Censorship-Free Social Network “Explodes” After Adding 200,000+ New Users In Just A Few Days

The censorship-free alternative media platform Minds went down temporarily on Thursday, but came back online shortly after. When the site came back online, representatives of Minds say that the outage was a result of over 200,000+ new people signing up for the site one the same day. A large number of sign-ups were from Thailand, where increased internet censorship has forced users from mainstream platforms like Facebook and Twitter.

“Yesterday we saw 200,000+ new users. We are thrilled to provide privacy, internet freedom and digital rights for Thai netizens. This is exactly the reason Minds exists,” Minds CEO Bill Ottman said in a statement.

Some of the most notable social media users to recently migrate to Minds includes Wiroj Lakkana-adisorn, an MP for the disbanded Future Forward Party; social critic Sarinee Achavanuntakul, writer-translator Tomorn Sookprecha, satirical TV host Winyu “John” Wongsurawat, and academic Pavin Chachavalpongpun.

“We are immediately building out our translation and localization framework for Thai and many other languages. This should be finished within a few weeks. All of our project is fully open source at https://developers.minds.com and people can submit requests at https://gitlab.com/minds. They can also inspect our software to make sure we aren’t manipulating algorithms or user privacy. We already have Thai developers helping with the code and building new tools,” Ottman said.

Last year, Ottman reported that the site had about 200,000 active monthly users, so gaining 200,000+ in a few days is an incredible win for the site.

Minds was co-founded in 2011 by Bill Ottman and John Ottman, other cofounders were Mark Harding, Ian Crossland, and Jack Ottman.

In June 2017, the company raised over $1 million in the fastest equity-crowdfunded sale at the time. Then in March 2018, Minds exited Beta and launched a white paper and testnet for its new native mobile apps and Ethereum blockchain integration.

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

You can sign up for Minds HERE, and make sure you follow Truth Theory on Minds.

Source: Truth Theory

John Vibes is an author and journalist who takes a special interest in the counter culture, and focuses solutions-oriented approaches to social problems. He is also a host of The Free Your Mind Conference and The Free Thought Project Podcast. Read More stories by John Vibes

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