Regular readers will have noticed that I’m mentioning the free speech social media platform Minds in articles a fair bit recently. There’s a reason for this and that’s because this platform is damned impressive. It has a seriously impressive reach and I’m getting viewing figures from Minds that I could only have dreamed about Twitter and Facebook, even for some niche posts where the content is I consider very parochial.
I’ve been so impressed with both Minds and the other increasingly popular free speech social media platform gab.ai that I’m beginning to wonder why I ever bothered with less free environments such as Twitter and Facebook. On Minds and on Gabai, I can voice my view of the world and be absolutely certain that neither the Snowflake Legion of the permanently offended or well connected enemies could get my output silenced or excessively filtered. The free speech attitude of Minds is very liberating and eventually I will be putting a link my minds and gabai feeds on the social media section of the F211 website. I will probably be abandoning the legacy social media platforms that are failing and are increasingly being abandoned by users pissed off by the SJW’s who have the upper hand on these entities.
It must be said at this point that Minds is still in Beta mode and there are some gremlins that they need to sort out and some of the interfaces are not as intuitive as many of us would like. It is I have to state, a platform that you do need to spend an hour or so learning about. However even me using Minds in ‘appliance operator’ mode I am still pleasantly surprised by the reach that my posts have on there.
One of the things that I really like about Minds is that creators are rewarded for creating content. If you make a post or comment on another’s activity or stay logged in and check the newsfeed regularly then you are given points. Minds users can spend these points on promoting either their own work or the work of others that impresses them. This encourages people to make links that are both wide and deep.
As for disadvantages well they stem from the free speech ethos of the platform. As well as there being a very large number of intelligent and engaged users from both the Left and the Right, such as Sargon of Akkad and Dave Cullen to give but two examples, the platform also has it’s share of wankers. These wankers are the usual sort of jackboot-lickers, tin foil hat types and right wing/left wing ultras that can pop up on any platform but and they are not filtered out by default and you do have to block or mute them. I find that a quick spin back through a week or so of a new follower’s activity (something I do on other social media platforms anyway) will reveal whether this person is relatively sane and reasonable or whether they are the sort of person who wears a tin foil hat and screams about how polio vaccines are a ‘Zionist plot’ or similar nonsense. The effort needed to block the minority of tossers is a price worth paying for the right to speak freely.
The format of Minds is post with comments visible when you click on the article or if you follow a person their comments will appear in your newsfeed, which is the equivalent of a Twitter timeline. There’s a notifications tab where new followers or commentators to the users appear as an alert and a ‘Wallet’ tab where you can keep track of your points, buy points at $10 USD for 10,000 points and monetise your points.
I’d certainly urge those people who are getting dissatisfied with the legacy social media such as Twitter and Facebook to have a look at Minds. Why not come and say ‘hello’ to me as on Minds I’m listed as @Fahrenheit211
Those curious about the Minds platform may be interested in this video from the journalist Tim Pool of Timcast. In the video Mr Pool interviews Bill Ottman one of the co-creators of the Minds platform and it’s a pleasant surprise to see Mr Ottman be so gung ho for freedom of speech although Mr Ottman recognises that there sometimes has to be lines drawn and recognisably illegal stuff like threat to kill needs to be dealt with and dissuaded.
If you want to be able to speak freely without having to look over your shoulder at censorious social justice warriors or permanently offended grievance mongers then I’d urge you to give Minds a try but I’d also like to advise people to stick with Minds even if at first the format or controls do not seem to be similar to what you may be used to. If you like good digital or conventional art, music, political opinion and discussion, science stuff or video, then you really should be thinking of checking out Minds.
On Minds you can reach people who matter, people who are engaged and who may be interested in what you may have to say. Give Minds a try you never know you might like it.
