WT Social

Jimmy Wales created WT.Social (originally formatted as "WT:Social") after becoming frustrated with Facebook and Twitter for what he called their "clickbait nonsense". The format is meant to combat fake news by providing evidence-based news with links and clear sources. Users are able to edit and flag misleading links.[2] WT.Social allows users to share links to news-sites with other users in "subwikis". Unlike its predecessor (WikiTribune, which Wales co-founded with Orit Kopel),[1] WT.Social was not crowdfunded.[3] Wales was quoted as wanting to "keep a tight rein on the costs".[3] In October 2019, Wales launched the site. When a new user signed up they would be placed on a waiting list with thousands of others. To skip the list and gain access to the site, users either had to make a donation or share a link with friends.[4] By November 6, the site had 25,000 users.[3] That number was claimed to be 200,000 by mid-November[2] and 400,000 by December 3.[5] However, this rapid growth was not sustained; the number of users reported as of 5 November 2022 was 508,980.[6]

Quoted in the Stanford Social Innovation Review for Summer 2020, Wales said: "We're not doing a good job of actually exposing the best stuff on the platform. So that's kind of our next phase in evolution."[7] This approach involved highlighting contributions by public figures.[7]

As of launch, WT.Social runs on proprietary software.[8] However, as of November 7, 2019, Wales stated that he had just learnt about ActivityPub and was looking into it.[9] Later, Wales stated that the code would be released under GPLv3 in the future.[8]

• Official website