A new social network that promises more transparency, security and privacy than Facebook and other giants in the sector has been launched. Backed by the ‘hacktivist’ group Anonymous, it will encrypt all the messages of its users, thus protecting them from governments and advertisers.

At first glance, Minds.com seems similar to any other social network, as it allows a user to send updates to his followers and to comment and share messages. The main difference is that this new encrypted social network is not intended to profit from the collection of data from its users.

So much so that its objective is the opposite: to encrypt all messages so that they cannot be read and used by governments or advertisers. ‘Our position is that users deserve control of social media in every way,’ Minds founder Bill Ottman told Business Insider.

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Another difference is that this social network will reward users according to their level of interaction, either by voting, commenting or uploading content, so that those who are more active will see their ‘posts’ promoted by the social network. ‘It is a new web paradigm that gives everyone a voice,’ says Minds.

In this way, content will be driven using a transparent algorithm, as opposed to Facebook’s method, which remains largely a mystery. In addition, Minds has a completely open source, which allows anyone to contribute to the design and maintenance of the social network.

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‘A lot of companies claim to have privacy and encryption. But it is not real encryption, as we have no way of inspecting the code for back doors,’ says Ottman.

‘Anonymous has launched an appeal to hackers, designers, creators, and programmers (…) Let’s collaborate on the Minds.com code and build a superior site that is truly about people, by people, and for people,’ he posted. Anonymous ART of Revolution on their Facebook.

The social network is already fully active and there is an application for Android and iOS.