Minds.com

Minds.com

[Valentino Giudice]

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Given the recent conversation about Truth Social, as well as the fact that
social media are a topic of interest for the FLOSS community, does anyone
here use Minds?

The platform is free software, including server-side.

For a CAPTCHA, they use Friendly Captcha, which seems free client-side.

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   Given the recent conversation about Truth Social, as well as the fact
   that social media are a topic of interest for the FLOSS community, does
   anyone here use Minds?
   The platform is free software, including server-side.
   For a CAPTCHA, they use Friendly Captcha, which seems free client-side.

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Re: Minds.com

[Michael McMahon]

Never heard of minds, but Friendly Captcha is deceivingly source 
available [1]. This is not apparent when you look at their main repository.

[1] https://github.com/FriendlyCaptcha/friendly-pow/issues/13

A previous commit [2] is free and it might still work.

[2] 
https://github.com/FriendlyCaptcha/friendly-pow/tree/01a1c9c4aa858d3517881347c3328b67575029a7

When I brought up this point, they deleted my comments.

Best,
Michael McMahon | Web Developer, Free Software Foundation
GPG Key: 4337 2794 C8AD D5CA 8FCF  FA6C D037 59DA B600 E3C0
https://fsf.org

On 9/19/23 23:43, Valentino Giudice wrote:
>     Given the recent conversation about Truth Social, as well as the fact
>     that social media are a topic of interest for the FLOSS community, does
>     anyone here use Minds?
>     The platform is free software, including server-side.
>     For a CAPTCHA, they use Friendly Captcha, which seems free client-side.
> 
> 
> _______________________________________________
> libreplanet-discuss mailing list
> libreplanet-discuss@libreplanet.org
> https://lists.libreplanet.org/mailman/listinfo/libreplanet-discuss

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Re: Minds.com

[Valentino Giudice]

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Thank you a lot, Michael, this is quite interesting and something that I
should investigate further.
Indeed the "friendly-challenge" package uses "friendly-pow", which is no
good: https://github.com/FriendlyCaptcha/friendly-challenge/issues/159

I still think that Minds can be of significant interest for the FSF and the
free software community at large.

> Never heard of minds

First, I should mention that I have absolutely no affiliation with them
beyond merely having an account on their website.

Minds is a social media platform based in the United States which has
rather liberal policies compared to mainstream platforms such as Facebook
or X.

As I mentioned above, it's free software (although, now we know,
encumbered by the FriendlyCaptcha proprietary component). It uses the AGPL
license.

It attempts at decentralizing, but its attempts are IMHO mostly
unsuccessful.

However, as a centralized platform, I think it aligns with the principles
of the free software community (including freedom of speech and
transparency, beyond just software freedom) more so than other platforms,
including also X, which the FSF currently uses.

I still think that Minds has some significant shortcomings, which we can
help it overcome.
This includes the CAPTCHA test, which can be replaced with a similar
fully-free one, the fact that it doesn't currently comply with the text of
the GDPR (which doesn't mean it's bad for privacy, but does mean it's a
problem in the EU).
In some ways it's better than the Mastodon ecosystem because most Mastodon
instances are small and unreliable and have rules that are restrictive
beyond necessary.

Il giorno mer 20 set 2023 alle ore 22:34 Michael McMahon <michael@fsf.org>
ha scritto:

> Never heard of minds, but Friendly Captcha is deceivingly source
> available [1]. This is not apparent when you look at their main repository.
>
> [1] https://github.com/FriendlyCaptcha/friendly-pow/issues/13
>
> A previous commit [2] is free and it might still work.
>
> [2]
>
> https://github.com/FriendlyCaptcha/friendly-pow/tree/01a1c9c4aa858d3517881347c3328b67575029a7
>
> When I brought up this point, they deleted my comments.
>
> Best,
> Michael McMahon | Web Developer, Free Software Foundation
> GPG Key: 4337 2794 C8AD D5CA 8FCF  FA6C D037 59DA B600 E3C0
> https://fsf.org
>
> On 9/19/23 23:43, Valentino Giudice wrote:
> >     Given the recent conversation about Truth Social, as well as the fact
> >     that social media are a topic of interest for the FLOSS community,
> does
> >     anyone here use Minds?
> >     The platform is free software, including server-side.
> >     For a CAPTCHA, they use Friendly Captcha, which seems free
> client-side.
> >
> >
> > _______________________________________________
> > libreplanet-discuss mailing list
> > libreplanet-discuss@libreplanet.org
> > https://lists.libreplanet.org/mailman/listinfo/libreplanet-discuss
>
> _______________________________________________
> libreplanet-discuss mailing list
> libreplanet-discuss@libreplanet.org
> https://lists.libreplanet.org/mailman/listinfo/libreplanet-discuss
>

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   Thank you a lot, Michael, this is quite interesting and something that
   I should investigate further.
   Indeed the "friendly-challenge" package uses "friendly-pow", which is
   no
   good: [1]https://github.com/FriendlyCaptcha/friendly-challenge/issues/1
   59
   I still think that Minds can be of significant interest for the FSF and
   the free software community at large.
   > Never heard of minds
   First, I should mention that I have absolutely no affiliation with them
   beyond merely having an account on their website.
   Minds is a social media platform based in the United States which has
   rather liberal policies compared to mainstream platforms such as
   Facebook or X.
   As I mentioned above, it's free software (although, now we know,
   encumbered by the FriendlyCaptcha proprietary component). It uses the
   AGPL license.
   It attempts at decentralizing, but its attempts are IMHO mostly
   unsuccessful.
   However, as a centralized platform, I think it aligns with the
   principles of the free software community (including freedom of speech
   and transparency, beyond just software freedom) more so than other
   platforms, including also X, which the FSF currently uses.
   I still think that Minds has some significant shortcomings, which we
   can help it overcome.
   This includes the CAPTCHA test, which can be replaced with a similar
   fully-free one, the fact that it doesn't currently comply with the text
   of the GDPR (which doesn't mean it's bad for privacy, but does mean
   it's a problem in the EU).
   In some ways it's better than the Mastodon ecosystem because most
   Mastodon instances are small and unreliable and have rules that are
   restrictive beyond necessary.

   Il giorno mer 20 set 2023 alle ore 22:34 Michael McMahon
   <[2]michael@fsf.org> ha scritto:

     Never heard of minds, but Friendly Captcha is deceivingly source
     available [1]. This is not apparent when you look at their main
     repository.
     [1] [3]https://github.com/FriendlyCaptcha/friendly-pow/issues/13
     A previous commit [2] is free and it might still work.
     [2]
     [4]https://github.com/FriendlyCaptcha/friendly-pow/tree/01a1c9c4aa85
     8d3517881347c3328b67575029a7
     When I brought up this point, they deleted my comments.
     Best,
     Michael McMahon | Web Developer, Free Software Foundation
     GPG Key: 4337 2794 C8AD D5CA 8FCF  FA6C D037 59DA B600 E3C0
     [5]https://fsf.org
     On 9/19/23 23:43, Valentino Giudice wrote:
     >     Given the recent conversation about Truth Social, as well as
     the fact
     >     that social media are a topic of interest for the FLOSS
     community, does
     >     anyone here use Minds?
     >     The platform is free software, including server-side.
     >     For a CAPTCHA, they use Friendly Captcha, which seems free
     client-side.
     >
     >
     > _______________________________________________
     > libreplanet-discuss mailing list
     > [6]libreplanet-discuss@libreplanet.org
     >
     [7]https://lists.libreplanet.org/mailman/listinfo/libreplanet-discus
     s
     _______________________________________________
     libreplanet-discuss mailing list
     [8]libreplanet-discuss@libreplanet.org
     [9]https://lists.libreplanet.org/mailman/listinfo/libreplanet-discus
     s

References

   1. https://github.com/FriendlyCaptcha/friendly-challenge/issues/159
   2. mailto:michael@fsf.org
   3. https://github.com/FriendlyCaptcha/friendly-pow/issues/13
   4. https://github.com/FriendlyCaptcha/friendly-pow/tree/01a1c9c4aa858d3517881347c3328b67575029a7
   5. https://fsf.org/
   6. mailto:libreplanet-discuss@libreplanet.org
   7. https://lists.libreplanet.org/mailman/listinfo/libreplanet-discuss
   8. mailto:libreplanet-discuss@libreplanet.org
   9. https://lists.libreplanet.org/mailman/listinfo/libreplanet-discuss

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Re: Minds.com

[Michael McMahon]

Minds could be categorized as a "free speech zone" social network which 
are typically popular with fascists so count me out.

The licensing of the minds project is also questionable. It is built on 
elgg which is GPL-2.0-only [1] so it should probably match. I'm not 
following through with making issues though.

[1] https://github.com/Elgg/Elgg/issues/11610#issuecomment-358733982

Best,
Michael McMahon | Web Developer, Free Software Foundation
GPG Key: 4337 2794 C8AD D5CA 8FCF  FA6C D037 59DA B600 E3C0
https://fsf.org

On 9/20/23 19:27, Valentino Giudice wrote:
> Thank you a lot, Michael, this is quite interesting and something that I 
> should investigate further.
> Indeed the "friendly-challenge" package uses "friendly-pow", which is no 
> good: https://github.com/FriendlyCaptcha/friendly-challenge/issues/159 
> <https://github.com/FriendlyCaptcha/friendly-challenge/issues/159>
> 
> I still think that Minds can be of significant interest for the FSF and 
> the free software community at large.
> 
>  > Never heard of minds
> 
> First, I should mention that I have absolutely no affiliation with them 
> beyond merely having an account on their website.
> 
> Minds is a social media platform based in the United States which has 
> rather liberal policies compared to mainstream platforms such as 
> Facebook or X.
> 
> As I mentioned above, it's free software (although, now we know, 
> encumbered by the FriendlyCaptcha proprietary component). It uses the 
> AGPL license.
> 
> It attempts at decentralizing, but its attempts are IMHO mostly 
> unsuccessful.
> 
> However, as a centralized platform, I think it aligns with the 
> principles of the free software community (including freedom of speech 
> and transparency, beyond just software freedom) more so than other 
> platforms, including also X, which the FSF currently uses.
> 
> I still think that Minds has some significant shortcomings, which we can 
> help it overcome.
> This includes the CAPTCHA test, which can be replaced with a similar 
> fully-free one, the fact that it doesn't currently comply with the text 
> of the GDPR (which doesn't mean it's bad for privacy, but does mean it's 
> a problem in the EU).
> In some ways it's better than the Mastodon ecosystem because most 
> Mastodon instances are small and unreliable and have rules that are 
> restrictive beyond necessary.
> 
> Il giorno mer 20 set 2023 alle ore 22:34 Michael McMahon 
> <michael@fsf.org <mailto:michael@fsf.org>> ha scritto:
> 
>     Never heard of minds, but Friendly Captcha is deceivingly source
>     available [1]. This is not apparent when you look at their main
>     repository.
> 
>     [1] https://github.com/FriendlyCaptcha/friendly-pow/issues/13
>     <https://github.com/FriendlyCaptcha/friendly-pow/issues/13>
> 
>     A previous commit [2] is free and it might still work.
> 
>     [2]
>     https://github.com/FriendlyCaptcha/friendly-pow/tree/01a1c9c4aa858d3517881347c3328b67575029a7 <https://github.com/FriendlyCaptcha/friendly-pow/tree/01a1c9c4aa858d3517881347c3328b67575029a7>
> 
>     When I brought up this point, they deleted my comments.
> 
>     Best,
>     Michael McMahon | Web Developer, Free Software Foundation
>     GPG Key: 4337 2794 C8AD D5CA 8FCF  FA6C D037 59DA B600 E3C0
>     https://fsf.org <https://fsf.org>
> 
>     On 9/19/23 23:43, Valentino Giudice wrote:
>      >     Given the recent conversation about Truth Social, as well as
>     the fact
>      >     that social media are a topic of interest for the FLOSS
>     community, does
>      >     anyone here use Minds?
>      >     The platform is free software, including server-side.
>      >     For a CAPTCHA, they use Friendly Captcha, which seems free
>     client-side.
>      >
>      >
>      > _______________________________________________
>      > libreplanet-discuss mailing list
>      > libreplanet-discuss@libreplanet.org
>     <mailto:libreplanet-discuss@libreplanet.org>
>      >
>     https://lists.libreplanet.org/mailman/listinfo/libreplanet-discuss
>     <https://lists.libreplanet.org/mailman/listinfo/libreplanet-discuss>
> 
>     _______________________________________________
>     libreplanet-discuss mailing list
>     libreplanet-discuss@libreplanet.org
>     <mailto:libreplanet-discuss@libreplanet.org>
>     https://lists.libreplanet.org/mailman/listinfo/libreplanet-discuss
>     <https://lists.libreplanet.org/mailman/listinfo/libreplanet-discuss>
> 

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Re: Minds.com

[Valentino Giudice]

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>  Minds could be categorized as a "free speech zone" social network which
> are typically popular with fascists so count me out.

Fascism and freedom of speech are entirely incompatible and antithetical to
each other.
It could be true that fascist today use free speech platforms, but it is
certainly not what they desire.

From reading from the FSF/GNU websites, it has always been my impression
that freedom of speech is valued by the free software community, in a way
it certainly is not by fascists.
Indeed, filtering what one reads and publicly writes through the erratic
whims of some corporation, typically guided by capitalist interests and the
need to applease advertisers, as it usually happens on most platforms (such
as X and Facebooks), implies restricting one's behavior in a way akin to
what proprietary software leads to.

> The licensing of the minds project is also questionable.

Elgg dual-licenses the project, except plugins, under both the MIT license
and the GPL 2.
Obviously, if someone uses the whole of Elgg, they effectively have to use
it under the GPL 2.

Now, I agree with the GitHub comment, on the Elgg issue, that you
referenced. Indeed, if Elgg is packaged with GPL-2.0 only plugins, it must
have the GPL-2.0-only license (as a package).
However, the issue is specifically about the identifier of the license for
the whole package (for automated tools), which is not what is in question
here.

If someone uses Ellg without plugins, they can do so under the MIT license,
which is, of course, AGPL-compatible.

The project which is actually derived from Elgg is:
https://gitlab.com/minds/engine

Indeed, the situation wasn't clear to me at first, so I asked.
Minds is using the portion of Elgg which is released under the MIT license
and is complying with the MIT license (in a way my dumb self didn't notice
because I looked everywhere except the LICENSE file, which I assumed to be
just the text of the AGPL): https://gitlab.com/minds/engine/-/issues/2647

I do have some issues with Minds, but as far as licensing is concerned, in
relation to Elgg, it seems fine with me.

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   >  Minds could be categorized as a "free speech zone" social network
   which
   > are typically popular with fascists so count me out.
   Fascism and freedom of speech are entirely incompatible and
   antithetical to each other.
   It could be true that fascist today use free speech platforms, but it
   is certainly not what they desire.
   From reading from the FSF/GNU websites, it has always been my
   impression that freedom of speech is valued by the free software
   community, in a way it certainly is not by fascists.
   Indeed, filtering what one reads and publicly writes through the
   erratic whims of some corporation, typically guided by capitalist
   interests and the need to applease advertisers, as it usually happens
   on most platforms (such as X and Facebooks), implies restricting one's
   behavior in a way akin to what proprietary software leads to.
   > The licensing of the minds project is also questionable.
   Elgg dual-licenses the project, except plugins, under both the MIT
   license and the GPL 2.
   Obviously, if someone uses the whole of Elgg, they effectively have to
   use it under the GPL 2.
   Now, I agree with the GitHub comment, on the Elgg issue, that you
   referenced. Indeed, if Elgg is packaged with GPL-2.0 only plugins, it
   must have the GPL-2.0-only license (as a package).
   However, the issue is specifically about the identifier of the license
   for the whole package (for automated tools), which is not what is in
   question here.
   If someone uses Ellg without plugins, they can do so under the MIT
   license, which is, of course, AGPL-compatible.
   The project which is actually derived from Elgg
   is: [1]https://gitlab.com/minds/engine
   Indeed, the situation wasn't clear to me at first, so I asked.
   Minds is using the portion of Elgg which is released under the MIT
   license and is complying with the MIT license (in a way my dumb self
   didn't notice because I looked everywhere except the LICENSE file,
   which I assumed to be just the text of the
   AGPL): [2]https://gitlab.com/minds/engine/-/issues/2647
   I do have some issues with Minds, but as far as licensing is
   concerned, in relation to Elgg, it seems fine with me.

References

   1. https://gitlab.com/minds/engine
   2. https://gitlab.com/minds/engine/-/issues/2647

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Re: Minds.com

[Michael McMahon]

I didn't look into it that much, but what you said about licensing 
sounds right if true.

Software freedom is foundational. Freedom is dependent on having the 
ability to use free software. The message gets very muddy when people 
mistake the FSF for the Free Speech Foundation or any other sort of 
freedom not included in the four software freedoms.

I'm not interested in minds.com at all and will not promote any social 
media platform that would be categorized as a free speech zone. I would 
recommend several free software platforms in the fediverse which we 
already do.

Best,
Michael McMahon | Web Developer, Free Software Foundation
GPG Key: 4337 2794 C8AD D5CA 8FCF  FA6C D037 59DA B600 E3C0
https://fsf.org

On 9/21/23 13:55, Valentino Giudice wrote:
>  >  Minds could be categorized as a "free speech zone" social network which
>  > are typically popular with fascists so count me out.
> 
> Fascism and freedom of speech are entirely incompatible and antithetical 
> to each other.
> It could be true that fascist today use free speech platforms, but it is 
> certainly not what they desire.
> 
>  From reading from the FSF/GNU websites, it has always been my 
> impression that freedom of speech is valued by the free software 
> community, in a way it certainly is not by fascists.
> Indeed, filtering what one reads and publicly writes through the erratic 
> whims of some corporation, typically guided by capitalist interests and 
> the need to applease advertisers, as it usually happens on most 
> platforms (such as X and Facebooks), implies restricting one's behavior 
> in a way akin to what proprietary software leads to.
> 
>  > The licensing of the minds project is also questionable.
> 
> Elgg dual-licenses the project, except plugins, under both the MIT 
> license and the GPL 2.
> Obviously, if someone uses the whole of Elgg, they effectively have to 
> use it under the GPL 2.
> 
> Now, I agree with the GitHub comment, on the Elgg issue, that you 
> referenced. Indeed, if Elgg is packaged with GPL-2.0 only plugins, it 
> must have the GPL-2.0-only license (as a package).
> However, the issue is specifically about the identifier of the license 
> for the whole package (for automated tools), which is not what is in 
> question here.
> 
> If someone uses Ellg without plugins, they can do so under the MIT 
> license, which is, of course, AGPL-compatible.
> 
> The project which is actually derived from Elgg is: 
> https://gitlab.com/minds/engine <https://gitlab.com/minds/engine>
> 
> Indeed, the situation wasn't clear to me at first, so I asked.
> Minds is using the portion of Elgg which is released under the MIT 
> license and is complying with the MIT license (in a way my dumb self 
> didn't notice because I looked everywhere except the LICENSE file, which 
> I assumed to be just the text of the AGPL): 
> https://gitlab.com/minds/engine/-/issues/2647 
> <https://gitlab.com/minds/engine/-/issues/2647>
> 
> I do have some issues with Minds, but as far as licensing is 
> concerned, in relation to Elgg, it seems fine with me.

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Re: Minds.com

[Valentino Giudice]

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To be clear, I never suggested the FSF is the "free speech foundation".

The fact that the FSF (supposedly) supports freedom of speech on the
Internet, however, is a claim made on the gnu.org website, not by me, on a
page about basic freedoms:
https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/basic-freedoms.html

> The Free Software Foundation supports the *freedoms of speech*, press,
and association on the Internet.
(Emphasis mine).

> [I] will not promote any social media platform that would be categorized
as a free speech zone.

If this refers to the FSF in general, rather than a personal stance by you
individually, then what policies does a platform need to have, what does it
need to censor, in order to be endorsable (or usable, which is a lower
standard) by the FSF?

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   To be clear, I never suggested the FSF is the "free speech foundation".
   The fact that the FSF (supposedly) supports freedom of speech on the
   Internet, however, is a claim made on the [1]gnu.org website, not by
   me, on a page about basic
   freedoms: [2]https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/basic-freedoms.html
   > The Free Software Foundation supports the *freedoms of speech*,
   press, and association on the Internet.
   (Emphasis mine).
   > [I] will not promote any social media platform that would be
   categorized as a free speech zone.
   If this refers to the FSF in general, rather than a personal stance by
   you individually, then what policies does a platform need to have, what
   does it need to censor, in order to be endorsable (or usable, which is
   a lower standard) by the FSF?

References

   1. http://gnu.org/
   2. https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/basic-freedoms.html

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Re: Minds.com

[Ron Nazarov via libreplanet-discuss]

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On 21/09/2023 00:27, Valentino Giudice wrote:
> It attempts at decentralizing, but its attempts are IMHO mostly
> unsuccessful.

What do you mean?
<https://developers.minds.com/docs/decentralization/activitypub/> seems 
to indicate that it supports ActivityPub.

> However, as a centralized platform, I think it aligns with the
> principles of the free software community (including freedom of speech
> and transparency, beyond just software freedom) more so than other
> platforms, including also X, which the FSF currently uses.

Why would we want a centralized platform?

> In some ways it's better than the Mastodon ecosystem because most
> Mastodon instances are small and unreliable and have rules that are
> restrictive beyond necessary.

You can run your own instance with less restrictive rules.  That's one 
of the advantages of decentralization.

Apart from the non-free CAPTCHA, it also seems to have some 
cryptocurrency nonsense built in: <https://www.minds.com/token>.  That 
page also indicates that it has "premium features" and advertising.

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Re: Minds.com

[Leland Best]

Hmmm,

On Thu, 2023-09-21 at 10:40 -0400, Michael McMahon wrote:
> Minds could be categorized as a "free speech zone" social network which 
> are typically popular with fascists so count me out.

Poor choice of words perhaps?  Freedom of speech is _supposed_ to be one of the
founding principles here in the US.  From
https://www.azquotes.com/author/5123-Benjamin_Franklin/tag/freedom-of-speech

   Without freedom of thought, there can be no such thing as wisdom; and no such
   thing as public liberty without freedom of speech; which is the right of every
   man as far as by it he does not hurt or control the right of another; and this
   is the only check it ought to suffer and the only bounds it ought to know....
   Whoever would overthrow the liberty of a nation must begin by subduing the
   freedom of speech, a thing terrible to traitors.
   
   Benjamin Franklin 
   
But then, we're also _supposed_ to be educated enough to think
critically/skeptically about what we hear, see, and read.  From
https://www.azquotes.com/author/7392-Thomas_Jefferson/tag/education

   Errors of opinion may be tolerated where reason is left free to combat it.
   
   Thomas Jefferson
   
My only point/question being: That something is a "free speech zone" doesn't
seem like a very good reason, in and of itself, for disparaging it.  So, if this
is strictly your personal opinion, if you personally don't want to read what
they have to say, then I have no objection.  Obviously, you and everybody else
are free to think, say, read, write, etc. whatever you like.  But if you are
speaking on behalf of the FSF, which one might assume from your "signature",:

[...]
> Michael McMahon | Web Developer, Free Software Foundation
> GPG Key: 4337 2794 C8AD D5CA 8FCF  FA6C D037 59DA B600 E3C0
> https://fsf.org
[...]

then I'll have to think hard about my FSF membership.

[... no comment on the rest of the post, (copied below) ...]

Cheers
Leland
-- 
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Leland C. Best      | Creationists make it sound as though a 'theory' is
lcbpublic@gmail.com | something you dreamt up after being drunk all night.
                    | -- Isaac Asimov
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------


[...]
> 
> The licensing of the minds project is also questionable. It is built on 
> elgg which is GPL-2.0-only [1] so it should probably match. I'm not 
> following through with making issues though.
> 
> [1] https://github.com/Elgg/Elgg/issues/11610#issuecomment-358733982
> 
> Best,
> Michael McMahon | Web Developer, Free Software Foundation
> GPG Key: 4337 2794 C8AD D5CA 8FCF  FA6C D037 59DA B600 E3C0
> https://fsf.org
> 
> On 9/20/23 19:27, Valentino Giudice wrote:
> > Thank you a lot, Michael, this is quite interesting and something that I 
> > should investigate further.
> > Indeed the "friendly-challenge" package uses "friendly-pow", which is no 
> > good: https://github.com/FriendlyCaptcha/friendly-challenge/issues/159 
> > <https://github.com/FriendlyCaptcha/friendly-challenge/issues/159>
> > 
> > I still think that Minds can be of significant interest for the FSF and 
> > the free software community at large.
> > 
> >  > Never heard of minds
> > 
> > First, I should mention that I have absolutely no affiliation with them 
> > beyond merely having an account on their website.
> > 
> > Minds is a social media platform based in the United States which has 
> > rather liberal policies compared to mainstream platforms such as 
> > Facebook or X.
> > 
> > As I mentioned above, it's free software (although, now we know, 
> > encumbered by the FriendlyCaptcha proprietary component). It uses the 
> > AGPL license.
> > 
> > It attempts at decentralizing, but its attempts are IMHO mostly 
> > unsuccessful.
> > 
> > However, as a centralized platform, I think it aligns with the 
> > principles of the free software community (including freedom of speech 
> > and transparency, beyond just software freedom) more so than other 
> > platforms, including also X, which the FSF currently uses.
> > 
> > I still think that Minds has some significant shortcomings, which we can 
> > help it overcome.
> > This includes the CAPTCHA test, which can be replaced with a similar 
> > fully-free one, the fact that it doesn't currently comply with the text 
> > of the GDPR (which doesn't mean it's bad for privacy, but does mean it's 
> > a problem in the EU).
> > In some ways it's better than the Mastodon ecosystem because most 
> > Mastodon instances are small and unreliable and have rules that are 
> > restrictive beyond necessary.
> > 
> > Il giorno mer 20 set 2023 alle ore 22:34 Michael McMahon 
> > <michael@fsf.org <mailto:michael@fsf.org>> ha scritto:
> > 
> >     Never heard of minds, but Friendly Captcha is deceivingly source
> >     available [1]. This is not apparent when you look at their main
> >     repository.
> > 
> >     [1] https://github.com/FriendlyCaptcha/friendly-pow/issues/13
> >     <https://github.com/FriendlyCaptcha/friendly-pow/issues/13>
> > 
> >     A previous commit [2] is free and it might still work.
> > 
> >     [2]
> >    
> > https://github.com/FriendlyCaptcha/friendly-pow/tree/01a1c9c4aa858d3517881347c3328b67575029a7
> >  <
> > https://github.com/FriendlyCaptcha/friendly-pow/tree/01a1c9c4aa858d3517881347c3328b67575029a7
> > >
> > 
> >     When I brought up this point, they deleted my comments.
> > 
> >     Best,
> >     Michael McMahon | Web Developer, Free Software Foundation
> >     GPG Key: 4337 2794 C8AD D5CA 8FCF  FA6C D037 59DA B600 E3C0
> >     https://fsf.org <https://fsf.org>
> > 
> >     On 9/19/23 23:43, Valentino Giudice wrote:
> >      >     Given the recent conversation about Truth Social, as well as
> >     the fact
> >      >     that social media are a topic of interest for the FLOSS
> >     community, does
> >      >     anyone here use Minds?
> >      >     The platform is free software, including server-side.
> >      >     For a CAPTCHA, they use Friendly Captcha, which seems free
> >     client-side.
> >      >
> >      >
> >      > _______________________________________________
> >      > libreplanet-discuss mailing list
> >      > libreplanet-discuss@libreplanet.org
> >     <mailto:libreplanet-discuss@libreplanet.org>
> >      >
> >     https://lists.libreplanet.org/mailman/listinfo/libreplanet-discuss
> >     <https://lists.libreplanet.org/mailman/listinfo/libreplanet-discuss>
> > 
> >     _______________________________________________
> >     libreplanet-discuss mailing list
> >     libreplanet-discuss@libreplanet.org
> >     <mailto:libreplanet-discuss@libreplanet.org>
> >     https://lists.libreplanet.org/mailman/listinfo/libreplanet-discuss
> >     <https://lists.libreplanet.org/mailman/listinfo/libreplanet-discuss>
> > 
> 
> _______________________________________________
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> libreplanet-discuss@libreplanet.org
> https://lists.libreplanet.org/mailman/listinfo/libreplanet-discuss



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Re: Minds.com

[Valentino Giudice]

[-- Attachment #1.1: Type: text/plain, Size: 5583 bytes --]

Hi, Ron.

Minds attempts decentralization in a few different ways, including
ActivityPub and Nostr. It also uses Matrix for messaging, so that users can
talk to those that don't use Minds.
Minds also attempted to use the Arweave Permaweb, but never clarified how
it would benefit the user. It's like they were trying too hard to
decentralize, without a clear design, in some sense.

In the ActivityPub federated ecosystem, users typically depend on one
server. In effect, from that point of view, they are not much better off
than they would be picking one of several (identical) centralized
platforms. The benefit, of course, is that they can communicate with
each other, although they can only do so at the whim of the admins of both
platforms.

Nostr is better in this regard (although it doesn't have the same goals
IMO). While it is not serverless, it allows users to be fully independent
of any specific server (or "relay", in the Nostr terminology) and share
their digital identity across multiple servers.

Minds attempted decentralization with Nostr before ActivityPub, to my
knowledge. Given how prone current Mastodon admins are to block other
instances, to the detriment of users, I think Nostr is a lot more
promising. I haven't checked how complete and compliant their ActivityPub
integration is.

Despite the simplicity of Nostr, Minds is not even fully compliant with
NIP-01 (the mandatory portion of the protocol). From what I can tell, this
is not due to lack of will, by them, but rather bad design decisions that
they haven't fixed yet. Please, see:
https://gitlab.com/minds/infrastructure/nostr-relay/-/issues/10

> Why would we want a centralized platform?

Ideally we don't, which is why I hope Minds succeeds at fully
decentralizing through Nostr. But centralized platforms are simpler
conceptually for users which aren't technically skilled and they are often
more feature complete. They are easier to use and to promote.

> You can run your own instance with less restrictive rules.  That's one of
the advantages of decentralization.

Yes, indeed you can. In fact, you don't even need decentralization to do
that, you just need a free-software social media platform, and the full
stack of it. You can, but almost nobody does.

In fact, platforms with rules this permissive are rare. Many claim to be,
but are not. Elon Musk never made X a free speech platform and, for a short
time, he even censored content about Mastodon and Nostr. Platforms like Gab
and the like are far from content-neutral and actually censor content they
do not like, regardless of their empty claims. You can find both of them
lying about it here: https://archive.ph/dGCjU

A beautiful example everybody here is familiar with is FreeNode, when it
endorsed free speech, then went on to ban everyone mentioning LiberaChat,
including even the FSF itself. That's when the FSF moved to LiberaChat,
which was the right choice.

Several other platforms apparently for freedom of expression ban, for
example, nudity or legal pornography. While they don't all take sides as
clearly as Gab does, it's my guess that they do so to please conservatives.
Minds, to be clear, does require users to tag certain kinds of content (if
you don't, you are not banned, but your whole account gets tagged), but it
does not remove it.

Reddit used to be rather permissive, and it surely was much closer to being
a free speech platform at the time of Aaron Swartz. But Aaron has no
influence on Reddit now, and it has progressively deteriorated in this
regard.

In fact, other than Minds, I am not aware, at this time, of any platform,
free or non-free (as in "free software"), centralized or decentralized,
which:
- Offers functionalities comparable to those of mainstream platforms such
as Facebook or X; and
- Has extremely liberal policies; and
- Isn't extremely small or unreliable.

I should note that Minds, to the extent to which it does moderate, it has
policies based on the Santa Clara Principles, which the EFF is an author of.

> it also seems to have some cryptocurrency nonsense built in: <
https://www.minds.com/token>.

Minds uses both the Ethereum blockchain and Bitcoin (both of which run on
free software), neither of which is mandatory to use the platform.
Personally, I hold no Minds token and I don't use either blockchain. I
don't know blockchain technology enough to evaluate how nonsensical this
specific use case is.

> That page also indicates that it has "premium features" and advertising.

Yes, it does. I think the level of freedom it provides should be evaluated
from the point of view of a non-paying user.
Indeed, Minds is not a non-profit and while the software is free as in
free-speech part of the service is paid.
I don't see the presence of these features as necessarily problematic.

> Apart from the non-free CAPTCHA,

I should mention that I do think that using FriendlyCaptcha is an issue, in
any case.
I'd like to thank Michael once again for pointing it out.
However, unlike other shortcomings of Minds, I think it's easily fixable.
Conceptually the basic idea of FriendlyCaptcha is simple and implementing a
completely free alternative, without even needing to rely on the free
portion of what they have built, is possible.

So far the FSF uses X, which is based on proprietary software, has
arbitrary restrictions and has a leadership which has shown hypocrisy. It
also uses GNUSocial (which almost nobody else does) and Mastodon.
I'm not against Mastodon, but I think it has (and ActivityPub has)
shortcomings and that using multiple platforms is preferable.

[-- Attachment #1.2: Type: text/plain, Size: 6002 bytes --]

   Hi, Ron.
   Minds attempts decentralization in a few different ways, including
   ActivityPub and Nostr. It also uses Matrix for messaging, so that users
   can talk to those that don't use Minds.
   Minds also attempted to use the Arweave Permaweb, but never clarified
   how it would benefit the user. It's like they were trying too hard to
   decentralize, without a clear design, in some sense.
   In the ActivityPub federated ecosystem, users typically depend on one
   server. In effect, from that point of view, they are not much better
   off than they would be picking one of several (identical) centralized
   platforms. The benefit, of course, is that they can communicate with
   each other, although they can only do so at the whim of the admins of
   both platforms.
   Nostr is better in this regard (although it doesn't have the same goals
   IMO). While it is not serverless, it allows users to be fully
   independent of any specific server (or "relay", in the Nostr
   terminology) and share their digital identity across multiple servers.
   Minds attempted decentralization with Nostr before ActivityPub, to my
   knowledge. Given how prone current Mastodon admins are to block other
   instances, to the detriment of users, I think Nostr is a lot more
   promising. I haven't checked how complete and compliant their
   ActivityPub integration is.
   Despite the simplicity of Nostr, Minds is not even fully compliant with
   NIP-01 (the mandatory portion of the protocol). From what I can tell,
   this is not due to lack of will, by them, but rather bad design
   decisions that they haven't fixed yet. Please,
   see: [1]https://gitlab.com/minds/infrastructure/nostr-relay/-/issues/10
   > Why would we want a centralized platform?
   Ideally we don't, which is why I hope Minds succeeds at fully
   decentralizing through Nostr. But centralized platforms are simpler
   conceptually for users which aren't technically skilled and they are
   often more feature complete. They are easier to use and to promote.
   > You can run your own instance with less restrictive rules.  That's
   one of the advantages of decentralization.
   Yes, indeed you can. In fact, you don't even need decentralization to
   do that, you just need a free-software social media platform, and the
   full stack of it. You can, but almost nobody does.
   In fact, platforms with rules this permissive are rare. Many claim to
   be, but are not. Elon Musk never made X a free speech platform and, for
   a short time, he even censored content about Mastodon and Nostr.
   Platforms like Gab and the like are far from content-neutral and
   actually censor content they do not like, regardless of their empty
   claims. You can find both of them lying about it
   here: [2]https://archive.ph/dGCjU
   A beautiful example everybody here is familiar with is FreeNode, when
   it endorsed free speech, then went on to ban everyone mentioning
   LiberaChat, including even the FSF itself. That's when the FSF moved to
   LiberaChat, which was the right choice.
   Several other platforms apparently for freedom of expression ban, for
   example, nudity or legal pornography. While they don't all take sides
   as clearly as Gab does, it's my guess that they do so to please
   conservatives. Minds, to be clear, does require users to tag certain
   kinds of content (if you don't, you are not banned, but your whole
   account gets tagged), but it does not remove it.
   Reddit used to be rather permissive, and it surely was much closer to
   being a free speech platform at the time of Aaron Swartz. But Aaron has
   no influence on Reddit now, and it has progressively deteriorated in
   this regard.
   In fact, other than Minds, I am not aware, at this time, of any
   platform, free or non-free (as in "free software"), centralized or
   decentralized, which:
   - Offers functionalities comparable to those of mainstream platforms
   such as Facebook or X; and
   - Has extremely liberal policies; and
   - Isn't extremely small or unreliable.
   I should note that Minds, to the extent to which it does moderate, it
   has policies based on the Santa Clara Principles, which the EFF is an
   author of.
   > it also seems to have some cryptocurrency nonsense built in:
   <[3]https://www.minds.com/token>.
   Minds uses both the Ethereum blockchain and Bitcoin (both of which run
   on free software), neither of which is mandatory to use the platform.
   Personally, I hold no Minds token and I don't use either blockchain. I
   don't know blockchain technology enough to evaluate how nonsensical
   this specific use case is.
   > That page also indicates that it has "premium features" and
   advertising.
   Yes, it does. I think the level of freedom it provides should be
   evaluated from the point of view of a non-paying user.
   Indeed, Minds is not a non-profit and while the software is free as in
   free-speech part of the service is paid.
   I don't see the presence of these features as necessarily problematic.
   > Apart from the non-free CAPTCHA,
   I should mention that I do think that using FriendlyCaptcha is an
   issue, in any case.
   I'd like to thank Michael once again for pointing it out.
   However, unlike other shortcomings of Minds, I think it's easily
   fixable. Conceptually the basic idea of FriendlyCaptcha is simple and
   implementing a completely free alternative, without even needing to
   rely on the free portion of what they have built, is possible.
   So far the FSF uses X, which is based on proprietary software, has
   arbitrary restrictions and has a leadership which has shown hypocrisy.
   It also uses GNUSocial (which almost nobody else does) and Mastodon.
   I'm not against Mastodon, but I think it has (and ActivityPub has)
   shortcomings and that using multiple platforms is preferable.

References

   1. https://gitlab.com/minds/infrastructure/nostr-relay/-/issues/10
   2. https://archive.ph/dGCjU
   3. https://www.minds.com/token

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Re: Minds.com

[Valentino Giudice]

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I am not American, but I of course agree with Leland.

Freedom of speech is not just a law or a legal principle. It is a
fundamental human right.

This does not mean that anyone specifically *ought* to provide that right
(for example, I do not think that platforms should be forced to host
content). However, it's important that people have access to that right.

Legally, the US, like every country, do have some absurd restrictions on
freedom of speech, such as those caused by software patents:
https://wiki.endsoftwarepatents.org/wiki/Freedom_of_expression or DRM
systems:
https://www.defectivebydesign.org/blog/lawsuit_could_be_beginning_end_drm.

However, within the bounds of whatever the laws of any specific
jurisdiction allow, we should strive to maximize access to freedom of
speech and of expression, as well as to promote a free speech culture.

Freedom of speech has always been a value of the free software community
and the hacker community, and to associate it with fascism is bizarre to
say the least.

Filtering what we read and write through the whims of those trying to
please advertisers isn't wise. Censorship is an anti-feature.

For Leland, I should mention that Michael, at the FSF, is part of the staff
(web developer), but not of the board and he is not the executive director.

In general, the FSF has always supported freedom of speech. I already
provided a reference for that. But, of course, this could sadly have
changed, as it has for other organizations.

If, as I hope, we manage to solve FreeCaptcha's problem by building a free
alternative, if a viable one doesn't exist yet, I think it would be
consistent with the principle of the FSF to add Minds to the platform it
uses.

Until then, however, and this is slightly out of topic for the thread, I
think the FSF should support Nostr, which is a public domain protocol with
free software clients, the same way it currently supports ActivityPub, as
it has many of the same benefits (not necessarily all) and corrects some
significant shortcomings.

[-- Attachment #1.2: Type: text/plain, Size: 2303 bytes --]

   I am not American, but I of course agree with Leland.
   Freedom of speech is not just a law or a legal principle. It is a
   fundamental human right.
   This does not mean that anyone specifically *ought* to provide that
   right (for example, I do not think that platforms should be forced to
   host content). However, it's important that people have access to that
   right.
   Legally, the US, like every country, do have some absurd restrictions
   on freedom of speech, such as those caused by software
   patents: [1]https://wiki.endsoftwarepatents.org/wiki/Freedom_of_express
   ion or DRM
   systems: [2]https://www.defectivebydesign.org/blog/lawsuit_could_be_beg
   inning_end_drm.
   However, within the bounds of whatever the laws of any specific
   jurisdiction allow, we should strive to maximize access to freedom of
   speech and of expression, as well as to promote a free speech culture.
   Freedom of speech has always been a value of the free software
   community and the hacker community, and to associate it with fascism is
   bizarre to say the least.
   Filtering what we read and write through the whims of those trying to
   please advertisers isn't wise. Censorship is an anti-feature.
   For Leland, I should mention that Michael, at the FSF, is part of the
   staff (web developer), but not of the board and he is not the executive
   director.
   In general, the FSF has always supported freedom of speech. I already
   provided a reference for that. But, of course, this could sadly have
   changed, as it has for other organizations.
   If, as I hope, we manage to solve FreeCaptcha's problem by building a
   free alternative, if a viable one doesn't exist yet, I think it would
   be consistent with the principle of the FSF to add Minds to the
   platform it uses.
   Until then, however, and this is slightly out of topic for the thread,
   I think the FSF should support Nostr, which is a public domain protocol
   with free software clients, the same way it currently supports
   ActivityPub, as it has many of the same benefits (not necessarily all)
   and corrects some significant shortcomings.

References

   1. https://wiki.endsoftwarepatents.org/wiki/Freedom_of_expression
   2. https://www.defectivebydesign.org/blog/lawsuit_could_be_beginning_end_drm

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