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Minds Backend - Engine
Minds Backend - Engine
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Opened by Francois Carpentier@Francewhoa
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Federated & Decentralized

Summary

This is a new feature suggestion. About a Federated & Decentralized Minds. This graphic shows how a Federated & Decentralized Minds network would look like.

federated-and-distributed-network

Instead of the present Centralized Minds network

centralized-network

For those not familiar with software engineering, a Federated & Decentralized Minds means multiple installations of Minds would be able to communicate with each others. One of the numerous benefits, is that when one Minds installation goes down, the remaining Minds installations would still be able to communicate with each others. Thus no total interruption of services for you the users :)

User Story

As a end-user of Minds, I need an online social media and social networking service which is both Federated & Decentralized, so that:

  • The risk of interference by Minds' investors is reduce:
    • Such as over time some investors put increasing pressure to increase their profits. In turn, there is an increasing risk that somehow the users' privacy and or data is unethically sold for profit.
    • Such as being bully into silence or target by libel and defamation. For example, according to a Supreme Court decision, Minds.com's biggest investor, Patrick M. Byrne, has a long history of libel and defamation. Source, video, photo at https://www.minds.com/Francewhoa/blog/patrick-byrne-immature-behaviors-910739330298171392
  • The risk of abuse with my privacy and or my personal data is reduce. Such as for-profit organization, or governments, or agencies to “listen in” and spy on my private life and data.
  • The risk of censorship is reduced
  • The risk of central point of failure is lower. Such as bottleneck.

Challenge

The present challenge is that presently Minds.com is both centralized and NOT federated centralized-network

If you are not familiar with "decentralized" social media, in summary it means the social media software is hosted on a decentralized network. Instead of a centralized network.

One risk with a centralized software is its central point of failure and its very high risk of abuse with your privacy and or personal data

Most social networks are run from centralized servers owned by a for-profit organization. In turn, this means they store all your private data in one single location. This centralized information can be lost, or hacked, or abuse, and like any software with a bottleneck, any problem at the central servers can make the whole centralized network run very slowly, or not at all. Depending on the physical location of the centralized servers, it is also more easy for for-profit organization, or for governments, or for agencies to “listen in” and spy on your private life and data. Thus abuse.

Minds.com repeatedly claimed to be a decentralized social media. But their claims are MISLEADING and FALSE. Because the minds.com social media is presently hosted on a centralized network. And multiple installation of Minds.com social media are NOT yet able to communicate with each others. On the other hand, minds.com claim to have an "intention" of being decentralized and allow multiple minds.com social media to communicate with each other. In other words, minds.com could be really decentralized social media if they had the real will to. But right now their are not a decentralized social media. Compare to hubzilla.org and friendi.ca who are both really fully decentralized social media. I am assuming that minds did their claims in good faith. Maybe they do not yet have a solid understanding of centralized versus decentralized social medias.

Related Wikipedia articles:

Suggested resolution

Federated & Decentralized Minds. Here are two successful examples of Federated & Decentralized online social media and social networking service:

Both projects are open source and a written primarily in PHP. Maybe some of their code could be recycle for Minds? Maybe some collaboration with them? For those not familiar with Hubzilla and Friendica, think of Hubzilla as a newer and more recent version of Friendica. Hubzilla is more modern/cutting edge, but less stable than Friendica.

federated-and-distributed-network

In my personal views, compare to Minds, the biggest strength of both Hubzilla and Friendica is that they are fully free from external interference by investors. Minds is presently at risk of interference by its investors.

Attribution

Thanks to diaspora* for the graphics

Related issues
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