93% of M3.1 Flash Tests on X Showed No Sign of Promotion

Of 270 accounts that posted their own test of MiniMax M3.1 Flash on X between its launch on Oct 19 and the release of its weights on Oct 23, 250 showed no sign of promotion. Eighteen passed on MiniMax's launch offers or a sign-up link, or said they were paid, and their posts drew 21% of the views. Two said they were paid, and none used the Paid Partnership label that X's rules require.

How the posts were chosen

OpenRouter listed Space Bunny Alpha on Sep 23 as “an anonymous large model,” and MiniMax said on Oct 19 that it “was an early version of MiniMax M3.1 Flash” (the Space Bunny story charts its run). Frontier Log searched X for posts naming “M3.1 Flash” or “Space Bunny” from MiniMax's launch post to its weights post, and read every result: 2,830 posts.

It kept the posts in which the author ran or built something with the model after its launch, 272 posts by 270 accounts. News, recaps, opinions, company accounts and use of Space Bunny before the reveal were left out, and promotion was never a reason to leave a post out. A first pass sorted the posts from short excerpts; every post with an offer, a link or a disclosure, and every left-out post describing the author's own use, was then read in full, which added 12. The other left-out posts were not re-read.

How each account was sorted

Each account takes the strongest sign on its posts or its own replies under them: it says it was paid; it passes on the offers MiniMax Code posted on Oct 19 (unlimited use through Oct 25 and 50% off a first month of M Plan through Oct 31) or links to sign up; or it repeats the line that Space Bunny was “#1 on OpenRouter for 10 days.” Two posts that mention the offer only as users, one a complaint and one a thank-you, are not counted. An account with no sign may still have been paid, but nothing on its posts says so.

Two said they were paid

@hasantoxr's thread, with 93,377 views the most viewed in either group, ends with a reply that says “Thanks to MiniMax team for partnering with me for this post.” @josesilesdata ended his test with “#ad @MiniMax_AI”. X's policy says a post that is part of a paid partnership “must have the ‘Paid Partnership’ disclosure on,” shown as a label on the post. Neither post carries it, and nor do the other 268 accounts' posts.

Sixteen offers with no disclosure

The most viewed, @ClubAiworld with 78,005 views, describes a game build in lines such as “I asked for UI CHANGES and got RESULT” and “Best score: 264 SCORE”, then gives MiniMax Code's daily check-in offer and a download link. @Israfilv2 wrote that “M3.1 Flash is unlimited for MiniMax Code subscribers till oct 25,” and @slash1sol and @Rossst_03 carry the same sentence about Space Bunny and the same offers. None of the 16 says whether its author was paid.

After the window, a test by @codedailyML on Oct 26 also ended with “#ad”.