Minds Bill of Rights

By Aaron on July 13, 2019 in Products

Minds Bill of Rights Protects Ideas

Minds is officially adopting the Manila Principles On Intermediary Liability, a digital bill of rights, outlined by the Electronic Frontier Foundation and other leading digital rights organizations. The principles have been endorsed by nearly 300 leading press freedom and technology policy organizations and individuals. They act as a guideline for protecting freedom of expression and create an open environment for innovation. It is our hope to create a network effect of companies and organizations adopting the principles to further Internet freedom globally.

Introduction to Minds.com Bill of Rights

All communication over the Internet is facilitated by intermediaries such as Internet access providers, social networks, and search engines. The policies governing the legal liability of intermediaries for the content of these communications have an impact on users’ rights, including freedom of expression, freedom of association and the right to privacy.

With the aim of protecting freedom of expression and creating an enabling environment for innovation, which balances the needs of governments and other stakeholders, civil society groups from around the world have come together to propose this framework of baseline safeguards and best practices. These are based on international human rights instruments and other international legal frameworks.

Uninformed intermediary liability policies, blunt and heavy-handed regulatory measures, and a lack of consistency across these policies has resulted in censorship and other human rights abuses by governments and private parties, limiting individuals’ rights to free expression and creating an environment of uncertainty that also impedes innovation online.

The framework presented here should be considered by policymakers and intermediaries when developing, adopting, and reviewing legislation, policies and practices that govern the liability of intermediaries for third-party content. Our objective is to encourage the development of interoperable and harmonized liability regimes that can promote innovation while respecting users’ rights in line with the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights and the United Nations Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights.

The Manila Principles On Intermediary Liability

1. Intermediaries should be shielded from liability for third-party content.

2. Content must NOT be required to be removed without an order by a judicial authority.

3. Requests for restrictions of content must be clear, be unambiguous, and follow due process.

4. Laws and content restriction orders and practices must comply with the tests of necessity and proportionality.

5. Laws and content restriction policies and practices must respect due process.

6. Transparency and accountability must be built into laws and content restriction policies and practices.

Please visit manilaprinciples.org for more information on each principle.

Minds profile from Wikipedia

Minds is an open source social media and social networking service company that rewards users for their contributions. Founded by Bill Ottman and Mark Harding in 2011, it is a distributed social networking service that rewards contributors with tokens on the Ethereum blockchain.

Minds describes itself as a “Crypto Social Network” that upholds “internet freedom”.

History

Minds was co-founded in 2011 by Bill Ottman and Mark Harding as an alternative to social networks such as Facebook, who they believe abuse digital rights. Other cofounders were John Ottman, Ian Crossland, and Jack Ottman.

Minds launched to the public in June 2015.

In June 2017, the company raised over $1 million in an equity-crowdfunded sale.

In October 2018, Minds raised $6 million in Series A funding from Medici Ventures, an Overstock.com subsidiary. Patrick M. Byrne, founder and CEO of Overstock.com, will join Minds’ board of directors.

Features

Users can use tokens to advertise their content across the social network. Minds states that the boost system is designed to be “anti-surveillance” and has “organic reach”. The price of one-thousand views is the price of one token on the network.

Minds offers a premium subscription for 5 tokens per month that gives users access to exclusive content, the ability to become verified, and to “banish all the boosted posts” from their feed.

Reception

Minds has been featured by Business Insider and VentureBeat, claiming to provide more “organic” results than Facebook.

When the network launched its Alpha mobile applications in 2015, the group Anonymous showed initial support for privacy features.^[16][17] Engadget has since expressed concern that other fringe groups could undermine the platform’s ability to deliver accurate and curated content.

Observer, Barron’s, and Breitbart discussed the network’s dedication to free speech and community-participation.

On June 5, 2018, ZDNet published an article about Minds focusing on their blockchain integration.