Wikipedia\u2019s founder, Jimmy Wales, has branded the Australian social media ban an \u201cunmitigated disaster\u201d and an \u201cembarrassment\u201d that is teaching kids to accept surveillance from tech companies when they go online.<\/p>\n
The online encyclopaedia that anyone can edit was born in a world before social media, in 2001. But Wales told Guardian Australia that many of the ills of social media existed even in the earlier stages of the internet.<\/p>\n
\u201cBefore social media, before Wikipedia, there was Usenet, which was like a giant, unmoderated message board,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was unbelievably toxic: flame wars constantly and personal attacks and just general horribleness.<\/p>\n
\u201cHumans don\u2019t need algorithms to be mean to each other. We can do it on our own, so we shouldn\u2019t be too rose-tinted about the past.\u201d<\/p>\n
Wales is visiting Australia in May for writers\u2019 festivals promoting his book, Seven Rules of Trust, a look at how the model of trust between people who edit Wikipedia pages can be applied to political polarisation in modern discourse.<\/p>\n
The seven rules include being transparent, making discussion between two people personal and being courteous.<\/p>\n
Wales said the core bedrock rule of the Wikipedia community is no personal attacks.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf you are attacking the other person, that\u2019s really viewed negatively in the Wikipedia world,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s very different from a lot of free-wheeling social media, where if you fly off the handle and start attacking someone, the algorithm notices that you\u2019re causing engagement and you get promoted and get more followers.\u201d<\/p>\n
Wales describes the current social media environment as one where users are \u201cjust serfs on the master\u2019s estate\u201d where rules are made from above, enforced by \u201canonymous, faceless moderators\u201d who work for the platforms.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhereas at Wikipedia, it\u2019s all in the hands of the community.\u201d<\/p>\n
Despite his criticisms of social media \u2013 including the algorithms that are part of the Albanese government\u2019s justification for banning under 16s from the platforms<\/a> such as X, Facebook, Instagram and TikTok \u2013 Wales expressed his opposition to government policies, such as that in Australia, for keeping teens off social media.<\/p>\n Wales says governments should be educating adults on parental controls for children\u2019s phones. Photograph: Bloomberg\/Getty Images<\/p>\n \u201cI think it\u2019s an unmitigated disaster, and it\u2019s an embarrassment,\u201d he said. \u201cWhen it comes with demands that we adults have to prove our age, ie identify ourselves with personally identifying information \u2026 this is madness and it\u2019s really unsafe.\u201d<\/p>\n