MOSCOW (Sputnik) — The newly-launched open-source social network Minds.com has been endorsed by the Anonymous hacktivist group and aims to rival Facebook and other competitors by providing users with more security, privacy and transparency.
Minds.com, which, according to its creators is an “open-source platform to launch your digital brand, social network and mobile app” as well as a social network itself, launched desktop and mobile apps on Monday.
"Our stance is the users deserve the control of social media in every sense," the founder of the new social network, 30-year-old New Yorker Bill Ottman, told the Business Insider.
The values proclaimed by Mind.com found support with the Anonymous hacktivist group that called on "hackers, designers and creators" around the globe to contribute to the development of the new platform.
“Let us collaborate to help build Minds.com and other open-source, encrypted networks to co-create a top site of the people, by the people and for the people!” a post on the Anonymous-affiliated Facebook page, ART of Revolution, said.
In recent years, major social networking websites such as Facebook and Google Plus have come in for extensive criticism for not being able or willing to protect user privacy from governments and corporations. For instance, NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden, who revealed a series of top-secret documents on the bulk collection of US citizens' personal information, accused Facebook, Google and Yahoo of sharing users' data with governments.
