Nostr relays can't really moderate, as far as I know. They just forward messages. So I guess relays in the UK can be shut down, but then other relays from other countries just take over.
this post was submitted on 29 Jul 2025
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Relay operator and implementation dev here... operators could moderate if they wanted, via IP blocklists or anything else such as specific words/phrases filters, etc depending upon which implementation they use. There are some relay implementations that are quite customizable and since they're FOSS, the code could be forked altered for anything else custom that makes the United Kuckdom happy.
Sure, if I was great at coding I could take a stab at it, but I am not.
What if I am just running a relay outside the UK as a service to support the notr network. If this law requires the small relays/me to moderate, then they/I would just shut down instead and the notr network would be worse off for it.
For sure, I understand that. It will ultimately come down to the individual. Are they willing to wait it out and see if they even get contacted by the UK gov in some way. If you're running yours in a VPS you could set up geo-blocking in a way that's standard for any webserver, outside anything to do with Nostr. That'd be the sysadmin and simplest way of dealing with it at least. Personally, I'm not changing anything for the UK.
Yep, if they do contact me about my open relay, it's just going down. :)
Are you under their jurisdiction? If not, I'd not even acknowledge the contact from them, damned spammers trying to scare people with bullshit....
I'm not. So in theory they shouldn't even contact me, just block me.
So basically if you don’t want to collect passports from people;
- stop hosting if you’re in the uk or…
- Ignore uk law and wait for the Great British Firewall to block you.