Facebook is dead. It might be blunt, but it’s hella true. What’s there to miss? It’s just another site where your relatives and marketers can harvest your data. That, and the social media site just isn’t exciting anymore.
So where do you go when you’re tired of people collecting your data? Well, maybe Wikipedia’s new social media site WT: Social, is the antidote you’ve been looking for.
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WT: Social is a new social media platform from the founders of Wikipedia. In this new platform, they promise not to run advertisements or sell user data. Their site somehow functions like a hybrid between Facebook and Reddit.
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It has a Facebook-like feed where users can share news or other kinds of content. But unlike Facebook, WT: Social would show new content first, not sponsored content. The content they get from their feed comes from various sections called subwikis. These are subsections of the site where users can join and participate in. And like Wikipedia, it allows users to directly edit misleading headlines or flag problem posts.
“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,” said Jimmy Wales, co-founder of Wikipedia, to Wikitribune. “Facebook, Twitter, and other social networks make revenue based on how long you stay on their site looking at and clicking on advertising. Engagement is prioritized over quality.”
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They formed WT: Social after Wales got tired of Facebook and Twitter’s superficiality. According to the latest video they released, he hopes the new platform will conquer Facebook, a site “full of clickbait and misleading news.”
In social media sites filled with Mocha Uson’s soldiers, call-out culture’s toxicity, Twitter catfights, and weirdly targetted ads, WT: Social seems like a healthy alternative. Facebook has so far removed 5.4 billion fake accounts this 2019, while in September Twitter removed thousands of fake accounts that were spreading political disinformation in six countries.
We have yet to see what WT: Social can bring to the table. Until we see some big moves from Wikipedia, it’s currently just looking like another version of Reddit. We are loving this anti-algorithm/fake news energy though. Hopefully, their crazy, anti-Facebook experiment will succeed.
Still from “The Social Network”