Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey addresses students through the town hall on the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) in New Delhi, India November 12, 2018.
Anushree Fadnavis | Reuters
The team behind the decentralized social messaging app Damus, backed by Twitter co-founder Jack Dorsey, warned on Tuesday that Apple could remove the app from its App Store inside 14 days. Apple later backed down from the threat, but only after Damus agreed to remove some payment features.
The move could put a stop to 1 plan to make bitcoin easier to make use of and switch it right into a more convenient transnational digital currency.
Damus originally said wa tweet This Apple is considering a ban as a result of its messaging app integrating with the Lightning Network, a payment protocol that permits users to exchange bitcoin directly over the network without the necessity for one more app. On Nostr – the first platform on which Damus operates – these kinds of payments are generally known as “zaps”.
In his tweet, Damus said Apple is anxious that content creators could also be using zaps to sell digital content on its platform. Apple has a protracted history of prohibiting app developers from using in-app payments to sell additional content or add-ons unless those payments undergo Apple, which charges a 30% discount.
Damus later added in one other tweet that app developers must remove the “zap” button from posts because Apple considers it “selling digital content”.
“Only zaps in profiles are allowed,” Damus said in a tweet. “It cripples the damus very badly, but you’ll be able to still at the least smite.”
Apple said in a press release that the corporate screens “all apps against the identical set of guidelines which might be designed to guard customers and ensure a good and level playing field for developers.” The iPhone maker added that it had “identified a feature within the Damus app that permits users to tip for in-app digital content, which violates the App Store Review Guidelines.”
Dorsey tweeted his dissatisfaction with Apple, saying that “Tipping on posts is just not selling digital content. It’s a type of opinion.”
“Why restrict people sending one another bitcoins?” Dorsey asked. “This is our only probability to construct a really global web payment protocol (which could be of great profit to what you are promoting).”
Dorsey, who can also be the CEO of the payment company Unit (formerly Square) is an advocate of cryptocurrencies, and Block has made some big bets on cryptocurrency, including a system to assist people “mine” bitcoin — the means of running resource-intensive computer programs to validate bitcoin transactions and create latest coins.
Last December, Dorsey donated 14 bitcoins value roughly $245,000 to the Nostr construct team, which is a decentralized social media initiative not intended to be owned by any particular leader or business entity. Nostr users can keep their identity in lots of Nostr-based apps, resembling Damus, and exchange bitcoins with one another via the Lightning network.
Dorsey, certainly one of the co-founders and former CEO of Twitter, advocates decentralized apps as the following evolution of social media, where users can express themselves and will not be forced to follow the principles of social media operators.
Many of those platforms lack algorithms to recommend specific content – an issue for some Twitter users who complain that since Elon Musk took over, Twitter’s “For You” tab has featured less relevant content. They don’t sell ads or collect and sell user data, which is a classic way social networks earn a living.
Dorsey can also be now a proponent of the Bluesky messaging app, which is built on a decentralized networking technology called the AT protocol. Bluesky, which continues to be user-only via invites, has grown in popularity as users flee Twitter amid an increase in hate speech and bugs, nevertheless it’s still much smaller than the favored messaging app Tesla CEO Musk bought last fall.
To watch: Twitter rummages on the announcement of the candidacy of Ron DeSantis
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