Fake news flooding has become a hit on social platforms like Facebook and Twitter, and Wikipedia co-founder Jimmy Wells believes he can create a better social network that frees people from the nutrient-free content pushed by algorithms. And rumors.
“The social networking company’s business model of advertising alone is problematic, and the result is that low-quality content has become a winner.” Wells vs. “Financial Times” said.
This new social network created by Wells is called WikiTribune Social, WT: Social, translated into Chinese, the “Wiki Social Forum”, which is actually a derivative of the WikiTribune that Wells founded two years ago. WikiTribune is a website dedicated to providing real and neutral articles, while WT: Social has no economic connection with Wikipedia, but its mode of operation is similar. WT: Social does not accept advertising, and only keeps running by donations.
Confidence in content makes Wells not worry about funding. He uses Netflix and The New York Times as examples to prove that people are willing to pay for meaningful content.
WT: Social is still on the front pageThe user promises: “We will never sell your data, and our platform relies on the generosity of individual donors to ensure that your privacy is protected and your social space is protected from advertising.”
WT: Social’s pride is also reflected in the attitude towards users. WT: Social was released in October this year, and currently users are close to 50,000, but it is not easy to be a user. After filling in the email and password registration, you can choose SubWiki, which you are interested in, but you can’t use WT: Social immediately, but you need to wait in line, for example, there are 44,832 people in front of me.
Impatient people can also choose to “cut the queue”: Invite friends to join to improve the ranking, if you pay directly for gold, you can use it immediately, the fee is monthly.Or annual payment: $12.99/month or $100/year, which is about RMB 91/month or 703 yuan/year.
▲ Image from: the next web
At present, WT: Social’s interface is still relatively simple. It adopts a three-column design. The left and right sides are topic recommendation and invitation links. The middle is content release and article reading. You can paste reliable news links or express your own opinions. WT: Social emphasizes evidence-based reporting, so messages posted on the platform highlight the source of the article, the source of the information, and the reference material.
SubWiki is similar to Facebook’s discussion group and will display articles with corresponding tags. Currently these articles are in chronological order, but WT: Social Join the voting system after the program to get more exposure to high quality articles.
Wells’ vision is very good, but social networking is not only serious content, Facebook and Twitter are obviously not easy to replace, look at how many social products Google has turned off, and willing to follow the roots and think independently. After all, people are a minority, so it seems that WT: Social may be destined to be a small and beautiful community.
The title map is from: Unsplash