Saw this on Reclaim the Net and I thought that others might be interested. The self appointed censors of Google have apparently chosen their next target, the social platform Minds. Google is making demands of the Minds company for changes in their service and have restricted several key features of the Minds app in the Google play store.
This is what Reclaim the Net said about this latest move from Google against Minds.
Bill Ottman, CEO of the open-source, free speech social network Minds has revealed that several key features will no longer be available in the Google Play store version of the Minds app after Google sent a 24-hour warning.
Ottman wrote that the Minds team had removed search, discovery, and comments from the response app which was accepted into the Google Play store. This functionality has also been removed from the Minds iOS app.
“We aren’t happy and will be working towards something better,” Ottman added.
The company is now planning major overhauls of various features in its app this quarter including its mobile messenger, its mobile wallet, and its token rewards. Minds plans to replace the current mobile messenger with a new version that offers group chats, file sharing, end-to-end encryption, federation, and more.
“We will be releasing a full report on our plan for fully censorship-resistant infrastructure,” Ottman wrote.
Ottman suggested that Minds was targeted by Google over “controversial speech” and that apps where most of the user-generated posts are encrypted and there is little public content are allowed to remain on the app stores.
While the Minds team aren’t happy with the current solution, Ottman noted the importance of alternative apps maintaining access to Apple and Google’s app stores which are responsible for almost all app installs on user devices:
“It is key to maintain access to the stores because hundreds of thousands of current users are currently installed there. We recommend everyone download from us. If you are on Apple, leave if you’re smart.”
The article went on to explain that Minds is setting up or has set up ‘escape pods’ to ensure service continuity should they be deplatformed from their servers. My own view is this is probably going to be necessary if the experience of Parler is anything to go by. They will need to have some form of control over their distribution rather than have that distribution in the hands of Big Tech.
With regard to Google censorship. Have not used Google as a search engine for more than 2 years, when realized that there is no privacy and that they are “stalking” you if you use them. Use duckduckgo
which makes a promise not to “stalk” the individual using their search enging.
I’ve been using DDG for years. The only thing I can find wrong with it is that it is very US centric in its search results.
Like most people during the exodus I have tried everywhere including minds, it’s ok but not a patch on what parler was.
I noticed today that parler is now delivering a 404 page error (previously it was giving dns errors). That shows that the domain is now resolving to a server somewhere which is an improvement and could mean it’s going to return.
The page error for Parler has now changed to one that reads that they are working on being back soon.
Telegram already purged most Right, they saw what happened to Parler and caved
Scott Adams / Dilbert was there, gone?
Minds, lets see what happens to Rev Simon
https://www.minds.com/revsimonsideways/
The Great Purge
The Left excels at suppressing speech
youtube.com/watch?v=HhG0wlt8q0k
Twitter: Our Purge of Trump supporters must continue
youtube.com/watch?v=ZFhHg8QXTE8
We’re living in USSR II, sheeple need to wake up before it’s too late to reverse
btw: Mum (80) in chat today: ‘my Polish once a week helper is considering moving back to Poland as UK becoming too similar to USSR and worried she may not be allowed to leave soon’