A new and different social media: Wikipedia’s WT Social
We have all heard of, and used, Wikipedia. Now Wikipedia’s co-founder Jimmy Wales has come up with WT Social, a social network for people interested in discovering, sharing, and discussing the news. It is making waves already as a no-nonsense, yet highly engaging social media space, and is definitely worth exploring.
Why did Wales launch WT Social?
Wales was tired of the way normal social media platforms such as Facebook and Twitter worked. They are overrun with politically motivated accounts, or business accounts, and it is difficult to understand whether a piece of news is true or propaganda. Talking freely can also invite trouble in the form of trolls and stalkers. Besides, there is a large amount of direct and indirect ad content being dished out on these platforms, thanks to their enormous popularity. So Wales launched WikiTribune, a news platform not attached to any media house. He has now turned this into WT Social, bringing the original wiki-based news aspect together with social sharing and discussion.
How does WT Social work?
WT Social is made up of SubWikis. These are community discussion threads on certain news topics. Members of a SubWiki group can join the discussion by sharing text, links, images and audio visual clips. SubWiki posts can also be up-voted, but so far there is no down-voting option available. Members can comment, share and edit their own posts.
How can we access WT Social?
One has to login via the website page, like all other social media sites. Users get some automatically loaded SubWikis as soon as they have logged in. These include Fighting Misinformation, Long reads, News about the Internet, and Weird News. One can edit SubWikis that allow other to edit, apart from posting. Like all social media, users can invite friends.
How is WT Social different from other social media platforms?
WT Social is focused on news stories, not the personal updates as we usually put up. Just like Wikipedia, WT Social is entirely funded by donations and aims to remain ad-free. Users are encouraged to donate if they believe in the cause of the site. Also, it’s totally free, so no media or business house can hold a paid business account on WT Social.