Hey everyone, my name is Mark Weinstein. I am the founder of MeWe. Sir Tim Berners-Lee, (inventor of the Web) is an important MeWe Advisor.
MeWe is social done right. We're here to serve you, not sell you.
We welcome and invite all G+ members to join and enjoy MeWe (available on iOS, Android, and Desktop, in 8 languages).
MeWe is the first social network with all the features people love and a Privacy Bill of Rights for members. No ads. No spyware. No political bias. No shadow banning. No Russians paying to show you fake news. No newsfeed manipulation. No facial recognition. No BS.
My BBC interview on June 14:
https://vimeo.com/276817063
1-minute video: https://mewe.com/#not4sale
Privacy Bill of Rights: https://mewe.com/privacy#bill
Advisory Board: https://bit.ly/2C5pDKo
Founder Bio: https://bit.ly/2RBRcjS
We've won nice awards including SXSW Start-Up of the Year Finalist and will be the first social network to implement Tim's "Solid" protocol giving MeWe members total control of their data.
Cheers, Mark
https://mewe.com
MeWe is social done right. We're here to serve you, not sell you.
We welcome and invite all G+ members to join and enjoy MeWe (available on iOS, Android, and Desktop, in 8 languages).
MeWe is the first social network with all the features people love and a Privacy Bill of Rights for members. No ads. No spyware. No political bias. No shadow banning. No Russians paying to show you fake news. No newsfeed manipulation. No facial recognition. No BS.
My BBC interview on June 14:
https://vimeo.com/276817063
1-minute video: https://mewe.com/#not4sale
Privacy Bill of Rights: https://mewe.com/privacy#bill
Advisory Board: https://bit.ly/2C5pDKo
Founder Bio: https://bit.ly/2RBRcjS
We've won nice awards including SXSW Start-Up of the Year Finalist and will be the first social network to implement Tim's "Solid" protocol giving MeWe members total control of their data.
Cheers, Mark
https://mewe.com
Isabella LeCour It’s on the FAQ. They run a freemium model, where you can pay monthly fees to get extra goodies (like more storage).
ReplyDeleteGood question, Isabella LeCour
ReplyDeleteI like the site a lot (some features are even better than Google+) except for the privacy thing. I wish people could view my profile before asking to become a contact. Same with groups (though at least 'joining' is easy enough for a lot of them). I wish I could see what kinds of posts groups had before I had to join it.
ReplyDeleteThat said, I know that's just the model of the site, so I'm not saying you should change it to benefit my needs. But if you did allow an option for making a profile public, that'd make me way more likely to move there for good. Forcibly private profiles is a major deal breaker for me, as it'll be way harder to make new friends if I can't see their profile until I ask for them to 'Add Contact' and they accept.
Hi Mark, are you plan on creating a migratory app to transfer our circles, collections, and communities? It would make MeWe more inviting if you did.
ReplyDeleteIsabella LeCour Why? The founder already wrote the answer on the website. Here, I’ll save you the two clicks:
ReplyDeleteHow can MeWe be free and make money?
MeWe is free for members because privacy is not something anyone should ever have to pay for. All the great features that people love in social media and none of the BS are free and standard on MeWe including: private 1:1 and group chat; private and open groups; disappearing content; custom camera with Gif creation; live voice and live video; next-gen voice messaging; personal social cloud; custom group profiles; and much more.
In addition there are optional special features including extra storage (8GB is free, and 50GB is $4.99 per month), Secret Chat (like WhatsApp only without their egregious tracking) for $.99 cents per month, Custom Emojis at $.99 cents a packet, plus MeWe Pages (coming soon) at $1.99 per month, and special games exclusive to MeWe members.
Revenue Supercharger: In a departure from traditional "consumer-only" social media companies like SNAP and Twitter, MeWe has a sister division, MeWePRO (mewepro.com) for business customers. Separately available on iOS, Android, and desktop, MeWePRO directly competes with SLACK, offering an exceptional suite of fully integrated collaboration tools and security while eliminating the bottlenecks and performance impediments of internal email.
MeWePRO supercharges communication and collaboration between employees inside any organization or project, and costs less than $75 per year per employee. MeWePRO is free for non-profits and educational organizations.
Bottom Line: It is a false myth that has been spread by Facebook, Google, Snap, Instagram, and others, that our data is what we have to give up to have a great social media experience. That is a complete lie and PURE BS! Capitalism was never intended to be a system for spying on people – that’s communism and CREEPY. Friends, Facebook is a data company, plain and simple. Their members are the products that they sell. At MeWe our members are customers to serve, not data or products to sell. That’s why we use the hashtag #Not4Sale!
mewepro.com - MeWePRO: The best chat, collaboration, and security
I've looked at MeWe a few times. Each time I've been turned off by browsing the groups - so much stupid and so much hate. It seems to be the home of Goop-followers, the "thur cumin to git yer guns" crowd, and various flavors of white supremacists spouting racist and sexist crap. I struggled to find any group that seemed credible and interesting and left feeling depressed. Perhaps I was doing it wrong.
ReplyDeleteI also have an issue with the request to upload my contacts.
However, I will be visiting back over the next months to see how it evolves.
It does definitely have a huge conservative slant—in terms of actual users, that is—though I don't fault the site for that. This site is big on free speech, and that probably appeals to a lot of them (and it appeals to me too, despite being center left).
ReplyDeleteI think if it actually gained a larger user base, it'd be more welcoming to all sorts of beliefs, but as for whether that'll happen or not is yet to be seen. I'm personally a pessimist, but I'll be happy to be proven wrong.
Back to my same issue with the privacy, it makes the search function a lot less useful. On Google+, I can search for a keyword and get tons of results from all around the site. Here, because literally everything is private until you join/add to contact, you get no results, making it harder to find people with similar interests, lest they have those keywords on their profile description.
But let's see. Things I like:
+ Reactions
+ Being able to edit/format posts
+ Being able to change your icon depending on the group (it'd be nice if you could change your name too, say, for someone who is in multiple roleplay groups and wants their name to be their characters' names)
+ Being able to go to different groups with a single click
+ ALBUMS. It was so disappointing when Google+ got rid of them.
So yeah. Aside from my privacy gripes, it's really nice.
There's a decent number of gamers migrating to MeWe, if a large community is asking for a feature, would MeWe be responsive to the group? (And how big does that group have to be?)
ReplyDeleteMeWe is "Free Forever" (stated on our site) for members because privacy is not something anyone should ever have to pay for.
ReplyDeleteMeWe has all the great FREE features people love in social media and none of the BS. Free and standard on MeWe includes: full-featured private 1:1 and group chat; full-featured private and open groups; disappearing content; cool custom camera with Gif creation; live voice and live video in beta; next-gen voice messaging; Giphy; Doodle; Location Sharing; Personal Social Cloud; Custom Group Profiles; and much more.
Freemium Revenue Model on MeWe
In addition to the awesome free and standard features, there are some fun optional paid special features including MeWe Secret Chat (our regular 1:1 and multi-person chat is brilliant and this optional feature is for 1:1 chats using double-ratchet encryption like WhatsApp only without their bizarre spying and tracking), Custom Emojis, MeWe Pages (coming October 9), and MeWe Premium (coming in December).
REVENUE SUPERCHARGER: MeWePRO for Business
Leveraging our software code and our security/privacy, we have a second division, MeWePRO, as a Slack competitor for enterprise collaboration. We believe MeWePRO is far superior collaboration technology than Slack.
For enterprise customers, MeWePRO costs less than $75 per year per employee, and is free for non-profits and educational organizations.
MeWePRO is separately available on iOS, Android, and desktop in 8 languages including English, Japanese, Arabic, Mandarin, French, Spanish, German, and Portuguese.
mewepro.com - MeWePRO: The best chat, collaboration, and security
I think there's an option to let the person you're requesting see your profile before they accept (which I think all should do), but aside from that little bit of nuance, I agree, and that's my problem too.
ReplyDeleteSomeone might look like my kind of person from their profile, but then once they accept me, I realize "Oh, wow, they really can't spell," or "Never mind, all they post are memes." And maybe they're not active at the time, so you'll wait weeks for them to even accept.
/sub
ReplyDeleteElisebeth Ross Yeah, the lack of any sort of publicly accessible posting is sort of a game stopper for me.
ReplyDeleteI really liked certain things on Mark Weinstein's post on politics, manipulation and shadowbanning. I was an ex-DeviantArt member. Spend 10 great years there without social media / allgorithm / face recognition / politics bullshit. And still looking forward to have something like that.
ReplyDeleteMeWe has no political bias as a company and no algorithms that could perform any kind of bias censorship whatsoever. We have a built in self-reporting system for our members to report and block people breaking our terms.
ReplyDeleteI am a registered Libertarian and well know for my opposition to political censorship, political bias, and shadow banning on social media and in the world. MeWe is for law-abiding citizens worldwide regardless of their politics, religion, sexuality, and other traits that make for the great melting pot of the world. These are the principles of our great republic!
We have tens of thousands of open groups easy to find in our Open Group Directory, so it is easy to find your constituencies and like-minded people and to create your own groups.
In 2 weeks we will launch MeWe Pages for business and fan pages too. It is easy to have your profile in and search the MeWe Directory for friends or to match your address book with our membership - and easy to share your member and group links outside MeWe so people can easily find and join you at MeWe. And if you want to be private, simply opt out of our member directory - not possible at Facebook.
Here's an article published yesterday that reflects our open-mindedness and our philosophy that diversity enriches the world:
plantbasednews.org - Plant Based News Documentary Sponsored By MeWe - The 'New Facebook'
Mark Weinstein I notice that you are Jewish. Does that mean that if we speak out against terrorist Israel that our posts will be deleted or that we are relegated to a slower algorithm? We want freedom of speech.
ReplyDeleteNina Anthonijsz Join the groups that are right for you and ignore what doesn't resonate. That's democracy. 8GB = 16,000 photos. If you prefer to be data sold to the Russians, and censored for whatever they decide, then Facebook is happy to host you:)
ReplyDeleteNina Anthonijsz The way you attack this well-meaning man is annoying.
ReplyDeleteNina, surely like you, I have countless things demanding my attention right now besides G+. Please forgive me - I just want the G+ community to know that MeWe is here and we have millions of members and we do the right thing. This is not just a business, this is a mission for me and our Advisors. Facebook and G+ are data companies masquerading as social networks. That is an utter facade. To us this is an outrage. It is a false myth that we must give our data to these companies in exchange for their services. Capitalism has never worked that way - and our great grandparents who fought so hard for the freedoms and dignity provided by our Constitution would be appalled at these companies which dare to steal our data and manipulate our newsfeeds/minds with their biased algorithms.
ReplyDeleteI do have to run - many other things to do today. Thank you for your patience with me. Here's a link to my Bio: mewe.com - bit.ly/2RBRcjS
From what I've seen MeWe looks like the best option (at least the most similar one). It needs some changes and improvements but I'm hopeful is being developed constantly.
ReplyDeleteMy only worry is the 8GB, if I'm moving Anikaku there then that can be a problem eventually (when users can't add more drawings). I would suggest the google photos approach (letting users upload limitlees but not over 5MP or having a file size limit like discord) but then I know it won't work well for MeWe's money-making scheme...
I guess we'll see, I'll try it for a while.
My only concern, really, is that I'd prefer decentralization.
ReplyDeleteI wonder if—due to the privacy of everything—it'd become somewhat like an echo-chamber for people. But that's another thing that can't be helped, and technically, any social media could become that if you block enough people; it'd just be way easier to do here since everyone's profile posts are private from the start and can't be changed, apparently.
ReplyDeleteBut that's not meant to be another criticism. Just a thought about an unintended consequence. Man, this country is so radicalized on both sides right now.
I guess he's gone now and there's no word (not surprisingly) of profiles being public (and by this I mean profile posts, not just that they can be searched for), so I'm probably not going to use it.
But right now, it is looking like the best alternative to me aside from that big issue. I tried Pluspora and wasn't a fan at all. Too few features, including the lack of ability to edit. I need to edit.
Kirby Iwaki Fancy seeing you here! I already have an account albeit, for my character, since he's better for starting up accounts I may dispose of immediately so if you do make it, I'll definitely join.
ReplyDeleteBut it doesn't mean I'll actually post much. Because I don't post often on communities in general.
Plusplora is decentralized but it feels too old. You can't do much there, not even groups, so yeah, no-go.
ReplyDeleteMinds looks better and I like the idea of the tokens, but it lacks a lot on the post-making (no polls, for example).
At the end we'll probably move to both MeWe and Minds and see which one catches up, but we're talking about it.
Elisebeth Ross Feel free to add me in MeWe https://mewe.com/i/kirby.iwaki
I presume MeWe is hosted in the US, Mark Weinstein, so it would be great to hear your thoughts on privacy vs. mass surveillance.
ReplyDeleteWill MeWe honor GDPR for European users only, or for everyone alike? Can MeWe stand up to the NSA and others, or will you have to cave in eventually? Any chance you will host data in the EU or Switzerland instead of in the US?
Edit: In reply to other comments Mark has told that the servers are hosted in the EU. At the same time the privacy policy states that even if you live in for example the EU, it’s “another country’s jurisdiction” that apply. I find it a tad inconsistent. EU citizens expect that EU law apply to them, especially so if the servers are hosted in the EU.
Hi there Mark Weinstein Please consider to remove the 50 friend adds daily limit, at least for a few days. Quite a lot of us are migrating and it is quite annoying not to be able to add all my friends in a day. Actually I would need almost a whole month to add everybody.
ReplyDeleteI understand it is a good anti-spam policy, but we are in desperate times :D
Mark Weinstein The biggest drawback I see is that there are no public posts and there is no possibility to finely granulate who can see my posts. I want some posts to be public, I want some posts to be for contacts only and I want some posts probably for some or single persons only. And I want to choose what profile information can be seen public or just by contacts.
ReplyDeleteAnd I need the feature to subscribe to people to read their public posts without adding them as one of my contacts. That was one of the best features of G+.
Public posts will be live in December. And yes, we already have very granular permissions - simply click on the profile of one of your contacts and then select whether you want them to see your posts and whether you want to see theirs. We are also adding a smaller "Friends Circle" of contacts in a few weeks. We have no servers in the USA, only in Ireland. And we are already GDPR compliant globally.
ReplyDeletestefan holzhauer being able to chose whether a post is public or for selected users only is imperative. But are you saying you can’t post publicly on MeWe at all? That’s a truly serious drawback.
ReplyDeleteMark Weinstein glad to hear you will introduce public posts! :)
ReplyDeletePublic posts in December?
ReplyDeleteOkay, I'm sold (at least until something better comes around, but I'm quite pessimistic that something will, so rejoice.)
I forgot to mention the lack of Permalinks also being a concern, but unlike the above, it's not a deal breaker.
And adding a Friends Circle is a very welcome change as well.
Mark Weinstein requesting permission to copy/paste your replies in this post (as there is no way to share a reply) and translate for the Spanish community.
ReplyDeleteNina Anthonijsz Just wanted to point out that the limitless space to post on G+ wasn't for free, you paid for it with your name and other personal information that was mined and made available to advertisers. You made a trade off where you valued your privacy at less than the storage space required to host your posts. It's a valid trade to make (as long as you understand you made it) but it's a rather unfair criticism towards a platform that deliberately chooses NOT to sell your privacy (assuming you trust their promise).
ReplyDeleteJuha Lindfors Googlers have repeatedly said that they never mined the G+ data, as it had no value.
ReplyDeleteJuha Lindfors I see, thanks. Actually I never gave it much thought, but on the other hand, I don't have a problem with it either.
ReplyDeleteBrian Holt Hawthorne Do you still trust that? I have my doubts. As an example, today I had "Trending on Google+" posts that were clearly not very popular (12 likes) yet strangely coincided with content I've viewed on YouTube.
ReplyDeleteHow does that happen? I guess we should presume coincidence if Google is still to be trusted. I'm finding my trust lacking a lot recently.
And how is it that our personal profiles, photos, posts, likes and clicks are so incredibly valuable to Facebook (multiple billions of worth), but Google claims it has no value? Curious.
Brian Holt Hawthorne and you really believe them?
ReplyDeleteBrian Holt Hawthorne And let's not forget the little news yesterday that 500,000 people's profiles were potentially exposed here on G+, and the CEO decided to hide that fact until WSJ forced their hand. Trustworthy leadership?
ReplyDeleteJuha Lindfors Yes, Google mines your YouTube data and your Gmail data to target ads. Why does Google+ data have no value? Because there were never enough users.
ReplyDeleteI don't actually mind them using my data and would trade it for more space as a necessary evil, but I can see why others wouldn't like that, so to each their own.
ReplyDeleteI wonder how much space I've even used on Google+. I post pretty many images, but it still may be under 8 GB in 5+ years, so it might not be a concern for me regardless. RIP other people, though.
Brian Holt Hawthorne Fair enough. So they thought they'd mine it, gave the limitless space to produce content to mine, no one came, they were incurring losses on the infrastructure anyway, decided to close the whole thing down. Presumably over a security issue (or so they claim). Which they chose to hide from users.
ReplyDeleteIf I fully knew the inner workings of Google, maybe I'd be angry at them, but I don't know the full story.
ReplyDeleteI do really wish they would've tried to fix some obvious bugs (like formatting going super wonky after you edit a post), but if it truly was failing, then it'd have been a huge gamble to put more time and effort into something that might still not succeed. I guess I prefer giving people the benefit of the doubt, at least when it's a free product I'm using. (If I were paying, it'd be a way different story.)
That doesn't mean I'm not devastated that it's ending, though. Most of my memories from the past five years are on this site, and I cannot archive it all. I just don't feel like I can really get angry at anyone for it.
And this includes the data breach. I've got nothing to hide, so I don't personally care, aside from it obviously showing a lack of trustworthiness and competence on Google's part. Which is definitely bad.
At least they gave us ten months, even if I know that's not good enough for a lot of people.
Isabella LeCour How do you know there were ever 18 million active users?
ReplyDeleteWayne Johnson
ReplyDeleteOur statement on politics on MeWe is crystal clear!
https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/fjPfk3QRhWfXqXD9MYrQ58v68KyomB3mrCWAMqWncXLD-ijfK9SPmMBbe0Ge4tqPeCF0LLsLDodXzw=s0
There is a group on there with 146 members that is Anti-Israel and has tags like #FuckIsraHell, so I'd say the site's doing a pretty good job with not censoring.
ReplyDeletehttps://mewe.com/group/5af2f43ca40f3008873b021a
But to everyone else, please note I only joined to see the group and do not support such hateful movements on either side.
But anyway, let's not get into politics here, unless it relates to the platform itself. Politics are so hateful and messy.
Isabella LeCour And if the betrayal is truly unforgivable, why are you still here?
ReplyDeleteWe won't be here for long, now will we ? :-)
ReplyDeleteIsabella LeCour Yeah. I did my own research. Facebook has over 2 BILLION daily active users. Google+ is so small that nobody even bothers to post statistics.
ReplyDeleteNow, it was plenty big for ME, and I have lots of friends here, but Google thinks in terms of billions of users, not millions or hundreds of thousands.
Brian Holt Hawthorne Just to be precise, that's monthly active users. Daily are less although still a mind-boggling 1.45 billion.
ReplyDeleteMark Weinstein A lot of trolls have moved to MeWe ... how do you propose to manage them with your stated policies of freedom of speech and guaranteed anonymity?
ReplyDeleteStephen Gunnell Right now it shouldn't be too big of a problem since everything is private, so...
ReplyDeleteKarin Curran Thanks for the warning that that kind of people are swimming around. Makes signing up a no-go. Funny how "no censorship" nowadays means they'll let all kinds of hate just float around.
ReplyDeleteStephen Gunnell also... how do you know that?
ReplyDeleteKirby Iwaki because they were boasting about MeWe as their platform of choice.
ReplyDeleteStephen Gunnell Where? I'm still new there, so I don't know for sure, but yeah.
ReplyDeleteI'd assume harassment still wouldn't be allowed even as a free speech platform, so you could report trolls, as I saw there is a 'report' button on there. And if they're not harassing anyone, you could still block them.
ReplyDeleteKeeping one's profile private would also help, for sure (even once they allow for public posts).
(That said, I hope the report button wouldn't be overused, as some people probably consider a civil disagreement 'harassment.')
/sub
ReplyDeleteMeWe is a site full of good, law-abiding citizens of our Republic and from around the world. If you want "anything goes" then you might want to go to Gab or Minds for content that is completely unfiltered. That's not MeWe.
ReplyDeleteAt MeWe we welcome you to join and make sure the MeWe community is always awesome and appropriate. We have a clear TOS to keep MeWe safe for all of us and also have a comprehensive reporting and blocking system throughout the site and for all members and all posts.
There are awesome people worldwide who want great communication technology and none of the BS of Facebook, etc. MeWe is that site for all of us.
MeWe members actively participate in moderating MeWe, as we have no spyware. We are also continuously building new moderation tools for MeWe group owners. Group owners can already assign as many admins to their groups as they want - and all group owners and their admins can block and remove any group member, as well as change group member permissions individually if necessary.
When it comes to tolerance of different political viewpoints - MeWe stands out from Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Google, etc. MeWe doesn't shadow ban, has no political bias, doesn't manipulate your newsfeed, has no facial recognition, no spyware, no boosted anything, and NO BS. MeWe members and their data are #Not4Sale.
All social media sites have ongoing issues with trolls and bots, and MeWe is no different. We take on those challenges every day to make MeWe delightful and safe for all members. We're not a haven for violence inciters or porno - there are other sites for them to go to - not MeWe. We like to say "MeWe is for the good guys." We're not perfect - and we're working on making MeWe better and better every single day.
Here's our "Dear Facebook" full page letter published in the New York Times on Sunday, May 27, in response to Mark Zuckerberg's "apology" published there a few weeks earlier.
https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/_QXqmarBQPaZfWsLocOQjY3DlRJerLy6KrW3AP4-cTxHK66i9CfmSPgx1_YIa0-CxFPawGy5xGAMBA=s0
Mark Weinstein MeWe is certainly on the right track. Progress only comes by day to day hard work and fixing the issues that came before us. No one can ever be perfect. The point is if we are willing to seek betterment for ourselves and everyone else.
ReplyDeleteMark Weinstein I must say your displayed patriotism worries me a bit. What if it comes into a conflict with the advertised site values?
ReplyDeleteSituations like these are never simple, but for me, personally, healthy dose of skepticism towards any state that influences you is required. It'd be awesome if mewe kept a warrant canary, for example.
Freedom of speech is a wonderful thing but that does not include spreading hate or allowing people around who want nothing more than eliminate or oppress entire groups of people.
ReplyDeleteYou like to see mewe as "the good guys" - cool.
But then I read where you say "born in the greatest country" and "patriot first". Combined with what I saw (the alarming amount of trump fan groups and NRA enthusiasts), I am not comfortable and have deleted my 10 minute old account.
"Freedom" is wonderful, but only if everyone can feel safe.
on my "To try out" list...
ReplyDeleteNina Anthonijsz Every social media company has all kinds of people just like democracy does around the world. MeWe is already translated into 8 languages and has members across the globe and yes if you look for people you don't agree with you will find them anywhere, even right on your street and at work too:) And of course we don't agree with our families all the time either. Today we are all citizens of the world - and at MeWe we embrace that.
ReplyDeleteAt MeWe we recommend finding your friends and interests that you like or want to learn about. There are also thousands of MeWe members who never join any groups and they love using MeWe just for their family and friends - we have great chat and newsfeeds for all your favorite people.
There are plenty of liberals as well as conservatives on MeWe - all kinds of political orientations, just like there are people who believe in mainstream medicine and those who believe in alternative medicine - mainstream lifestyles and alternative lifestyles, bikers, car buffs, ecologists, artists, classical musicians and hard rockers - this is what makes life great. Find your people and enjoy them - ignore the others - they are in their groups and worlds - enjoy our great communication technology for your world!
I’m moving the G+ Philosophy community there, maybe you want to join us there.
ReplyDeleteMark Weinstein it is way too cumbersome to set visibility settings per contact. That should be done with user groups I can sort users into. So I can set post post and profile visibility settings per user groups instead of per contact. As it is done in IT since ancient times ... ;)
ReplyDeleteMark Weinstein Thank you for clarifying that for me. I have 13,000 followers and I will pass this on to them.
ReplyDeleteMark Weinstein On technical side, I'd like to hear what you are doing to keep everyone's private data and privacy safe. Companies like Google and Facebook with their potentially vast resources are unable to accomplish perfect data security, as we've seen multiple times. What are the extra measures you've taken to ensure everyone will indeed be and remain safe?
ReplyDeleteMark Weinstein, you said "And we are already GDPR compliant globally".
ReplyDeleteBeing compliant to the GDPR (I am not sure what "globally" means in that context since the GDPR only applies in the EU) means that you have to incorporate to a lot of formality. For example the information provided to potential users before they register with your service has to be quite specific about what data is used and how it is used (e.g. Art 13 - https://gdpr-info.eu/art-13-gdpr/). I can't find any of these informations in your privacy policy (https://mewe.com/privacy).
Maybe I am looking at an outdated page. Can you point me to the required information legally required by the GDPR?
Since I can't find an address of your companies location (also a requirement by the GDPR) I assume that you are based in the US. Therefor you wouldn't fall under GDPR legislation. If this is the case, have you considered using the framework of the privacy shield (https://www.privacyshield.gov/welcome)?
stefan holzhauer
ReplyDeleteOf course you can do this - get on MeWe and enjoy!
Markus Sauerbrey
ReplyDeleteMarkus, we are totally compliant with GDPR. It doesn't matter where you are as a company, it matters where your members are, btw. GDPR applies to all members who live in the EU and all members you have on your servers in the EU, regardless of where they live. So how did Facebook respond? Facebook moved 1.5Billion non-EU members off of their EU servers so they would not have to comply with GDPR for the vast majority of their members. MeWe's servers are in the EU and we kept them there - MeWe complies with GDPR for all members, plain and simple.
Mark Weinstein As I stated, being compliant with the GDPR also means, that you have to provide a lot of information about your handling of personal data. Please check Art 13 GDPR (https://gdpr-info.eu/art-14-gdpr/). Where can I find this information?
ReplyDeleteMarkus Sauerbrey It's all in our Privacy Policy and Terms of Service. We are compliant, plain and simple. That's all the time I have right now. Cheers!
ReplyDeleteMark Weinstein I beg to differ about gdpr. You have neither a gdpr compliant imprint nor a gdpr compliant privacy statement including information about the service provider or contact info about a privacy commissioner to whom info requests and complaints can be sent. And I do not see a data processing contract anywhere. Those are part of really being gdpr compliant.
ReplyDeleteAt least Google and Facebook all use the privacy shield, a certification process to incorporate GDPR rules (as far as possible) into companies in the US (https://www.privacyshield.gov/welcome).
ReplyDeleteMark Weinstein I don't mean to be rude. I (data protection officer at my company) was asking some mere basic questions on how the GDPR works and I haven't gotten a nearly sufficient answer so far. The GDPR requires a very specific kind of privacy policy which is supposed to be found easily on your website. So either it is there and easy for you to find and show or it is not.
Mark Weinstein, has MeWe ever taken venture capital, seed money, etc. from a government, intelligence service, former member of an intelligence service, or individual with strong ties to any intelligence community? Also, to what extent are your sources of investor capital publicly known?
ReplyDeleteMark Weinstein First of all, thank you for coming here and explaining all this. That is awesome, first class service.
ReplyDeleteI'm happy to learn MeWe's servers are in the EU and therefore subject to EU data protection laws.
My main issues are public content and managing who I share to. You say public content is coming, and Pages are coming, but Pages will be $2/month. Does that mean public content will only be possible if you pay? I really like Google+'s ability to manage exactly who I share something with, and my default is to share everything publicly. I want to be found by new people, and I welcome people I don't know commenting on my post, as long as they're reasonable about it (I welcome discussion, but I block trolls and harassers).
From what I understand, on MeWe I can currently only share with everybody I know, or I have to create a community for it. Will that change? Will I eventually be able to make public posts that people can read who I don't follow? Can I make content that's meant to be found without paying $2/month? Will I be able to post one thing to a select group of people (possibly a large one) without first having to invite them all to a community, and waiting for them to accept the invite, before I can post? Will I be able to follow someone for their public posts without them having to follow me back?
To me, and from what I understand, to many people on Google+, those features are vital to recreate the environment for easy (collaborative) creation and sharing of creative content that Google+ enables. I think it's no surprise that Google+ is mostly popular with photographers and independent game designers. The love sharing their ideas and creations with the world.
Martijn Vos I second these improvement requests.
ReplyDeleteMark Weinstein Thank you for engaging with the G+ community here. Your willingness to do so is impressive. I have a private community that I’m considering moving to MeWe. I’d like to take this opportunity to ask you about some resistance I’ve encountered when asking people about their thoughts on MeWe.
ReplyDeleteA Recurring Complaint
One concern I’ve seen people mention several times is that MeWe doesn’t have an explicit anti-harassment policy. Do you have anything to say to those individuals for whom this is a concern? Privacy controls alone don’t seem to represent a complete answer because harassment can happen in locations outside of an individual’s full control, i.e. groups, comments on other people’s posts, etc.
Random Points
I’m excited about the prospect of moving the network to Solid.
I’m very happy to see that the network will soon offer public posts.
Many people would like some form of asynchronous following that allows visibility to publicly shared items without granting visibility to every post. If this is currently available, the mechanism isn’t obvious.
Mark Weinstein , I strongly second John Ward 's point about asynchronous sharing. That is a must-have feature, as far as I am concerned. (Along with public posting, which you have stated will be live in December)
ReplyDeleteJust beginning to explore the possibilities for migrating from G+, and to be honest, this whole conversation - including the challenges, rebuttals and Mark Weinstein's answers to tough questions - is making me inclined to at least try it. I am a decidedly left-of-liberal feminist, but I trust and value the free flow of ideas and open debate. I am especially heartened by the involvement of Tim Berniers-Lee (a personal hero). Will be checking it out, particularly with regard to how it displays photos, since 90% of my G+ activity has been in photo projects.
ReplyDelete[ Dude ] No, I haven’t. I was going off of the complaints I’ve heard about the company. As you have pointed out all of the issues may be addressed in the Ts and Cs. I figured that they were, but people seemed upset that those specific parts weren’t outlined in their own section so I wanted to bring it up.
ReplyDeleteHi Everyone, sorry it has been a very busy day - plus I have a delightful 3-year old who needed dinner:) Just a few moments here right now - want to respond to your messages, and many thanks for this important conversation.
ReplyDeleteYes, asynchronous sharing is a key part of our open posting model which as Jason has said, will be live later this fall. And yes, our Terms are straightforward and clear - we want MeWe to be a place we can all enjoy, regardless of our differences of opinions. In an earlier post I wrote about how hard we work everyday to make MeWe the online home we can all love and enjoy - we are focused on giving our group owners and all members total control over their experience and we have a robust reporting/blocking system already in place. We will continue with these efforts and it is a community effort too.
MeWe is definitely not "anything goes" - our terms sets out the rules BUT at the same time we have absolutely no shadow banning or algorithm/political bias or boosted anything into your newsfeed. And because we have no ads there is no way to pay or target our members and there is no data to share with advertisers/marketers because there is none of that. Bottom line - your newsfeed is yours - in timeline order from everyone and all groups you are connected to (they are separate feeds by the way - your group feed is separate from your personal contacts feeds - and we have awesome MeWe chat everywhere so it is really fun too.
You might have seen that we've just sponsored a wonderful Vegan group that was getting censored on Facebook (https://www.plantbasednews.org/post/plant-based-news-documentary-mewe-facebook) - and I have also been outspoken in my disagreement with Twitter for censoring James Woods (https://bit.ly/2C95ovt). This is not about my politics - this is about censorship of all kinds of law-abiding people who are doing nothing wrong except having an opinion or philosophy that apparent is contrary to the powers that be at other social media companies. MeWe does not engage in that BS!
MeWe is social done right - and we will keep making it great. Have a good night everyone!
Cheers, Mark
Mark Weinstein keep up the great work mark!
ReplyDeleteYou might want to update MeWe users via the main group (MeWe News and Updates) about what is happening behind the scene a bit more frequently now (like the post about the vegan thing on the group).
Goodnight and rest well!
/sub
ReplyDeleteMark Weinstein I would be interested in finding out more information about MeWe groups. Specifically:
ReplyDelete* Currently shared resources on groups (i.e. files) seem to only be accessible via desk top. Will there be plans to offer access via the app?
* Will you be adding the ability to add sections to groups? I know the current work around is to use hashtag filters but it seems to be messy.
* Is there ability for Admins to limit hashtags for use solely by the admin team?
* Profiles - are there plans to allow multiple profiles under one account?
* Multiple accounts - are there plans to improve the ability to swap and change between accounts, especially on the app?
* G+ offers the ability to have different types of members. Limited & full access member. Limited members require all posts to be approved by an admin, while the full access member does not. What are MeWe's plans on this regards.
* Will MeWe have the ability to suspend members for a period of time & reinstate them at a later date?
* How does banned member tracking work?
* Will groups have a report post to admin function?
Ash UK
ReplyDeleteHere are your answers, thanks for asking:
* Currently shared resources on groups (i.e. files) seem to only be accessible via desk top. Will there be plans to offer access via the app?
Answer: These are available on the apps already. Just click on the group info (i) button in the top right of the group and you can see files and all shared resources of the group.
* Will you be adding the ability to add sections to groups? I know the current work around is to use hashtag filters but it seems to be messy.
Answer: At this time we have no plans to add sections to groups. We do plan on enhancing hashtags to be more elegant and easy to use.
* Is there ability for Admins to limit hashtags for use solely by the admin team?
Answer: Not at this time. It is a feature we are considering.
* Profiles - are there plans to allow multiple profiles under one account?
Answer: Already available - MeWe allows members to have different profiles for every group they are in.
* Multiple accounts - are there plans to improve the ability to swap and change between accounts, especially on the app?
Answer: We are working on this.
* G+ offers the ability to have different types of members. Limited & full access member. Limited members require all posts to be approved by an admin, while the full access member does not. What are MeWe's plans on this regards.
Answer: MeWe already has 4 types of group member levels, Contributor, Limited, Viewer, Custom. These levels can be set both globally for group members and then granularly for individual group members as well.
* Will MeWe have the ability to suspend members for a period of time & reinstate them at a later date?
Answer: MeWe group owners can already block and later unblock any group member or simply limit a group member permissions to View Only.
* How does banned member tracking work?
Answer: Neither group owners nor MeWe track banned members.
* Will groups have a report post to admin function?
Answer: Yes, we are working on additional reporting tools for group members to report issues directly to group owners and group admins.
Mark Weinstein thank you for the detailed response! I hope you don't mind me asking! I oversee/assist with a lot of G+ Communities and they have varied requirements based on their purpose.
ReplyDeleteI have a few more quick questions in reference to Groups:
*I couldn't seem to find a FAQ for groups, do you have a link?
*does MeWe offer any form of analytics as standard or as a premium addon?
*within the group, is there a setting process that allows you to keep posts viewable within the community only?
Mark Weinstein thank you for the detailed response! I hope you don't mind me asking! I oversee/assist with a lot of G+ Communities and they have varied requirements based on their purpose.
ReplyDeleteI have a few more quick questions in reference to Groups:
*I couldn't seem to find a FAQ for groups, do you have a link?
*does MeWe offer any form of analytics as standard or as a premium addon?
*within the group, is there a setting process that allows you to keep posts viewable within the community only?
*does MeWe groups offer the option to change your page layout. G+ allows user to customise this so they can either use the one post horizontal view or more of a multiple post vertical view on both desktop and mobile app.
*are there any plans enhance the search option for groups. Currently you can search for terms fine within a group setting but you are unable to search for terms in public group posts as a whole. Search only brings up groups rather than posts. Also similarly is there search functionality to find posts from specific users covering specific terms?
Ash UK
ReplyDeleteHi Ash - no worries, we are here to make this transition as easy as possible and appreciate your good questions!
*I couldn't seem to find a FAQ for groups, do you have a link?
Answer: We have an FAQ about MeWe here: mewe.com - MeWe: The best chat & group app with privacy you trust. However, at this time we don't have one about groups specifically.
*does MeWe offer any form of analytics as standard or as a premium add-on?
Answer: Group and page analytics will be available as a premium feature added in Q1/Q2 of next year.
*within the group, is there a setting process that allows you to keep posts viewable within the community only?
Answer: Yes, inside Group Settings/Permissions you can turn off the Reshare permission for all of your group members.
Mark Weinstein Thanks for the response. I was naughty and added two more questions, which you probably missed as I did them when you were typing out responses.
ReplyDelete*does MeWe groups offer the option to change your page layout. G+ allows user to customise this so they can either use the one post horizontal view or more of a multiple post vertical view on both desktop and mobile app.
*are there any plans enhance the search option for groups. Currently you can search for terms fine within a group setting but you are unable to search for terms in public group posts as a whole. Search only brings up groups rather than posts. Also similarly is there search functionality to find posts from specific users covering specific terms?
Mark Weinstein G+ has a feature called Collections. It allows people to organize posts around a stated theme. The brilliant thing about Collections is that it's possible to continue to follow a person, but unsubscribe from specific Collections. For example, someone might be following a photographer because they enjoy their work, but they can't stand that photographer's politics. The photographer is able to post all of their political commentary to a Collection and their followers can unsubscribe from those posts if they wish.
ReplyDeleteRecently, I've discovered that you can set up MeWe groups so that posting privileges are restricted to the owner. This provides essentially the same functions as G+ Collections because people can join the group or leave it as they wish.
This workaround provides the same functionality, but I wonder if this is how you folks intended for it to be used? It seems like this will lead to people having to join scores of groups to stay on top of their friends posts.
My question is should people continue to use groups in this manner or will you folks be rolling out something that's more closely aligned to our individual profiles similar to how Collections work here?
Ash UK
ReplyDelete*does MeWe groups offer the option to change your page layout. G+ allows user to customise this so they can either use the one post horizontal view or more of a multiple post vertical view on both desktop and mobile app.
Answer: Currently there is no way to customize the view of your feed inside a MeWe group. It's an interesting idea and I'll be sure to pass it along to our product team.
*are there any plans enhance the search option for groups. Currently you can search for terms fine within a group setting but you are unable to search for terms in public group posts as a whole. Search only brings up groups rather than posts. Also similarly is there search functionality to find posts from specific users covering specific terms?
Answer: MeWe's "Smart Search" will search posts in all of the groups you are in and all of your contacts posts as well. When you search on MeWe we show a combination of people, groups and posts and you can then filter it to show only posts if you like. When public posts go live they will be indexed for search and our open group posts will also get indexed.
Mark Weinstein Thanks for the response again! I am back again with a few more questions.
ReplyDelete*Will the ability to see all posts from all the groups & contacts an individual follows appear on an integrated personal timeline in your app? It currently works that way on the desktop version.
*Are there plans to increase functionality of chats, i.e. being able to add people to an existing chat?
*Are there plans to allow the ability to save a post or the option of getting a unique url for a specific post so that it can be bookmarked?
*Does MeWe offer the ability to use already uploaded images/documents in new posts. If yes, how does this work.
*You mentioned in an earlier answer that MeWe allows members to have different profiles for every group they are in. Please can you direct me to a guide on how to set this up? I have had a couple of people asking me to follow up on this, as they can't work out how to do it.
*Google+ offers the ability to vet people before they join a community (i.e. see how they post on their timelines & public communities). How would this work with MeWe groups? Due the privacy settings etc of MeWe how would admins be able to check validity of the request?
John Ward
ReplyDeleteGood question and thanks for digging in and exploring all of MeWe's great features. Our user experience team is looking into this use case right now. I believe in the future we will enhance #hashtags so a user can follow or unfollow a specific hastag. This will allow hashtags to work similar to how collections and categories work on G+.
Mark Weinstein Thanks so much for this post. My key question is : How do you think about supporting a protocol like ActivityPub (W3C Recommendation) https://www.w3.org/TR/activitypub/ or ZOT https://project.hubzilla.org/help/de-de/developer/zot_protocol to make MeWe able to speak to us – since I loose my last digital home I would never move to another SILO https://indieweb.org/silo but to the fediverse instead …
ReplyDeleteAsh UK
ReplyDeleteHere you go - this is all the time I have right now - hope all the questions I answered today are helpful for everyone - the MeWe team is on it for you - we're here to serve our members! Cheers, Mark
*Will the ability to see all posts from all the groups & contacts an individual follows appear on an integrated personal timeline in your app?
Answer: It currently works that way on the desktop version.
Yes, in the future we may add this feature to the mobile apps.
*Are there plans to increase functionality of chats, i.e. being able to add people to an existing chat?
Answer: Absolutely. We love chat at MeWe and we'll always be adding features to make it better. Soon you will be able to emoji chat messages and not long after that you'll have the ability to add users to chats, name chat threads and much more.
*Are there plans to allow the ability to save a post or the option of getting a unique url for a specific post so that it can be bookmarked?
Answer: There are plans for this. Here is a quick hack to things you want to remember. Create a private group, name it "Stuff I want to remember" and then you can share posts to this group so you can find them later.
*Does MeWe offer the ability to use already uploaded images/documents in new posts. If yes, how does this work.
Yes, just go to your "My Cloud" on desktop (coming to our apps soon) and re-share what you've posted/uploaded.
*You mentioned in an earlier answer that MeWe allows members to have different profiles for every group they are in. Please can you direct me to a guide on how to set this up? I have had a couple of people asking me to follow up on this, as they can't work out how to do it.
Answer: Inside each group you can click on your profile picture to view your group profile or you can go to the group option Customize Your Group Profile. Here you can change your profile picture and the text for each group you are in. Only group members inside this group can see this profile picture and text.
*Google+ offers the ability to vet people before they join a community (i.e. see how they post on their timelines & public communities). How would this work with MeWe groups? Due the privacy settings etc of MeWe how would admins be able to check validity of the request?
Answer: With the addition of Public Posts later this year it should help solve this issue.
Sorry, forgot: ActivityPub, ZOT or Sir TimBL's SOLID off course
ReplyDeleteSebastian Lasse Sir Tim Berners-Lee is an important MeWe Advisor. We expect to be the first social network to implement SOLID.
ReplyDeletemewe.com - mewe.com/home/static/MeWe-Advisory-Board-September.2018.45b87f3c.pdf
Here are some suggestions the MeWe team should work on. 1 Fix the problems with formatting of posts; sometimes there are some “*” characters although they haven’t bee entered 2 Fix the problems with disastrous looking formatted posts on Android devices 3 Reduce the number of emojis; they don’t have standardized meanings and it’s not that good if they leave room for interpretation; just limit them to + and - 4 Editing a comment on Android and iOS smartphones is a disaster; there’s nearly no space to see what’s entered and scrolling through the text is a very special challenge 5 Placement of controls isn’t optimized; it should always be possible to see the “status” of notifications; the controls “Me, We, Photos, Camera, GIF, ...” are much too close to the text field (use a drop down menu) 6 A more frequent use of drop-down menus would be nice; some controls in the iOS UI are light grey and look like they were disabled 7 Replies to comments shouldn’t be hidden by default 8 There is no option to generate a link to a whole post (Copy Link just copies the link which the post refers to) 9 I miss categories and collections like we have on G+
ReplyDelete10 Wouldn’t it be a great idea to start official talks with Google to let them create a migration tool “Google+ to MeWe”?
Thomas Unterstenhoefer Hmmm - what version of the MeWe Android app are you using - and also what operating system? Please send your feedback directly to "feedback@mewe.com" and it will be reviewed by our Feedback, QA, and Android teams. We have very high ratings and get love letters every day. Your experience is very unusual and we'll look into it!
ReplyDeleteMark Weinstein the latest versions for both iOS 12 and Android Oreo 8.1.
ReplyDeleteHere’s the iOS versionhttps://lh3.googleusercontent.com/RlxV1pADyFEOaolLqEuDbDJk-mWvGWx3HgMsSVOAMP6LbSigN2SeAC4AkrcMQiF5iXqptY1hKFP1z7A=s0
And here’s the Android versionhttps://lh3.googleusercontent.com/wM_DsuqEDiZmekslMQvp_3wG1IOMCmhb16PX3dTCp5iy8f8aq8FyARn_JJ9Fi6L21xcSfQLE3WmQD3U=s0
ReplyDeleteI already submitted feedback. Sadly there’s no option to add screenshots to a feedback.
ReplyDelete1) Please include a True Public Option, i.e. Public On The Web. Make it as hard to accidentally use as you like, but give us the option.
ReplyDelete2) Please duplicate the Google+ Collections feature.
3) Multi Column Stream Option
I can't get serious until at least the Public On The Network option is available, and a lack of something resembling Collections will hamper my interest.
I understand your network's hook has been about Privacy, but I have always been more of a Public User. I do like your general Interface design, I will say.
For those concerned about Photo Storage: You can Share a link to a Google Photo and it looks great on MeWe, almost as if you Shared it there directly! Google Photos gives you Unlimited with (I believe 16mp) Resolution Limits Photo Storage, or you can store up to the amount of Google Drive storage you have for Unlimited Resolution Photo Storage.
ReplyDeleteMark Weinstein , I want to second Eli Fennell 's requests. Those are exactly the features I want that MeWe currently does not have.
ReplyDeleteI also noticed that I was not able to @mention someone in a comment thread on a post if I did not have that person added to my contacts.
ReplyDeleteMark Weinstein regarding the proposed emphasis on hashtags as a method of providing the same functionality as Collections. I do think that this method will replicate around 80% of the features available with Collections, but it doesn't seem that it will offer the most important and most loved feature of Collections. That is the ability to unsubscribe from a topic.
ReplyDeleteAs an example, let's take that last commenter Tejas Richard and say that he spends an inordinate amount of time posting about the Mexican food that he's eating. On G+, he puts these posts in a collection and I can unsubscribe from them. However, on MeWe (where I'm also connected to Tejas), if he uses the proposed method of adding a hashtag #TacoBell I would not have a way to avoid those posts even if I'm not following the Taco Bell hashtag.
That is unless, MeWe includes not only the ability to subscribe to hashtags, but also the ability to filter out posts that contain those same hashtags. If you include those filters, people will love your proposed replacement.
Other Thoughts
1. I'd like to see if I have any shared contacts with someone when I go to add them as a contact. Being able to see shared connections, helps people evaluate how much they can trust a relative stranger that they may not already know. It also gives them some clues about possible shared interests if that person happens to be friends with a large group of people who are passionate about a certain topic.
2. I'd like the color scheme for the notification section to be higher contrast.
3. I'd like to be able to dismiss single notifications from within the notification panel without having to actually visit the post to clear it. For example, telling me that Tejas has emoji'd my post is fine. Let me clear that notification right there after I've read it.
John Ward , stahp yer shit. You know you love my texmex posts!
ReplyDelete;-p
ReplyDeleteTejas Richard too much guacamole, man! I need to unsubscribe from that type of food abuse.
ReplyDeleteMark Weinstein
ReplyDeleteI'm late here, but I've come across what appears to be a serious flaw in MeWe - and I don't know if it's something that can/will be fixed. I've heard rumors that it may be addressed, but I need facts (I'm part of a group here on Google Plus that's working on a public spreadsheet of alternatives to G+).
It seems that posts on MeWe can't be shared, bookmarked, linked-to, or indexed on search engines. That would seem to make them the digital equivalent of leaves floating downstream toward a sea of oblivion; as time passes, it won't be possible for anyone to rediscover them unless they go onto MeWe and enter search terms that produce the right results.
If that's the case, it's a serious flaw. It hampers the ability of MeWe users to expand their social circles. Posting would seem to be inherently less rewarding on MeWe, because the likelihood is that far fewer people will have a realistic chance of seeing a post.
Is that correct? And if so, is there any plan to address that issue?
Thanks!
OH! Here's a BIG ONE, for me!
ReplyDeleteOne of the things about Plus that made it most useful for me was the ability to sort people into different circles, and then set notifications for each circle. This majorly helped me keep up with the people I most wanted to see.
Tejas Richard Also a good one.
ReplyDeleteSorry Mark Weinstein I don't know how I managed to delete my last comment when I was editing it from my mobile app.
ReplyDeleteAnyway, thank you for your time answering all those questions! I do have a few more (LOL) for when you have the time to answer them:
* Facebook Groups tracks invites that haven''t been responded to, i.e. if people haven't accepted or declined, it shows invitation as outstanding. Does MeWe Groups offer this function?
* Is there a restrictions on how many group invites can be sent out at one time?
* Is there a restriction on how many email addresses can be uploaded using the invite via csv file or email address book?
* G+ Communities allows admin to send out a unique url to specific individuals which automatically approves their request to join the community. Does MeWe Groups offer this function?
* Currently when you search on MeWe it seems to bring back results in a random order. Is there a way to get it in chronological order?
* G+ Circles allows you to create numerous mailing/sharing lists on the platform without manually having to individually tag each contact you want to see any given post. How would this work on MeWe?
I think Ash UK should be brought on as. An advisor at MeWe. Lots of good questions.
ReplyDeleteMark Weinstein I went to MEWE and joined but, I can not find the general stream. How are we supposed to find new friends with shared interests if we can't befriend them from the general stream? Apparently, we are limited only to our own group of friends and can not make new friends. (?)
ReplyDeleteWayne Johnson MeWe is quite straightforward - match your address book to see who you know that is on MeWE; share your unique member link outside of MeWe with your friends, family, on other social media, etc.; use the "Smart Search" box to search topics and groups and like-minded folks as well as members in the directory; go to the groups tab and search our tens of thousands of open groups in their categories and join them and make contact requests of their members, etc. It is easy to find new friends and shared interests on MeWe!
ReplyDeleteWayne Johnson you aren’t the only one who is experiencing this. Mark’s suggestions work, but it’s quite different from how things are done on G+ and I think it’s causing some people to stumble.
ReplyDeleteThere are a few groups devoted to G+ refugees. I’ll get names of those groups for you but I’m on my phone at the moment.
Rick Wayne started a new group yesterday which has exploded. The purpose of this group is a bit more general than to just collect former users of G+. This group is focused on creating an environment where people can introduce themselves and meet others who share their interests. It also seems to have an emphasis on helping people become acclimated and comfortable with MeWe. If you’d like to join that group, here’s the link:
mewe.com - MeWe: The best chat & group app with privacy you trust.
Thanks John - that's helpful to know and share for us too. At MeWe we are doing everything we can to make the onboarding experience of all the relocating G+ users easy, fun and engaging. Many thanks to all the help from you and everyone coming over from G+. We'll keep working to make MeWe an awesome place everyone can love and enjoy, with NO BS. Cheers, Mark
ReplyDeleteMark Weinstein the other complaint I see frequently is the way the comments are collapsed. I understand the rationale behind it, but believe it would be good if there were at least a toggle to allow people to choose.
ReplyDeleteThe reason people want to see the full, expanded comment section is so they can understand the context of whatsoever being said or replied to. I realize that comment expansion is only a click away but when you’re responding to a dozen notifications it’s easy to get caught up in the moment and reply to what is in front of your eyes. Sometimes that can lead to misunderstanding when the comment you’re seeing is a reply to a different person that you think was directed at you.
If you do create a toggle for the expanded comments, it would be nice to have the most recent comment be put in the center or in a different color or something like that to distinguish it as being the new reply.
Wayne Johnson the other groups that have helped me find people are Google+ Refugees:
ReplyDeletemewe.com - MeWe: The best chat & group app with privacy you trust.
And Great G+ RPG Exodus:
https://mewe.com/join/the_great_g_rpg_exodus
Mark Weinstein John Ward Thank you for replying but, this is the issue. On G+ and Face Book, there is a general stream where we can post things to people who may never have thought about politics or religion or a myriad of other social ills. We have the ability to reach out to them and educate them. All of my followers and friends already know and agree with me on certain issues so, we would only be posting things we already know about or things that only we would know and we wouldn't be able to educate new people. No one else would know about us because our messages would not appear in a general stream. We would be limited to how many people would see our posts. There would be no debates with other people also.
ReplyDeleteFor people who want to educate the masses, MEWE wouldn't be a viable avenue to take.
I suggest the following to make MEWE great:
#1). A general stream
#2). 20,000 more characters for our personal information. There is not enough there now.
Wayne Johnson they are currently developing a public stream. I've heard that it will be released in November or December. Posts made to that stream will be visible to anyone logged into MeWe.
ReplyDeleteAre you really using social media for evangelism and recruiting people to your point of view?
Mark Weinstein I imagine you're sick of questions by now, but I have three that I think would tip the balance for many G+ users - if the answers are right.
ReplyDelete1. Will public posts on MeWe be linkable and directly accessible to non-MeWe users? That is, will Facebook users (for example) be able to click on a link and go directly to a public post on MeWe?
2. Will search engines such as Google be able to index and search public MeWe posts, and link directly to them in applicable search results?
3. This one is tougher: obviously a lot of G+ users are feeling burned. We are being thrown out of our online home. What assurance (if any) can you give us that MeWe is here for the long term, and won't be sold or shut down?
John Ward Evangelism? Certainly not. Those money grubbing, Jesus worshipping, pro-Zionist freaks don't deserve any of my time. They have ruined this country with their wars which only benefit Israel and do nothing to help us in this country. Our infrastructure is crumbling all around us as we continue to give Israel $10,000,000.00 every day. We can no longer afford it. That goes for the other handouts we make to other countries too but, Israel is getting us into wars which make our country less safe and more hated around the world.
ReplyDeleteMany Jews who live in this country should refrain from supporting Israel too since Israel warned 3,000 of its workers not to go to the WTC on 9/11 but, failed to warn the American Jews who went and died on that day. Not to mention the non-Jews who lost their lives on that day. Israel is no friend to the U.S.A. on that ALONE.
Trump promised to make America great again but, the only country he has made great again is Israel.
When will our Government actually do something for Americans?
23% of our water supply leaks out of pipes which, in some cases, are more than 100 years old. Our roads are an absolute disgrace. Our urban areas are a crime infested nightmare. Our bridges are at their most dangerous condition now than at any other time in this country's history and yet, our Government keeps giving more and more money to the military complex. Eisenhower warned the American people about this and no one heeded his warnings.
The Government's idea of a "New World Order" has been ground to a halt by Russia, China, and the other countries within the BRICS's alliance. In other words, there will be no "New World Order" unless our Government foolishly starts a nuclear war which would kill tens of millions of people.
So, my goal, and that of the rest of my followers, is to try to educate the masses to try and circumvent such a war.
Wayne Johnson I was using the word evangelism in terms of its meaning: "zealous advocacy of a cause." And your response to me has answered the question. Thanks.
ReplyDeleteJohn Ward You are welcome.
ReplyDeletehttps://lh3.googleusercontent.com/A1EJsPG6qhfL3XTOkPMzToF821yMY9OKUlWitbwyN-xpALDxkCPVa8ezDeUyZJ_0Jkqf440a-RNqsxI=s0
ReplyDeleteOh my! Good morning, G+! Lolol!
ReplyDeleteMark Weinstein I just trying out MeWe pages. Opened several aviation pages. One piece of feedback is I like to see who is following my pages. Does not have to be visible publicly...
ReplyDeleteOne other question... I will certainly have feedback to share on how MeWe can improve. I definitely enjoyed contributing to the Early Access Community here on G+ and wouldn't mind doing something similar over on MeWe since I think MeWe will likely become my new home.
John Chvatal Good catch! This didn't make it into the first release of MeWePages this week, and it is essential for page owners for sure. Page owners must see who their followers are, and be able to chat 1:1 with any of their followers as well. Currently it is scheduled to go live next week, likely on Wednesday. We're doing QA testing on it right now. Thanks for seeing this. On your other question, we don't have an early access community here anymore as we went live with MeWe at SXSW in 2016 - however please send your feedback directly to "feedback@mewe.com" and if you'd like, reach out to me on LinkedIn in a private message. Cheers, Mark
ReplyDeleteHere is a group on MeWe that's helped me figure things out. And there are more in there.
ReplyDeletehttps://mewe.com/join/google_plus
MeWe is a great alternative but honestly, as I'm reading some of these comments in here, I kept wondering why you just don't go try it out- that doesn't cost you anything. Give yourself some time and play with the platform, do the work to find a new place to hang.
mewe.com - MeWe: The best chat & group app with privacy you trust.
Mark Weinstein Got anything to say about your treating hate groups on your service as "free speech" and retaining them? Or that your doing that makes the people who join without knowing that you do that into human shields for the hate groups?
ReplyDeleteAbsolutely - while our members enjoy our awesome "Privacy Bill of Rights" (https://mewe.com/privacy#bill) and we never advertise or manipulate newsfeeds of our members, at the same time our TOS is very clear and we enforce this - because as I like to say, "we're for the good guys": Here is from our TOS:
ReplyDeleteAllowable Content and Acceptable Use
At MeWe our focus is creating a positive and helpful experience for our users. We want MeWe to be convenient, safe, and fun for you and your communities. This means there are a few rules. You may NOT:
Violate any law or regulation.
Send unsolicited or unauthorized advertising or commercial communications, such as spam.
Engage in spidering or harvesting, or participate in the use of software, including spyware, designed to collect data from the Site or Services.
Use automated methods to use the Site or Services.
Stalk, harass, bully, intimidate, or harm another user.
Post unlawful, harmful, obscene, or pornographic content.
Impersonate someone.
Post content that is hateful, threatening, harmful, incites violence; or contains graphic or gratuitous violence.
Use MeWe to do anything unlawful, misleading, malicious, or discriminatory.
Post content you do not have the right to transmit.
Post content that infringes on trademarks or copyrights.
Post viruses or malicious scripts.
Post spam or link bait.
Attempt to circumvent any technological measure implemented by MeWe or any of MeWe's providers or any other third party (including another user) to protect the Site or Services.
Attempt to decipher, decompile, disassemble, or reverse engineer any of the software used to provide the Site or Services.
Advocate, encourage, or assist any third party in doing any of the foregoing.
Happy Super Bowl Sunday!
mewe.com - MeWe: The best chat & group app with privacy you trust.
Mark Weinstein there's a bit of a campaign going on that says your terms of service don't go far enough because they create an environment that permits hate groups to exist on your platform as long as they don't break the law.
ReplyDeleteGreg X can give examples or details about it. Maybe he could recommend specific language that he'd like to see your platform include to assuage those concerns?
I only bring it up because I know people who will not join MeWe because they feel that your TOS provides too much wiggle room. The criticism boils down to the idea that you are giving hate groups a wink and a nod where you look the other way while doing lip service to create the illusion that your platform is not a haven for Nazis and other hate groups.
Greg, I really hope that you will cite some examples or recommend language that should be added to their terms of service to assuage your concerns.
The MeWe TOS are fine, as they already disallow hateful or harmful speech. I don’t know what people have against MeWe.
ReplyDeleteBrian Holt Hawthorne Greg X can give you a list.
ReplyDeleteBrian Holt Hawthorne Can you show me where "hateful speech" is in the MeWe TOS? And if that's there, how that would account for the profiles, pages, and groups listed at the link below still being on MeWe? Thanks.
ReplyDeletehttps://pastebin.com/9294GkrC
Wayne Johnson Let's skip the wrangling over technicalities and go right to white supremacists and neo-Nazis, K? I don't think people will quibble over those.
ReplyDeleteWayne Johnson I do understand that sometimes people label political debate as hate speech. I'm not talking about that.
ReplyDeleteIf you click the link that Greg X posted just above your comment, it'll take you to a list of several existing groups on MeWe. Many of them use actual Nazi terms (THE WEHRMACHT and THE THIRD REICH AND HER ALLIES as examples from the list) or advocate for the 'superiority of the white race' ("Interests Helping Advance our Superior White Race" is a quote from one of the group descriptions listed in the link).
Embracing the terms and rhetoric of a movement that advocated for the extermination of everyone it considered to be less than ideal is not what I would consider to be an accepted form of political speech. Do these groups actually advocate for genocide? I have no idea, but they certainly have no hesitation to use the same terms and language of those who have in the past.
Claiming that one race is superior to all others is equally odious. Does that claim express itself in posts that would remove the rights and guarantees for equal treatment that exist in modern society? Does it seek to subjugate 'lesser races'? Again, I don't know because I'm not a member of those groups, but their group description leads me to believe that such content would be welcomed in that group.
Honestly, I haven't devoted the same amount of time investigating this that Greg has, but I have seen enough to give me pause and to make me want to ask questions.
Wayne Johnson wrote: "...I ask this because people who are opposed to Zionism have been classified as being "hateful" and/or "neo-Nazis"..."
ReplyDeleteThere's a difference between opposing Zionism and actually using Nazi terms or naming your group after various Nazi movements or military units.
Mark Weinstein Hi Mark. I'm sorry to bother you again but, I have one issue with your new social media platform that you may want to be aware of.
ReplyDelete#1). When we share a post on MEWE, it doesn't show who shared the post originally. Some people use derogatory terms to describe other people and those terms can be taken by others to mean that the sharer of that post wrote them when they did not. That can cause a lot of problems.
For example: John Doe shared a post on the illegal aliens which he wrote the word "wetbacks" on the top. Even though I agree with the post, I never use those types of derogatory names but, it stays with the post when shared and the name of the original poster doesn't.
Also, when will MEWE show up as a share option when we want to share something from various sites directly to MEWE?
John Ward Freedom of speech comes before anything else in this debate. Under the law, they have a right to be for whatever they want to be for. At this point, you can either ignore them or debate them. As long as they are not directing their hate towards you personally, like calling you a derogatory name that is offensive and is illegal under the anti-hate laws, they have broken no laws. Freedom of speech will not be infringed. Also, remember they also have a right to freedom of expression and freedom of association.
ReplyDeleteIgnore or debate and educate.
Denying them their right to freedom of speech is wrong.
John Ward You wrote: "There's a difference between opposing Zionism and actually using Nazi terms or naming your group after various Nazi movements or military units."
ReplyDeleteYes, there is. I agree.
At least when they are seen in public, we know what they are thinking. If they go underground, they could be far more dangerous.
Let the cards fall where they may. They have too much opposition today. They are dying off.
Greg X See above comment to John Ward.
ReplyDeleteWayne Johnson if you're setting national policy, I'd agree with you. However, we're not talking about administering a nation. We're talking about a private company and whether they want to create a haven for these groups. My gut tells me that if they are openly willing to publicly describe themselves as The Wehrmacht that the private posts visible to members of that group will be even more radical, problematic, and quite possibly illegal.
ReplyDeleteI don't really see this as a debate about free speech so much as trying to get an answer to the question about where does MeWe draw the line on what they will and will not tolerate.
If they want to adopt the line that Mark has cited before which is that they draw the line at what is considered illegal, have they had individuals or algorithms looking at posts made in these communities to determine if every single post and comment made there complies with the law? Because if you want to make the laws your boundary then you need to also assiduously ensure that you are actively seeking to reprimand and punish people who break those laws.
Back to what Greg said above, let's ignore the groups who hide in nuanced shades of meaning and actually go after the people who are claiming to be Nazis and Skinheads. I mean we can all agree that actual Nazis (and people claiming to be Nazis) are bad, right? Didn't our grandparents fight, bleed, and sometimes die because they believed that Nazi ideologies were bad? Is that really such a radical position now?
Mark Weinstein I'd also be interested to know if you've revisited the reddit AMA you did - there were some questions left unanswered there that, to be fair, may have come in after the end of the AMA, but which still raise a problematic issue. Specifically I'm thinking of the anecdote that was related about an attempt to report the RaHoWa hate group and the apparent lack of resulting action (the pastebin information still shows entries for RaHoWa). Can you tell us any more about this?
ReplyDeletehttps://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/9sq3jf/im_mark_weinstein_founderceo_of_mewe_the/
Wayne Johnson
ReplyDelete> Freedom of speech comes before anything else in this debate.
It seems you have a mistaken notion of what "freedom of speech" covers here, as well as "freedom of association." Governmental entities cannot infringe on those, but private entities and private spaces are under no such compulsion. MeWe is a private entity and private space. Any "freedom of speech" there is at the sufferance of the private provider.
John Ward We can agree that the neo-Nazis are bad. There is too much debate about the original Nazis though to ignore. You can plainly see how our Government lies to us in today's world where we have the means to see through those lies.
ReplyDeleteWhat makes you think that we weren't lied to about WWI and WWII when no one was the wiser?
We have all witnessed our Government, along with France and the UK, bomb factories in Syria suspected of manufacturing chemical weapons only to find that Assad never used any and there is zero evidence that he ever did. If he did have them, why would those factories have been bombed knowing that thousands of innocent people could have been killed in the densely populated areas where they were located? We now know that no such chemical weapons were ever found. We also have proof that our own Government was, in fact, supplying those chemical weapons which were used by ISIS.
Governments lie. Ours certainly does. We would have to be deaf, dumb, and blind not to admit it.
I don't support the Neo-Nazis but, I have read many of their articles on various forums. I learned a lot of things that were never made public about "Nazi-Germany". It is not as clear cut as many make it out to be.
Did you know that Hitler signed an agreement with certain Jewish leaders to round up the Jewish people and send them to Palestine? See: The HAVAARA Agreement. Did you also know that Rothschild financed Hitler's Third Reich through the Federal Reserve Bank? There also remains zero evidence to this day that any kind of extermination program ever existed in Nazi Germany. We know that now. There is credible proof. You don't build concentration camps if you are going to exterminate a group of people. You simply order them to be killed like in all other exterminations. Concentration camps are to hold people who are to be moved to a new location.
Does this mean that I hate Jewish people? No.
Does this mean that I support the neo-Nazis? No.
It simply means that we can all learn something, even from our enemies.
Israel was NOT created because of WWII. WWII was created because there was no Israel. So, let me get this right. The original Jews left Egypt for failing to pay their back taxes (carbon dated documents found by the Egyptian Government proved this in the late 1990s) and invaded Canaan, murdering tens of thousands of innocent men, women, and children. Then, thousands of years later, the Jewish Banker Rothschild hatches the idea of forming a State for the Jewish people in the late 1880s. He brings his idea to the Swiss Congress in 1894.
How do you get millions of Jews out of their comfortable homes in Europe to move to a desert-like environment?
THAT is the million dollar question.
Rothschild then proceeds to finance WWI and WWII, along with financing Adolph Hitler's Third Reich.
Hitler signed the HAAVARA Agreement with the Zionist, Jewish leaders which basically entailed the removal of Jews from Europe to the new State of Israel/Palestine.
Because of Rothschild and his vision to form Israel on someone else's land, over 100 MILLION non-Jewish innocent men, women, and children died from WWI and WWII. To top it off, an estimated 271,000 - 275,000 Jews died in the Concentration Camps ---- all to make a Jewish prophesy come true.
The Torah requires that 6 million Jews must "vanish" before the state of Israel can be formed. "You shall return minus 6 million." -- "The Holocaust Dogma of Judaism", Cosmo Publishing, Washington 1995, page 3
By the way, the Rothschild banking cartel owns 75% of Israel.
WWI and WWII cannot be looked at in a linear way. Deals were made that are just starting to come to light. These deals between various leaders were omnidirectional.
ReplyDeleteAs it was once said by someone who was very bright: Believe in just 50% of what you were taught in history class.
Greg X I am aware of that. I want to have that changed so ALL American citizens should be required to uphold the Constitution. If a private company can ignore the Constitution, then, the Constitution is basically meaningless as the Government has ignored it too many times and now, under the newer laws, it is practically non-existent unless it agrees with someone's own agenda. That is NOT the way it was intended to be.
ReplyDeleteBy the way, when you pledge alliance to our flag, you are also pledging it to our Constitution. The two are inextricably linked. There would be no Constitution without the flag and there would be no flag without the Constitution. The two are the same.
Wayne Johnson Interesting wish for change you have there. At this time it's not the case, however, and that's what applies here and now. Please try to focus.
ReplyDeleteGreg X It was in the TOS just quoted in the comment above.
ReplyDeleteBrian Holt Hawthorne Then I guess the question becomes, why isn't it being enforced...? And does the previously mentioned "free speech" issue come into play there?
ReplyDeleteWayne Johnson in the interest of keeping the comments here focused on MeWe, let me just say that I disagree with you regarding the holocaust, but even that comment is taking this off track. I’m not interested in debating the issue.
ReplyDeleteGreg X I have seen exactly zero hate speech on MeWe. If I had, I would have reported it. You apparently have seen some hate speech. If you have seen some, have you reported it? If you reported it, was the report acted on? If you haven't reported it, then how can you complain that the TOS isn't being enforced?
ReplyDeleteBrian Holt Hawthorne Please note that your personal anecdote does not mean hate speech does not exist on MeWe - especially from the days before "Public" posts, not that those are apparently being used much currently.
ReplyDeleteI don't currently have a MeWe account - deleted it when the "Too many Nazis" issue started to come up. (But when I was there I didn't see a reporting option for hate speech or harassment outside of "Other.")
What I'm talking about is the report that was described in the reddit AMA thread, but apparently not acted on. This is something I would hope Mark Weinstein would have input on...
Greg X If you don't like the views of other people who you disagree with, you can always block them. Until then, they should have the same rights extended to them as anyone else.
ReplyDeleteCensorship has no place in this country.
John Ward Fine. We won't debate it. In the meantime, if Mark Weinstein wants to allow others who he disagrees with to have a choice to speak, I feel we should encourage it and not try to change it.
ReplyDeleteInstead of trying to change Mark's platform, perhaps, you should try to find a platform run by someone who sensors information and doesn't believe in free speech.
Everyone should have his/her voice heard.
THAT is the American way.
We do not want to become like China.
Wayne Johnson so you’d rather ask me to leave MeWe rather than asking the Nazis, Neo-Nazis, etc. to find a different platform? Gotcha.
ReplyDeleteJohn Ward Exactly. Find a platform which censors free speech. That way, the rest of us can learn while you stay in your exclusion zone.
ReplyDeleteWhen you censor free speech, you give our already fully corrupt Government Carte Blanche to do what they want with no fear from the people. We should be striving for all knowledge and transparency. Not just that which has a stamp of approval from the censors.
If the neo-Nazis are censored, who will be next? Where will it end?
John Ward By the way, should this be censored too? plus.google.com - "Who were Anselmo and Abraham Ha Levi Kahana de Palenzuela? When did th...
ReplyDeleteJohn Ward le-vpn.com - Top 10 Countries with the Most Heavily Censored Internet | Le VPN
ReplyDeleteWayne Johnson I tried to let this drop because I'm not really interested in debating you on the issue, but you keep tagging me into your 'What about this' or 'Have you seen this' type of articles. So, let me say plainly that I'm finished discussing the issue with you.
ReplyDeleteI desire to end our debate on this topic simply because I understand that your mind is settled on this topic as is mine. Neither of us are likely to change our positions. So, let's avoid derailing the actual purpose of this post.
Hopefully we will get an actual, substantive reply from Mark Weinstein at some point... though his staying silent would speak volumes, as well.
ReplyDeleteI look forward to catching up on this thread. :)
ReplyDeleteGreg X like I said on my post, cut and pasted:
ReplyDeleteWhile I appreciate your concern about the hate groups you've mentioned, you're going to find that anywhere you go on the internet. Here, MeWe Gab Reddit. And really, Google was absolute SHIT about removing those groups from here, so I'm not sure why all the bells and whistles about it being elsewhere.
It exists, it's all over. And again, Google was shit about removing that garbage from here as well. So, case and point, while I appreciate the heads up, again, it's still all over.
How do you propose to remedy all this as a whole? What's your game plan? No one goes to these other sites? Help me out here.
Was shit? Is shit. I guarantee you those hate groups are still around, if they haven't left of their own volition b/c of the shutdown.
ReplyDeleteI agree with the sentiment here that stupid groups are everywhere. MeWe isn't unique in that regard.
ReplyDeleteTejas Richard If you do a search for White Power on here (or on any forum), you'll find a tonne of Nazi./white supremacist groups on here.
ReplyDeleteIt's not going to disappear overnight. Neither is blasphemy, religious, vegan and/or political arguments.
So if they're not confronted and reported and/or addressed despite the fact it's not acceptable, saying it's on one platform or another, is nice... but it's all over. Fuck it's on here, for years now. I'm not sure what the ruckus is all about.
We use a platform as we see fit. Report what we don't like.
I bet pedophiles are on MeWe too, just like on here. Child groomers etc., all just like on here, they just haven't been caught yet. That's all. But we must focus on the nazi's and white supremecists first... hey to each their own.
This comment isn't "at you" more the topic, sorry if I'm brash.
Tejas Richard LOL Also, yes, IS SHIT :) haahaha!
ReplyDeleteEli Fennell Yes and I can respect each individuals concern about things. At the same time, it's not going to change anything. I've found numerous sites that are okay as a new venue (haven't decided yet where I want to stay) and they all have those things. It's a given, imho. Anywhere.
ReplyDeleteMark Weinstein Hi Mark, I trust you'll be back eventually. I followed you on MeWe quite a while ago - if you have room, I'd appreciate it if you'd follow me back. :) lol Hey, I figure since you're here I may as well ask. If you need a link to my page let me know. Same profile picture, same name.
ReplyDeleteSue T. Those are reportable, too, at least here. You did report those when you saw them, right? And I bet even MeWe would take those reports, given that that stuff is straight up illegal. The other sites I've been checking out certainly will - Pluspora and youme.social, at least.
ReplyDeleteStill haven't heard back from Mark Weinstein about the hate groups though. But it's only been a couple of days - I was going to give them 3. Hopefully this activity on their thread will wake them up, hmm?
Greg X Ah, the twist ~ :) of course, I reported every pedophile grooming profile I found on here ad nauseum. That's my thing, in case you missed it and that's illegal too. The hate groups hate pedo's too wouldntcha know. Doesn't everyone?
ReplyDeleteI think your focus is skewed by your hatred. Hmmm? Trolls are on MeWe right now, pedo's, etc., child groomers, blashpemer's vegans, political adversaries.
Go on twist it and say I don't understand, I'll wait.
Yeah, they were reportable here as well but guess what, Greg .. they're all still here. So, why the complaining about MeWe?
You're not making sense, really. If you don't like it, go log into MeWe and report all the profiles and have them removed. Seems simple enough.
Sue T. What "hatred" do you mean? It's the hate groups that are targeting me. (And people like me.) Are you saying you're outside their targeted demographics? Must be nice.
ReplyDeleteAnd no, they literally aren't all still here. As mentioned on your other thread, some of them are gone. Sorry you haven't had that experience yourself - it's very satisfying.
People have been reporting those groups and that content on MeWe. There apparently isn't any effect from doing that, though. It's what I'm hoping to get an answer from Mr Weinstein about...
Greg X Oh? Where's this happening.
ReplyDeleteAre you engaging them vs. reporting them? You think they'll just disappear because you want them to?
If some of them are gone, it's because Google is closing down - I'm sure you realize they've gone on to MANY other venues. I suggest you do a search and you'll see numerous communities on here. Private as well.
My point here, again, is that you are going to find these types of groups "ALL" over. Fight them, report them, do as you wish but don't spam my posts with your bullshit anymore.
My thing has always been the abuse of children, sextortion, child and teen grooming and pedophiles. Again, you do your thing, I'll do mine.
And there's 3 days of silence from Mark Weinstein. Telling, Mr Weinstein...
ReplyDeleteSue T. Lucky this isn't one of your posts, hmm? And must be nice being able to say that countering white supremacists and neo-Nazis just isn't your "thing." Also lucky that your thing is actually illegal and could be reported anywhere, even on MeWe, huh? 😏
Everyone, the hardest and most time consuming fight of all is moderation. At MeWe we've been relentless and have devoted nearly all of our engineering and QA resources to this in recent days and weeks. EVERY POST AND EVERY GROUP has a "Report and Block" button. We kick bad users off MeWe every day.
ReplyDeleteSoon, EVERY COMMENT on a post AND EVERY COMMENT in a chat will also have "Report and Block" options. Plus we are building even more moderation and reporting tools for MeWe group owners and group members so they can self-moderate even better. We always say "MeWe" is for the good guys!
Please understand that moderation, while critical, is also critical to get right. Hatred, violence, porn, bullying, anything illegal . . . - NOT ALLOWED. But we will not engage in censoring law abiding conversations just because our opinions differ. Facebook and Twitter are getting this all wrong. If you are conservative or liberal, that is none of our business. If you are gay or straight, that is none of our business. The color of your skin and your religion is none of our business. If you are a vegan or a meat eater or into alternative medicine or etc., etc., that is none of our business!
Because MeWe has no ads and no targeting and no newsfeed manipulation, MeWe members can enjoy a true social network experience directly with their friends, interests, groups and pages they are members of and follow.
Thank you for understanding the task we have undertaken at MeWe to get this right. Hope this helps clarify the questions - we are doing our very best and are growing 10s of thousands of members every day. We are getting this right and will continue to refine it for all of us!
Cheers, Mark
Mark Weinstein So what about hate groups? White supremacists and neo-Nazis, for instance? Is what they are saying, believing, doing considered an "opinion" in your view? (And related, why isn't there a hate speech or harassment option built into your reporting? And why doesn't reporting MeWe users' use of terms of racist hate appear to have any effect?)
ReplyDeleteReally hoping to hear specifically about these things. They will make a great deal of difference in the thinking about the service you provide. Thanks and hope to hear more soon.
Greg, our Terms of Service is clear and we enforce every bit of it. Whatever example you are citing we cannot find. Blocking and reporting are clear flags for reviewing TOS violations, of course including hate speech, harassment, bullying, etc. And our feedback system allows members to send long messages with detailed complaints about TOS violations too.
ReplyDeleteIf there are MeWe users who are using "racist hate" speech, and they are reported, our moderation team will take appropriate steps up to and including account termination. We do this everyday. Next week we will also launch a significantly modified and updated "Search" as another tool in the continuing improvement of our already remarkable service - filtering out NSFW and other content including hate speech that violates our TOS.
Look man, if moderation of hate content was easy, then Facebook, G+, Twitter, Reddit, etc., would have mastered it - but none of them have. We're nimble and we've already got our member's backs much better than those companies - we'll nail this totally and we're already doing much, much better than you give us credit for.
Everyone, I appreciate your thoughtfulness and helpful ideas on how to get MeWe as perfect as possible. We're on it. We listen, because we are all in this together. I don't have time to answer more questions in this thread - hope my answers have been helpful. I understand how annoying this is for you that G+ has acted in such an egregious way with G+ members but it doesn't surprise me. Your data is their #1. If their customers were truly their #1 focus then G+ would have soared. MeWe is soaring because our members are our #1 priority and why we exist. We are continuously improving and we'll get it all right.
Greg X I'm sorry you seem incapable of understanding what I am saying to you. Your focus is to collect all the profiles and community, put them on pastebin and warn people about them. That's fine, that's your thing. Would you feel all betters if I said, "good job".?
ReplyDeleteMy thing is all the pedophiles and child groomers online and reporting them to various authorities.
So again, you do your thing and I'll do mine.
If you want to change a neo nazi go for it. If you want to get them banned and warn people? Go for it. Do I agree with them? No, I do not.
What you cannot do is believe that any and/or all sites you're on, isn't going to have groups like that.
Sue T. Nope, you missed the point entirely. Yes, those people turn up everywhere, but "everywhere" doesn't try to claim that their existence there is just a matter of "opinion" and therefore needs (and admits of) no addressing.
ReplyDeleteI have no specific interest in trying to convert individual examples of the hate groups of concern. What I am concerned about is when specific sites like MeWe try to give them a "free speech" protected status. The pastebin contents were just specific examples of this happening.
What would you do if told that your particular peeve was going to be protected that way by MeWe?
Mark Weinstein But you don't, is the point. Given the heavy silo-ing of group content on your "already remarkable service," how are people supposed to report the things that the groups reported in the pastebin and others are doing? Are you expecting us to somehow infiltrate the groups? And filtering your search results will do the exact opposite of help this issue - you do realize this, right?
ReplyDelete"Facebook, G+, Twitter, and Reddit" are already doing this better than you are - they're actually making it discoverable and reportable, and taking action on it (albeit inconsistently) when it's brought to their attention. Your version appears to involve making it harder to find, but keeping it around...?
> I don't have time to answer more questions in this thread - hope my answers have been helpful.
And now you're deciding to bail out, hmm? Yes, your answers have been "helpful," but not in the direction you are expecting.
Greg X I already get your point Greg. LOL Googles been doing a shit job of getting rid of child grooming pedo twats for 7 years now. That's my pet peeve.
ReplyDeleteSo really :) Mark Weinstein how do you handle reports of pedophilia or child/teen grooming and trolling on your site. Do you report them to the authorities? I do realize your TOS says anything illegal.
Is there a department that works with law enforcement to accomplish the task of compiling evidence and getting them arrested? It's my belief all sites should have that.
So far, I see what you're saying on all counts with all questions. I've not seen this question asked yet. If there's a department or email for reporting something like that, I'd surely like to have it.
Sue T. That's an excellent question to ask ... but from my quote above it looks like he's fled the thread. :-(
ReplyDeleteIn terms of the number of hate groups on G+ over the years, Edward Morbius did a very thorough breakdown of the data - how many there were, how quickly they were removed. I can copypasta or link to the information if desired.
ReplyDeleteWeinstein says "Bottom Line: It is a false myth that has been spread by Facebook, Google, Snap, Instagram, and others, that our data is what we have to give up to have a great social media experience. That is a complete lie and PURE BS! Capitalism was never intended to be a system for spying on people – that’s communism and CREEPY."
His statement doesn't sound like a very in-depth analysis regarding his platform's bottom line. Is a false myth the same as a true myth? It looks to me like Weinstein's underlying message is that the intentions of spying on people are what communism is about and that's "CREEPY" although, by his omission, there's nothing CREEPY about the intentions of the groups listed in the pastebin Greg X posted. I mean, maybe if he looked them over he would have mentioned that?
No political bias, but Weinstein mentions he's a Libertarian. All groups are welcome, but I guess not Communists. AND "Happy Super Bowl Sunday!" Leading me to think he's not acknowledging those who will be taking a knee or has a dearth of understanding that the Super Bowl is a national sporting event among the highest venues for human sex trafficking.
My position is that advocating for the elimination of entire groups of people based on their ethnicity or race (as it is constructed) is against the law. It is part of an international edict that the UN task force is desperately trying to enforce. #2 on the Task Force list of responsibilities: Preventing and responding to genocide and gross human rights violations. Meanwhile, the UN chief warns that Fascism is on the rise.
Mark Weinstein I am happy to have read your reply. I agree with you 100% too. I have never had a strike against me while on G+ over the last 10 years. I don't plan on having one on MEWE either. :)
ReplyDeleteGreg X I feel pretty confident that Mark answered your question. If you don't like the group, simply block them. He supports freedom of speech but, won't tolerate harassment, bullying, intimidation, or any of the other stuff that you shouldn't be doing anyway. I agree with him too.
ReplyDeleteThere you go Greg X. Wayne is confident that your questions have been answered.
ReplyDeleteWayne Johnson Yes, a number of my questions were answered, and the implications of the answers are not good, given the lack of reporting options for "harassment, bullying, [and] intimidation" and the idea that they're going to modify their search function to make it harder to detect the presence of hate groups. Thanks for playing, I guess? 😏
ReplyDeleteGreg X I don't see the problem. Just block those who you don't like. If you are personally attacked or intimidated, block and report. Otherwise, enjoy the site for what it is: a site for everyone and not just those who you agree with. Have fun with your friends.
ReplyDeleteWe don't want censorship.
What if you were out at your favorite nightclub and a man wearing a swastika walked in but, wasn't causing trouble?
Would you go to the bartender and ask for him to be removed or would you just ignore him and enjoy your evening?
Enjoy your time.
Wayne Johnson , I don't think the government should censor free speech. The owner of a social media platform is not the government. I wouldn't want to hang out at a place that was cool with dudes with swastikas on their clothes or body just hanging out.
ReplyDeleteTejas Richard I wouldn't go into a bar with men wearing Swastikas either. If one came in, I would just ignore him unless he directed his hate toward me or someone else.
ReplyDeleteYou are just making them dig their heels in deeper when you fight their beliefs. If he can be influenced to become a neo-Nazi then, he can be influenced to become something else. These people are usually people looking for comradery.
Why is it a problem for you to block those who offend you?
By the way, if I was ever inside of a nightclub and hatemonger came in and started with me or other people, whether they were Jewish, black, or any other person, I would be the very first to either offer my assistance to that person who came under attack or, if I wasn't able to, I would be on the cell phone calling 911.
You misunderstand me. I am cool with going to mewe. I have an account there. The fact that racists have made a home there does not surprise me... racists and bigots go everywhere.
ReplyDeleteBut, like I said, I am not cool with establishments being cool with racists and bigots. So, yes, I would point him out to a manager, and either he would leave or I would. And if I am the one leaving, I won't be coming back.
Greg X What do you mean 'lack of reporting options'. I mean, sure, the specific words 'harassment, bullying, and intimidation' don't appear, but there are multiple reporting options for posts and groups, with an 'Other' option that could certainly cover that. And their TOS clearly states it is a violation to "Stalk, harass, bully, intimidate, or harm another user."
ReplyDeleteI can see how you might feel more comfortable if the reporting menu was more specific to that purpose, but in all honesty, it feels less like you want to offer feedback than like you want to assume ill intent by the network owner. That is, of course, your right, but it seems an unfortunate First Resort approach to assume the worst rather than offer feedback and see how the network responds to it. Not every oversight that any one of millions of users might find in the current iteration of a network speaks to malign intent.
I would also like to point out that the TOS explicitly lists hateful speech as being forbidden, and Mark has said as much in this thread. I don't feel like he's been trying to obfuscate the situation, here.
ReplyDeleteTejas Richard It does however make it confusing as to why the groups from the pastebin linked above continue to exist, despite multiple reports.
ReplyDeleteEli Fennell Feedback has been offered on multiple occasions and apparently entirely ignored, as per above. And look what came of the feedback here ... apparently Mr Weinstein would rather run away than clearly state that white supremacists and neo-Nazis are reportable or unacceptable.
Greg X , from what I have heard, not all of them do. In fact, from what I have heard, Mark Weinstein has been looking into the groups on said pastebin.
ReplyDeletePerhaps he has not run away, as you accuse. Perhaps he is tired of answering the same questions over and over. He has directly quoted the TOS to you in this thread. It explicitly states that hate speech is not allowed. You are given the optiona of blocking and reporting folks using hate speech. He has told us that people are being reprimanded, and even kicked off, every day. I don't know what answer you are looking for, in particular, but he has answered all of the questions you have asked. Personally, I think your mind was made up long ago, and there was nothing he could have said or done that would have satisfied you. Maybe I am wrong. Shrugs I don't know. But that is definitely how I am reading this.
Tejas Richard It could be. Hard to say. However all I can see (here and other places) is that he abruptly and unilaterally terminated the conversation when unmistakable hate-groups were brought up.
ReplyDeleteHe also quite concerningly (and in more than one place also) mentioned that MeWe is apparently setting up its search to game the results of specific terms, which is apparently how the groups in the pastebin were found. He shouldn't be doing that gaming for NSFW content just to get Apple to let his app back on the app store, and he definitely shouldn't be doing it to prevent hate groups from being detected - which I've already seen happening with one search term that should have detected a group listed in the pastebin.
It's news to me that he (and/or anyone at MeWe) is looking into the hate-group results found in the pastebin. Where'd you hear that? I would be interested to see.