Facebook Challenger Has Something Zuckerberg Doesn’t Offer: Freedom By Kyle Perisic
August 13, 2018 at 9:26am
Few platforms have challenged the virtual monopolies of Facebook, Google and Twitter, and they have crushed nearly all competitors. But what makes Facebook, Google and Twitter weak is where challengers see potential.
The three tech companies have come under fire for their data collection, privacy and censorship policies. Together, they control almost the everything users see on the Internet. Almost.
In balancing transparency and privacy, blockchain aims to change the way social media operates. No major social media platform utilizes blockchain except Minds.
Blockchain works like this: an individual makes a transaction request; that request is processed in a person-to-person network of computers, called “nodes;” nodes then validate the transaction; once the transaction is validated, the network creates a new “block,” which is attached to all other transactions; and then the transaction is complete.
A transaction can be anything: a financial transaction, a message or a video. What makes blockchain unique is its incorruptibility. Every transaction is recorded and stored, making fraud nearly impossible.
While lawmakers struggle to decide how best to handle platforms censoring voices for their political views, whether through regulation or declaring them public utilities, millions of users are leaving them entirely. Some of them are going to Minds.
What Is ‘Minds’?
Enter Facebook, Twitter and YouTube’s biggest threat: Minds.com. Minds is a social media platform that is essentially a hybrid between all three companies. No other alternative utilizes blockchain the way Minds does.
In an interview with The Daily Caller News Foundation, Minds CEO and co-founder Bill Ottman to explained his alternative to Twitter, Facebook and YouTube, which is owned by Google.
What makes Minds different is its transparency, Ottman explained. Anyone can look at how Minds functions and see that it’s not spying on it users. The platform is completely decentralized. Ottman says decentralized networks are the future.
“Minds’ foundational principles — privacy, transparency and free speech — are essential. All of our code is open source, meaning anyone can look at it. Some alternatives are not open sourced,” Ottman said. “If you’re not going to give your community the software code how can you expect to be transparent? You have to show that the software is not spying on you.”
Users can “boost” their accounts or posts, much like an ad, to either their peers or the entire network to earn exposure and organically grow a base of followers.
While Facebook and Twitter can shadow ban conservatives, users can look at Minds’ code and see that it doesn’t and isn’t able to do that. New users flock to Minds every day there’s coverage of Facebook or Twitter or Google censoring voices.
Minds doubled its active user base in July and now has over 1.4 million users form a wide-range of political beliefs including conservatives and liberals, as well as non-political users that just want to discuss their favorite movies with users of similar interests.
“Shadow banning is one of the most dangerous things” for social media, Ottman said. “It’s totally unsustainable for the entire media industry. There needs to be an ethical alternative.”
“The reality is that they (Facebook, Twitter, Google) are punishing certain pages and we don’t know why because they won’t share their code,” he added.
Minds, on the other hand, emphasizes first amendment principles over anything. If it’s legal in the U.S., you can post it on Minds.
“Aligning with the first amendment is better as a principle and it’s less prone to subjective and biased moderation that comes with blurry terms on establishment social networks,” Ottman said. “The more open approach gives less overhead with unnecessary banning and more focus on actual illegal material.”
The Empire Strikes Back
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Poster Comment:
Zuckerberg agreed to allow the Chinese to censor Facebook just so he could have access to the markets in China. Again the Almighty Dollar rules the roost.