At the Digital X trade fair held in Cologne (Germany), Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales revealed that he is building a social network model which, unlike Facebook, Instagram and Twitter, will not be based on the sale of advertising.
As reported, this would be called WT:Social and its main feature would be to be able to replicate the same model of the virtual encyclopedia, i.e., that its funding would come from the donations of its users.
Wales commented on the possible new social network during the show:
“My idea is to transfer the principles of Wikipedia to a social network. Goodbye Facebook, it’s time for something new.”
Wales commented that WT:Social will be based in the same way that Wikipedia is. But, for the moment, according to the executive the social network is still under construction, so he did not share many details about the development.
Wikipedia’s new social network: goodbye to fake news?
He also raised the possibility of creating a new social network model in which there will be no room for disinformation or any practice that violates privacy.
According to Wales:
“As social media grew, it also amplified the voices of bad actors around the world.”
Over the last year, several of the most popular social networks have been facing various accusations from users, legislators and the media. Those who strongly criticize the data and advertising marketing models, on which the most famous platforms are based.
Faced with the issue, Jack Dorsey, CEO of Twitter, recently revealed that the social network will ban political advertising starting next month.
For his part, Mark Zuckerberg, the creator of Facebook, a platform that has not fared well after being accused of influencing the political opinion of its users and being linked to disinformation campaigns, has just declared his interest in working against the terrible propagation of Fake news. It should be noted that, during the last few months, both social networks have closed hundreds of accounts dedicated to the propagation of false news.
Finally, the Wikipedia executive concluded that:
“Fake news has influenced world events, algorithms only care about keeping people addicted to platforms without content.”
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