t censored or told what to do by this news organization. I'm not a big guy, but I know my work is good. So me and my 30 followers are coming over here to Noster and I don't have to wait until I reach a thousand followers or a thousand hours viewed or whatever. You know, pick your favorite metric. I can monetize from day one. And if I'm, you know, filling out FOIA requests and I'm getting information and I'm sharing it with the world so that the world gets real journalism and original reporting again. You know, I would expect my community that I'm reporting for to value that. You know, there are still excellent political reporters in this country, but sure, sure. And then you become think.

[Derek Ross]

I think what you're alluding to is everybody's value perception is different and right. And we're allowed to be unique and we're allowed to have our own perception of value and divvy out value how we want to and also completely do that and can be in control of that with nostalgia.

[Heather Larson]

The larger picture too is, is like, look at what TMZ is doing. TMZ is now like chasing instead of chasing celebrities, they're chasing around members of Congress. And it's great, right, because like they're finally using their powers for good instead of Being like celebrity paparazzi in Hollywood. They're like, they're outing the politicians who, you know, while, while it's in question whether TSA is getting paid or not during a government shutdown, these guys are going to Disneyland and TMZ's following them around. Yeah. And they're. And they're following around rfk, asking raccoons and stuff. And it's absolutely hilarious because, you know, your big media is not doing this. Your CBS isn't doing this. The CBS state sponsored media doesn't want to do anything that would upset Trump. So, like, CBS isn't, CNN's not doing that. They don't have. The TMZ has the resources to do this. But, like, is ABC News, I worked for ABC News. Is ABC News doing this? Are they following the congressmen around Disneyland? Do you know what you would have to do? You would have to send your biggest reporter to do that and chase them around or your local CBS reporters or abc, whoever in Orlando would have to go catch them. Like, you would have to like, find somebody on the ground to like the coordination of this. But like, TMZ has this and they're like, whatever, let's open a DC Bureau and we're going to chase them around in their own backyard. Which is brilliant. You know, and at some point is, here's my question. At some point, because Elon's in bed with the government, Zuckerberg's in bed with the government. Do Twitter and Facebook at some point shut down the TMZ account because Trump gets mad. Like, I already see this coming. Somebody somewhere who's got influence and who's gotten favors from the government is going to say, hey, you know what? Tmz, sorry, you know what? You can't post that. Trump says, we got to put the kibosh on that. And that's where, like, the government has too much influence over the tech platforms. We all know this. Like, we don't even need to argue that. But at some point we can make our own media on Noster, whether it's music, whether it's news. Like, I want TMZ on Noster chasing down politicians. I mean, that's great. Because you know what the problem?

[Derek Ross]

Well, they could use Nostr because they wouldn't be able to get censored or banned if they use nostr.

[Heather Larson]

Exactly. Like, because if you see the video on one social platform and then like, look for it on the next. Like, if I see it on TikTok, will it pop up on Twitter? Because Twitter's not chronological anymore. Like Nostr. So if they posted the video to Twitter and I saw it on TikTok, but then I want to go to my Twitter account and share it there. I got to dig and figure out, like, how did Twitter bury the video? When did they post it? How do I find it? It's not the same thing on each platform because the algorithms are weighted differently. And so it gets harder to find the same information but on different platforms. You know, it's there because, you know, TMZ is on Twitter. You know, they're on TikTok. They're on everything. The. The moral of the story is that, you know, today it's. It's Heather and Derek getting censored from TikTok and Reddit, but tomorrow it could be TMZ, which is actually doing important work. That sense. I never thought I'd say, yeah, you know, like, the ability work. I know, like, yeah, 2026 bingo card is like, just throw it out. It's over. We didn't see any of this coming. And it's only April.

[Derek Ross]

No.

[Heather Larson]

It's a wild year. All right, Derek.

[Derek Ross]

But at the end of the day, we know somebody. Every single one of us, every single one of you listening, listening to this. Know somebody that will be censored at some point. It's becoming incredibly common, sadly. Oh, yeah. And whenever that happens, Noster will be here for you and be here for them. That's why we build.

[Heather Larson]

And we'll keep building. I. I, Captain. Keep building. Next week, next week, we'll have the true Vegas. True Vegas recap. So have a peaceful week. True Vegas weekend censored. Try not to get banned. Banned. Try to try to stay online, folks.

[Derek Ross]

And if you try not to get banned in the meantime, unless you're Heather, apparently, try to get banned so we can talk about it.

[Heather Larson]

I don't know. The things I try to do to get banned on TikTok don't get me banned. The things I'm not trying to get banned for are the things that get me banned. So anyway, if I'm still on TikTok in a week, we'll. We'll find out. And if I'm not, maybe.

[Derek Ross]

Maybe that's our next major, major Noster campaign. Like, we had Noster November. We had March off Twitter. Twitter. Maybe the next one is too hot for Tick Tock.

[Heather Larson]

Get.

[Derek Ross]

Get Banned April or something.

[Heather Larson]

It's too hot for Tick Tock, Hot Girl Summer for me. That's what it is. You've heard of Hot Girl Summer? Well, I'm too hot for Tick tock, girl. Summer doesn't have come up with a

[Derek Ross]

good hashtag for that. And we'll make it happen and we'll meme it into the Noster verse.

[Heather Larson]

Alrighty, sir. We'll talk soon.

[Derek Ross]

Peace.