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Home / Inductees in the News / Jimmy Wales Makes Bet on Alternative Social-Networking Site
11 December 2019

Jimmy Wales Makes Bet on Alternative Social-Networking Site

In an effort to combat the spread of fake news via social media, Wikipedia founder and Internet Hall of Fame inductee Jimmy Wales has quietly launched WT:Social. Wikipedia, meet Facebook.
WT social logo

In an effort to combat the spread of fake news via social media, Wikipedia founder and Internet Hall of Fame inductee Jimmy Wales has quietly launched WT:Social, a social networking site that allows users to share links to articles on a wide range of topics and discuss them in a Facebook-style news feed. Similar to Wikipedia, it relies on donations from users in order to operate ad-free.

In an interview with the Financial Times, Wales acknowledged that there is no guarantee the platform will succeed. Wales attempted something similar in 2017 with the crowd-funded launch of Wikitribune, which ultimately failed to attract a sustainable audience. 

“This is a radical, crazy experiment of mine,” he said. “I’m happy to say I don’t know all the answers.”

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