Minds "Fake News Clause" {Section 15} #MindsGaming #MindsLimited
Recently with the banning of a a few core users on the site has caused some uproar on the network. Here we are not going to go into the details of the event only the censorship of users to the boost network without cause. So I am not considered to "doxing" other public account tags I will be using my own boost record to provide a proof of the censorship below. *This blog is also saved on our personal blogging site* Before we go over that we must first exlain a few things.
TOS Section 15
Boost Policy
Boost is the ad network on Minds. Users may exchange Minds Tokens to “Boost” their content and receive guaranteed views from the network.
Users may not Boost content that violates our User Content policy, such as content that:
- Is illegal;
- Encourages or incites violence;
- Threatens, harasses or bullies, or encourages others to threaten, harass, or bully;
- Contains personally identifying and/or confidential information;
- Maliciously targets users who are not public figures (@name, links, images, or videos);
- Impersonates someone in a misleading or deceptive manner;
- Constitutes “spam”;
- Appeals on admin decisions;
- Is sexually explicit; or
- That is boosted more than once per hour.
Any content that is rejected from Boost is also in violation of these Terms and subject to a Minds Network-wide ban. If you would like to appeal a Boost rejection, you may do so in the “Reported Content” section of your settings
Above we have the new rules for boosting if you will take note to "Appeals on admin decisions;" this is a catch all for fake news, and generally things Minds Inc. just does not want to be boosted or "Fake News". This term of service also conflicts directly with the user bill of rights also published on Minds:
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.
Here we will take note of 3."Requests for restrictions of content must be clear, be unambiguous, and follow due process." This is a direct conflict with "Appeals on admin decisions;" as what is the admin appealing, why, how is the appeal not unambiguous, and does it follow due process?
A catch all is not clear, can easily ambiguous, and if this does happen you as the user can do nothing. In fact you can't even boost it again. This is a clear violation of our user bill of rights.
To make it more clear they are removing your content from the boost network this is a removal of content from part of the network, and does not link to the boost terms.
The Pudding
Below are boosts that were denied during the ban of other member, when available we will provide the same boost approved from a much earlier date with only difference being a hashtag.
Many more are available from many more members that engaged in the using a hashtag on the network; this is inter network political censorship, how long before you think it hits actual political censorship?
#HASHTAG-WHO-MUST-NOTBE-NAMED for fear of another boost block on this article of course they don't really need a reason to deny my boost do they?
Informent
Even Minds admits that they did not enforce the TOS as they should have and the result was having to enforce it on many members at once that were simply defending the same abuse they were receiving from said member. I will not show this screenshot on this blog but you are free to message me for it.
I do think that declining a boost without reason other than an admin doesn't agree with your boost is a form of censorship to be specific it is boost network censorship. They are censoring some of the network and breaking your user bill of rights, what are your thoughts?
Solution
A solution for all of this does exist and although I am in conflict over the situation I feel I owe my subscribers at least an idea or path for them to fight for.
I have fought for user based moderation, enforcement, open sourced panels, and a lot more having to do with user based privileges, be it from my solution to the limits on Minds or the boost system itself as well as identifying spam, but not every user based ideas are wonderful, specifically ones that give power to one user over the other or a way to game the system mechanics or process.
You guys do still have a few skilled Minds that can identify these issues in a user based system, even if they have died or their love of the network has die have died in doing so.
Thanks for reading this, I hope that Minds can indeed have a user based system over the current network system that causes users to be censored from the boost network without just cause.
Related Blogs & Links:
Minds The Open Sourced Free Speech Network or IS IT? {Feels Like Facebook Jail to Me}
Everything Wrong with Minds Limits & A solution #MindsGaming
More Minds Limits ( #HashTags #MindsGaming )
Avoiding Lemons Users? (Where is Rep?)
A Solution to Facebook Censorship | Future of Social Media with MINDS Co-founder & CEO Bill Ottman {Related Video}
Minds Promotion Video Snippet {A Reason I Joined Minds}
Closing
Thank you anyone for reading and hanging with us in all this, you as a community are the only ones together to make a better platform that was originally focused on the users of the platform , not moderating and becoming the thought crimes police.