dikaios1517 on Nostr: I understand why this is an expectation based on our experience from centralized ...
I understand why this is an expectation based on our experience from centralized social media. However, it is extremely difficult, if not impossible, to achieve on Nostr. Let me explain why.
Your posts are stored on relays, and they are not encrypted. If they were, you would need to provide anyone you wanted to be able to read your notes a decryption key. Most people want their notes to be visible by default, though. They want people they have no idea even exist to be able to discover what they have posted. Nostr was created so that people could speak in public without fear of censorship.
This means that anyone who has access to read from the relays you post to will be able to read your posts. The only way to prevent this would be for that relay, and any other relay you are posting to, or that your notes may have been rebroadcasted to, to blacklist whoever you blocked from reading from it. However, relay admins aren't going to blacklist someone from reading and writing to their relay just because you don't want them to see your posts.
If you don't want someone to be able to see your posts, you would have to ONLY post to relays that they cannot read from. However, anyone with access to that relay could still rebroadcast your note to other relays, and then that user you wanted to block would still be able to see your notes. Only lockbox and zapbox relays (recently created by fiatjaf (nprofile…wjy3) ) would be able to prevent your notes from being able to to be rebroadcasted out to other relays, and those relay types are few and far between.
The protocol also cannot force someone to unfollow you. This is because of how "following" someone works on Nostr. When you are a brand new user, with a fresh npub/nsec key pair, and you tap "follow" on the first user you want to have show up in your home feed, a special kind of note is created and broadcast to your write relays called a "follow list." It is exactly what it sounds like; just a list of the npubs you are following, signed by your private key.
The next time you follow someone, a new follow list is created, with all the npubs you had on it before (hopefully) along with the new npub you just followed. When your nsec is used to sign this note and broadcast it out to your write relays, those relays are intended to discard the old version of this follow list, in favor of the new one. They will ONLY do so if the new list is signed by YOUR private key.
Now, let's say you wanted to remove yourself from this user's follow list when you block them. How would that work? Their follow list can only be updated using a signature from THEIR private key, and they are under no compulsion to agree to having your npub removed from their follow list. Relays will reject any change to their follow list that they didn't sign for, for good reason. You wouldn't want just anyone to be able to edit your follow list, would you?
Now, relays could be updated to reject any requests to provide your posts to users who are on your mute list, but you would need to ensure that EVERY public relay had a copy of your mute list in order for this to work. Moreover, it would be trivial to circumvent because it takes about 2 seconds to spin up a fresh npub that you haven't blocked yet and be able to see anything you are posting.
Nostr is NOT built for privacy. Everything you post to it, outside of maybe your own lockbox relay, should be considered 100% public. Post accordingly and do not reveal anything about yourself that you don't want to be public knowledge.
Your posts are stored on relays, and they are not encrypted. If they were, you would need to provide anyone you wanted to be able to read your notes a decryption key. Most people want their notes to be visible by default, though. They want people they have no idea even exist to be able to discover what they have posted. Nostr was created so that people could speak in public without fear of censorship.
This means that anyone who has access to read from the relays you post to will be able to read your posts. The only way to prevent this would be for that relay, and any other relay you are posting to, or that your notes may have been rebroadcasted to, to blacklist whoever you blocked from reading from it. However, relay admins aren't going to blacklist someone from reading and writing to their relay just because you don't want them to see your posts.
If you don't want someone to be able to see your posts, you would have to ONLY post to relays that they cannot read from. However, anyone with access to that relay could still rebroadcast your note to other relays, and then that user you wanted to block would still be able to see your notes. Only lockbox and zapbox relays (recently created by fiatjaf (nprofile…wjy3) ) would be able to prevent your notes from being able to to be rebroadcasted out to other relays, and those relay types are few and far between.
The protocol also cannot force someone to unfollow you. This is because of how "following" someone works on Nostr. When you are a brand new user, with a fresh npub/nsec key pair, and you tap "follow" on the first user you want to have show up in your home feed, a special kind of note is created and broadcast to your write relays called a "follow list." It is exactly what it sounds like; just a list of the npubs you are following, signed by your private key.
The next time you follow someone, a new follow list is created, with all the npubs you had on it before (hopefully) along with the new npub you just followed. When your nsec is used to sign this note and broadcast it out to your write relays, those relays are intended to discard the old version of this follow list, in favor of the new one. They will ONLY do so if the new list is signed by YOUR private key.
Now, let's say you wanted to remove yourself from this user's follow list when you block them. How would that work? Their follow list can only be updated using a signature from THEIR private key, and they are under no compulsion to agree to having your npub removed from their follow list. Relays will reject any change to their follow list that they didn't sign for, for good reason. You wouldn't want just anyone to be able to edit your follow list, would you?
Now, relays could be updated to reject any requests to provide your posts to users who are on your mute list, but you would need to ensure that EVERY public relay had a copy of your mute list in order for this to work. Moreover, it would be trivial to circumvent because it takes about 2 seconds to spin up a fresh npub that you haven't blocked yet and be able to see anything you are posting.
Nostr is NOT built for privacy. Everything you post to it, outside of maybe your own lockbox relay, should be considered 100% public. Post accordingly and do not reveal anything about yourself that you don't want to be public knowledge.