The co-founder of Wikipedia is taking on Facebook and Twitter with an ad-free social network.
Jimmy Wales designed his new site, WT:Social, as a platform that promises to be free of clickbait headlines and sensationalized, but misleading content—a problem that continues to bedevil Facebook. So he decided to limit money from the equation and remove all ads.
"The business model of social media companies, of pure advertising, is problematic," Wales told The Financial Times in an interview. "It turns out the huge winner is low-quality content."
WT:Social will instead operate like Wikipedia by relying on donations to keep the operation afloat. Nixing the ads also means users won't have to worry about the site collecting their personal data.
"Instead of optimizing our algorithm to addict you and keep you clicking, we will only make money if you voluntarily choose to support us—which means that our goal is not clicks but actually being meaningful to your life," Wales said in a post about the project.
Now, https://t.co/aHzu6tpX5O has just passed 80,000 members. We're about to send out a big email to everyone on the mailing list talking about a big push - I want to double that number by the end of the year. And I think we can double it faster than that. Will you help? — Jimmy Wales (@jimmy_wales) November 15, 2019
The site itself will revolve around a central news feed that'll show you content from communities or "SubWikis" that you join. You'll also be able to post content or share links to new articles, which can then be fed back into the SubWikis.
To stop misinformation, WT:Social will rely on the goodwill of users to police the site. According to Wales, everything on the platform is editable.
The approach sounds a lot like Reddit, which is also organized around self-policing communities known as subreddits. Over time, WT:Social also plans on adding a Reddit-like "upvote" button so that users can elevate quality content. But of course, Reddit hasn't been free of controversy. The site has also had to wrestle with propaganda from Russia trolls and hosting subreddits accused of promoting violence and hate speech.
Although anyone can sign up for WT:Social, new users will first be put on a waitlist before they can gain full access. Those who commit to making a $12.99 monthly (or $100 annual) donation will get immediate access. On Friday, Wales said the service already had over 80,000 sign-ups.
WT:Social is actually born from Wikitribune, a past attempt by Wales to launch an ad-free news service that struggled to take off. Last year, Wales ended up laying off the editorial staffers involved to make the site a more user-driven platform.
Other sites have tried this approach, meanwhile, from Ello to Mastodon, with varying results.