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Jimmy Wales

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2023-06-18

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2023-06-18

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1. “And then they usually go, Oh, you know what? I didn't, I thought that was okay. And then they stop, or they keep it up and then everybody goes, well, you're the asshole.”

   2023-06-18 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #385 – Jimmy Wales: Wikipedia · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

2. “And she felt so bad. She's like, oh, right. I didn't really think of it that way. She just was coming in as she was like 13 years old, combative and, you know, like having fun and drolling a bit. And then she's like, oh, actually Oh, I see your point and became a great Wikipedian. So that's the ideal really is that you don't just go throw a block, fuck off. You go, hey, you know, like what gives, you know, which is, I think the way We tend to treat things in real life, you know, if you've got somebody who's doing something obnoxious in your friend group, you probably go, hey, like really, I don't know if you've noticed, but I think this person is actually quite hurt that you keep making that joke about them.”

   2023-06-18 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #385 – Jimmy Wales: Wikipedia · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

3. “And that's kind of human. But I think it just does require Really thinking, you know, in a self-aware manner of like, oh, I was once a newbie. Actually, we do have, we have great, I just did an interview with Emily Temple Woods, who she was Wikipedia of the year. She's just like a great, well-known Wikipedian. And I interviewed her for my book. And she told me something I never knew. Apparently it's not secret. Like, she didn't reveal it to me, but is that when she started at Wikipedia, she was a vandal. She came in and vandalized Wikipedia. And then basically what happened was she'd done some sort of vandalized a couple of articles. And then somebody popped up on her talk page and said, hey, why are you doing this? Like, we're trying to make an encyclopedia here. And this wasn't very kind.”

   2023-06-18 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #385 – Jimmy Wales: Wikipedia · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

4. “Instead, somebody should go, Oh, hey, yeah, thanks for helping. But, you know, here's the link to how to format, you know, if you want to keep going, you might want to learn how to format a footnote. And to be friendly and to be open and to say, oh, right, oh, you're new and you clearly don't know everything about Wikipedia. And sometimes in any community, that can be quite hard. So people come in and they've got a great big idea and they're going to propose this to the Wikipedia community and they have no idea That's basically a perennial discussion we've had 7,000 times before. And so then ideally you would say to the person, oh yeah, great. Thanks. Like a lot of people have, and here's where we got to, and here's the nuanced conversation we've had about that in the past that I think you'll find interesting. And sometimes people are just like, oh, God, another one, you know, who's come in with this idea which doesn't work and they don't understand why.”

   2023-06-18 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #385 – Jimmy Wales: Wikipedia · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

5. “Which is partly written that way because it piques people's attention. Like, what the hell kind of rule is that? But basically says, look, don't get nervous and depressed about a bunch of, you know, what's the formatting of your footnote, right? So you shouldn't come to Wikipedia at a link and then get banned or yelled at because it's not the right format.”

   2023-06-18 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #385 – Jimmy Wales: Wikipedia · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

6. “We think that's really important. And so, you know, oftentimes people come in and there's a lot when I talk about community health, one of the aspects of that that we do think about a lot that I think about a lot of community. Not about politics. It's just like, how are we treating newcomers to the community? And so, I can tell you what our ideals are, what our philosophy is, but do we live up to that? So, you know, the ideal is you come to Wikipedia. We have rules, like one of our fundamental rules is ignore all rules.”

   2023-06-18 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #385 – Jimmy Wales: Wikipedia · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

7. “Because people write what they know. They write what they're interested in. So we do think diversity in the community is really important, and that's one area where I do think it's really clear. But I can also say, you know what, actually, that also applies in the political sphere. Like to say, actually, we do want kind and thoughtful Catholic priests, kind and thoughtful conservatives, kind and thoughtful libertarians, kind and thoughtful Marxists, you know, to come in. But the key is the kind and thoughtful piece. So when people sometimes come to Wikipedia outraged by some dramatic thing that's happened on Twitter, they come to Wikipedia with a chip on their shoulder ready to do battle. This doesn't work out very well, you know, and there's”

   2023-06-18 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #385 – Jimmy Wales: Wikipedia · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

8. “And they looked at the male novelist versus the female. And the male novelist had longer and higher quality entries. And why is that? Well, it's not because, because I know hundreds of Wikipedians, it's not because these are a bunch of biased, sexist men who are like books by women are not important. It's like, no, actually there is a gender kind of breakdown of readership. There are books like hard science fiction is a classic example. Hard science fiction, mostly read by men. Other types of novels more read by women. And if we don't have women in the community, then these award-winning clearly important novelists may have less coverage. And not because anybody consciously thinks we don't like what a book by Maya Angelou, like who cares? She's a poet. That's not interesting. No, but just”

   2023-06-18 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #385 – Jimmy Wales: Wikipedia · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

9. “The demographic has changed a bit, but it's like if you've got a bunch of 25 year old tech geek dudes. Who don't have kids, they're just not going to be interested in early childhood development. And if they try to write about it, they probably wouldn't do a good job because they don't know anything about it. And somebody did a look at our entries on novelists who've won a major literary prize.”

   2023-06-18 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #385 – Jimmy Wales: Wikipedia · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

10. “Men who edit Wikipedia, and I said, you've obviously not met the Japanese Wikipedia community. It's kind of a joke because the broader principle still stands who had its Japanese Wikipedia, a bunch of geeky men, right? And women, as well. So we do have women in the community, and that's very important. But we do think, okay, you know what? That does lead to some problems. It leads to some content issues simply because people write more about what they know and what they're interested in. They'll tend to be dismissive of things as being unimportant if it's not something that they personally have an interest in. I like the example as a parent. I would say our entries on early childhood development probably aren't as good as they should be because a lot of the Wikipedia volunteers, actually we're getting older, the Wikipedia.”

    2023-06-18 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #385 – Jimmy Wales: Wikipedia · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

11. “I'm not going to get angry. I'm able to be a good Wikipedian. So I think that's important. And I do think, though, in a related framework, that the composition of the community is really important, not because Wikipedia is or should be a battleground, but because blind spots. Like maybe I don't even realize what's biased. If I'm particularly of a certain point of view and I've never thought much about it. So one of the things we focus on a lot, the Wikipedia volunteers are, we don't know the exact number, but let's say 80% plus male. And they're of a certain demographic. They tend to be college educated, heavier on tech geeks than not, you know, et cetera, et cetera. So there is a demographic to the community. And that's pretty much global. I mean, somebody said to me once, why is it only why?”

    2023-06-18 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #385 – Jimmy Wales: Wikipedia · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

12. “Yeah, I think so. And I think if you read the article, it's pretty good. And I think a piece of that is within our community, if people have the self-awareness to understand. So I personally wouldn't go and edit the entry on Donald Trump. I get emotional about it. And I'm like, I'm not good at this. And if I tried to do it, I would fail. I wouldn't be a good Wikipedian. So it's better if I just step back and let people who are more dispassionate on this topic edit it. Whereas there are other topics that are incredibly emotional to some people where I can actually do quite well. Like I'm going to be okay. Maybe we were discussing earlier the efficacy of masks. I'm like, oh, I think that's an interesting problem. And I don't know the answer, but I can help kind of catalog what's the best evidence and so on. I'm not going to get upset.”

    2023-06-18 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #385 – Jimmy Wales: Wikipedia · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

13. “With ideas, and they can discuss, and they may feel very proud of the entry at the end of the day, not because they suppress the other side's views, but because they think the case has been stated very well that other people can come to understand it. And if you're highly ideological, you assume, I think, naturally, if people understood as much about this as I do, they'll probably agree with me. You may be wrong about that, but that's often the case. So that's where that's what I think we need to encourage more of in society generally is grappling with ideas in a really thoughtful way.”

    2023-06-18 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #385 – Jimmy Wales: Wikipedia · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

14. “Is really it. I mean, left and right, like, yeah, bring me somebody I disagree with politically as long as they're thoughtful, kind. We're going to have a real discussion. I give an example of our article on abortion. So, you know, if you can bring together a kind and thoughtful Catholic priest and a kind and thoughtful planned parenthood activist, and they're going to work together on the article on abortion, that can be a really great thing. If they're both kind and thoughtful, like that's the important part. They're never going to agree on the topic, but they will understand, okay, like Wikipedia is not going to take a side, but Wikipedia is going to explain what the debate is about. And we're going to try to characterize it fairly. And it turns out, like, you're kind and thoughtful people, even if they're quite ideological, like a Catholic priest is generally going to be quite ideological on the subject of abortion, but they can grapple.”

    2023-06-18 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #385 – Jimmy Wales: Wikipedia · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

15. “I talk sometimes about how people assume that the big debates in Wikipedia or the arguments between the party of the left and the party of the right. And I would say, you know, it's actually the party of the kind and thoughtful and the party of the jerks.”

    2023-06-18 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #385 – Jimmy Wales: Wikipedia · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

16. “It's even an odd thing to kiss you off because you have quite a wide range of long conversations with a very diverse bunch of people.”

    2023-06-18 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #385 – Jimmy Wales: Wikipedia · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

17. “That sounds really interesting. I want to see something where, you know, like, oh, I don't agree with. So Larry Lessig is a good friend of mine, founder of Creative Commons, and he's moved on to doing stuff about corruption and politics and so on. And I don't always agree with Larry. But I always grapple with Larry because he's so interesting and he's so thoughtful that even when we don't agree, I'm like, actually, I want to hear him out. Because I'm going to learn from it. And that doesn't mean I always come around to agreeing with him, but I'm going to understand a perspective of it. And that's really a great feeling.”

    2023-06-18 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #385 – Jimmy Wales: Wikipedia · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

18. “I've been saying for a long time if I went on Facebook one morning. They said, Oh, we're testing a new option. Rather than showing you things we think you're going to like, we want to show you some things that we think you will disagree with but which we have some signals that suggest it's of quality. Like, now that sounds interesting.”

    2023-06-18 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #385 – Jimmy Wales: Wikipedia · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

19. “Replying, blocking. It's a pretty limited scope, and it's kind of good if there's a way to elevate a specific thoughtful response. And it kind of goes to, again, like, does the algorithm just pick the retweet? I mean, retweeting, it's not even the algorithm that makes it viral. Paolo Cuello, very famous author, I think he's got like, I don't know, I haven't looked lately. He used to have 8 million Twitter followers. I think I looked and he's got 16 million now or whatever. Well, if he retweets something, it's going to get seen a lot. Or Elon Musk, if he retweets something, it's going to get seen a lot. That's not an algorithm. That's just the way the platform works. So it is kind of nice if you have something else and how that something else is designed. That's obviously complicated question.”

    2023-06-18 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #385 – Jimmy Wales: Wikipedia · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

20. “So I like that. I think that's really important. Now, how is it specifically implemented? Is it scalable? All that, I don't really know how they've done it, so I can't really comment on that. But in general, I do think it's when your only mechanisms on Twitter, and you're a big Twitter user, we know the platform and you've got plenty of followers and all of that. The only mechanisms are retweeting.”

    2023-06-18 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #385 – Jimmy Wales: Wikipedia · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

21. “Think it's scalable? I do like it. I don't know enough about specifically how it's implemented to really have a very deep view. But I do think it's quite, the uses I've seen of it, I've found quite good. And in some cases, changed my mind. You know, it's like I see something. And of course, you know, the sort of human tendency is to retweet something that you hope is true or that you are afraid is true or you know it's like that kind of quick mental action. And then, you know, I saw something that I liked and agreed with and then a community note under it that made me think, oh, actually, this is a more nuanced issue.”

    2023-06-18 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #385 – Jimmy Wales: Wikipedia · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

22. “Think it's really hard to fix because I don't think that problem isn't necessarily new. You know, someone In high school who writes Graffiti that says Bucky has a slight. And spreads a rumor about what Becky did last weekend that's always been damaging. It's always been hurtful. And it's really hard.”

    2023-06-18 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #385 – Jimmy Wales: Wikipedia · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

23. “His picture, not the abuse, right? The abuse was elsewhere on the internet. And he was bothered by it. And I thought, you know what, there is a difference. I actually am in the public eye. I get huge benefits from being in the public eye. I go around and make public speeches. Any random thing I think of I can write and get it published in the New York Times and have this interesting life. He's not a public figure. And so actually he wasn't mad at us. It was just like, yeah, actually suddenly being thrust into the public eye and you get suddenly lots of abuse, which normally if you're a teenager and somebody in your class is abusing you, it's not going to go viral. So it's going to be hurtful because it's local and your classmates or whatever. But when sort of ordinary people go viral in some abusive way, it's really, really quite tragic.”

    2023-06-18 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #385 – Jimmy Wales: Wikipedia · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

24. “Yeah, I mean, it's actually. An example. So we don't generally use my picture and the banners anymore on Wikipedia, but we did. And then we did an experiment one year where we tried other people's pictures. So one of our developers. And one got lovely, very sweet guy. And he doesn't look like your immediate thought of a nerdy Silicon Valley developer. He looks like a heavy metal dude. Because he's cool And so suddenly here he is with long hair and tattoos, and there's his sort of say, here's what your money goes for, here's my letter asking for support. And he got massive abuse from Wikipedia, like calling him creepy and really massive. And this was being shown to 80 million people a day.”

    2023-06-18 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #385 – Jimmy Wales: Wikipedia · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

25. “But that's one where it's like, actually, I'm happy to respond because a lot of people don't know that I don't work there and that I don't make millions and I'm not a billionaire. Well, they must know that because it's in most news media about me. But the other one I didn't respond to publicly because it's like Barbara Streisen effect, you know, it's like sometimes calling attention to someone who's abusing you who basically has no followers and so on is just a waste.”

    2023-06-18 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #385 – Jimmy Wales: Wikipedia · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

26. “Yeah. No, I mean, I remember another case that didn't bother me because it wasn't of that nature. But somebody was saying, you know, I'm sure you're making millions off of Wikipedia. And I'm like, no, actually, I don't even work there. I have no salary. And they're like, you're lying. I'm going to check your 990 form, which is the US form for tax reporting for charities. Yeah, here's the link. Go read it and you'll see. I'm listed as a board member and my salary is listed as zero. So, you know, so, you know, things like that, it's like, okay, that one, that feels like you're wrong, but I can take that and we can have that debate quite quickly. And again, it didn't go viral because it was kind of silly. And if anything would have gone viral, it was me responding.”

    2023-06-18 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #385 – Jimmy Wales: Wikipedia · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

27. “Have huge scales is really something. And I don't know the full answer to this. I mean, a piece of it could be to say actually making specific allegations of crimes, this isn't the place to do that. We've got a huge database. If you've got an accusation of crime, here's who you call the police, the FBI, whatever it is. It's not to be done in public. And then you do face really complicated questions about Me Too movement and people coming forward in public and all of that. But it's, again, it's like probably you should talk to a journalist, right? Probably there are better avenues than just tweeting from an account that was created 10 days ago, obviously set up to abuse someone. So I think they could do a lot better. But I also admit it's a hard problem.”

    2023-06-18 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #385 – Jimmy Wales: Wikipedia · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

28. “Accusation So, even back then, by the way, they did delete those tweets, but I mean, the rationale they gave as a spammy behavior. So, completely separate from abusing me, it was just like, oh, well, they were retweeting too often. Okay, whatever. So that's just broken. Like that's a system that it's not working for people in the public eye. I'm sure it's not working for private people who get abuse really horrible abuse can happen So, how is that today? Well, it hasn't happened to me since Elon took over, but I don't see why it couldn't. And I suspect now I send a report and email someone, there's no one there to email me back because he's gotten rid of. Lot of the trust and safety staff. So I suspect that problem is still really hard.”

    2023-06-18 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #385 – Jimmy Wales: Wikipedia · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

29. “Come on, fuck off. Like, that's ridiculous. So I report. I'm like, this time I'm reporting, but I'm thinking, well, we'll see what happens. This one gets even worse because then I get the same result email back saying, sorry, we don't see any problems. So I raise it with other members of the board who I know and Jack. And like, this is really ridiculous. Like, this is outrageous. And some of the board members, friends of mine, sympathetic and so good for them, but actually got an email back then from the general counsel head of trust and safety saying, actually, there's nothing in this tweet that violates our terms of service. We don't regard and gave reference to the Me Too movement if we didn't allow accusations. The Me Too movement, it's an important thing. And I was like, you know what? Actually, if someone says, I'm 10 years old and someone raped me last week, I think the advice should be, here's the phone number of the police. Like, you need to get the police involved. Twitter's not the place for that.”

    2023-06-18 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #385 – Jimmy Wales: Wikipedia · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

30. “And sorts it out for me. What about the teenager who's being bullied and is getting abuse, right, and getting accusations that aren't true? Are they getting the same kind of really poor result in that case? So fast forward a few years. Same thing happens. The exact quote I go to. I'm only 10 years old and Jimmy Williams.”

    2023-06-18 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #385 – Jimmy Wales: Wikipedia · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

31. “Pedophilia. Like, that's just not okay. So I thought, I'm going to report this. So I click report, I report the tweet, and there's five others go through the process, and then I get an email that says, you know, whatever, a couple hours later saying, thank you for your report. We're looking into this. Great, okay, good. Then several hours further, I get an email back saying, sorry, we don't see anything here to violate our terms of use. And I'm like, okay, so I email Jack. And I say, Jack, come on, like, this is ridiculous. And he emails back, roughly saying, yeah, sorry, Jimmy, don't worry, we'll sort this out. And I just thought to myself, you know what? That's not the point, right? I'm Jimmy Wales. I know Jack Dorsey. I can email Jack Dorsey. He'll listen to me because he's got an email from me.”

    2023-06-18 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #385 – Jimmy Wales: Wikipedia · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

32. “Trust in the idea of truth, even the concept of facts and truth is really, really important. And the idea of uncomfortable truths is really important. When we look at Twitter and we say, we can see, okay, this is really hard. So here's my story about Twitter. It's a two part story. And it's all pre-Elon Musk ownership. So many years back, somebody accused me of horrible crimes on Twitter. And I, you know, like anybody would, I was like, you know, I'm in the public eye. People say bad things. I don't really, you know, I brush it off, whatever. But I'm like, this is actually really bad. Like accusing me.”

    2023-06-18 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #385 – Jimmy Wales: Wikipedia · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

33. “Well, also on Wikipedia, people are going to say stop. And actually, are you here to tell us how can we improve the article or are you just here to rant about Trump? Because that's not actually interesting. So because the goal is different, so that's just admitting and saying up front, this is a hard problem. Certainly, I'm writing a book on trust. So the idea is, you know, in the last 20 years, we've lost trust in all kinds of institutions, in politics, the Edelman Trust Barometer Survey has been done for a long time. And, you know, trust in politicians, trust in journalism, it's declined substantially. And I think in many cases, deservedly. So, how do we restore trust and how do we think about that?”

    2023-06-18 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #385 – Jimmy Wales: Wikipedia · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

34. “And what makes that hard is some people have really toxic, really bad. Some people are very aggressive. They're actually stalking. They're actually, you know, abusive. And suddenly you deal with a lot of problems. Whereas at Wikipedia, there is no box that says what's on your mind. There's a box that says this is an entry about. The moon, please be neutral, please cite your facts. Then there's a talk page, which is not coming rant about Donald Trump. You go on the talk page of the Donald Trump entry and you just start ranting about Donald Trump. People would say, What are you doing? Like, stop doing that. Like, we're not here to discuss. Like, there's a whole world of the internet out there for you to go and rant about Donald Trump.”

    2023-06-18 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #385 – Jimmy Wales: Wikipedia · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

35. “I mean, it's a long conversation. But to start with, one of the things that I always say is it's a really hard problem. So I can see that right up front. I said this about the old ownership of Twitter and the new ownership of Twitter. Because unlike Wikipedia, and this is true actually for all social media, there's a box. And the box basically says, what do you think? What's on your mind? You can write whatever the hell you want, right? That's true, by the way, even for YouTube. I mean, the box is to upload a video, but again, it's just like an open-ended invitation to express yourself.”

    2023-06-18 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #385 – Jimmy Wales: Wikipedia · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

36. “A plausible business model, but I do think it's interesting to think about. Just in broad terms, business model drives outcomes in sometimes surprising ways, unless you really pause to think about it.”

    2023-06-18 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #385 – Jimmy Wales: Wikipedia · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

37. “So you can get edgier, higher quality, in my view, content rather than saying it's got to not offend anybody in the world. It's got to be for everybody, which is really hard. So same thing here in a social network, if your business model is advertising, it's going to drive you in one direction. If your business model is membership, I think it drives you in a different direction. I actually, and I've said this to Elon about Twitter Blue, which I think wasn't rolled out well and so forth, but it's like, hmm, the piece of that that I like is to say, look, actually, if there's a model where your revenue is coming from people who are willing to pay for the service, even if it's only part of your revenue, if it's a substantial part, that does change your broader incentives to say, actually, are people going to be willing to pay for something that's actually just toxicity in their lives? Now, I'm not sure it's been rolled out well. I'm not sure how it's going. And maybe I'm wrong about that.”

    2023-06-18 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #385 – Jimmy Wales: Wikipedia · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

38. “Broadcast television funded by advertising gives you a different result than paying for HBO, paying for Netflix, paying for whatever. And the reason is if you think about it, what is your incentive as a TV producer, you're going to make a comedy for ABC network in the US, you basically say, I want something that almost everybody will like and listen to. So it tends to be a little blander, family-friendly, whatever. Whereas if you say, oh, actually, I'm going to use the HBO example in an old example. You say, you know what? Sopranos isn't for everybody. Sex in the city isn't for everybody, but between the two shows, we've got something for everybody that they're willing to pay for.”

    2023-06-18 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #385 – Jimmy Wales: Wikipedia · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

39. “And so part of that is, and it's probably not a good business model, but part of that is, okay, we're not going to pursue an advertising business model, but a membership model where you don't have to be a member, but you can pay to be a member. You maybe get some benefit from that. But in general, to say actually the problem with, and actually the division I would say is, and the analogy I would give is.”

    2023-06-18 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #385 – Jimmy Wales: Wikipedia · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

40. “It's a difficult problem. And, you know, so with WT Social Wikitrine Social, we're launching in a few months time a completely new system, new domain name, new lots of things. But the idea is to say let's focus on trust. People can rate each other as trustworthy, rate content as trustworthy. You have to start from somewhere, so it'll start with a core base of our tiny community who I think are sensible, thoughtful people, want to recruit more. But to say, you know what, actually, let's have that as a pretty strong element to say let's not optimize based on what gets the most page views in this session. Let's optimize on what sort of the feedback from people is this is meaningfully enhancing my life.”

    2023-06-18 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #385 – Jimmy Wales: Wikipedia · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

41. “60% of people can say, Oh, I can buy into that, which meant it pushed you to the center, it pushed you to sort of try and find some nuance balance. But if your main method of recruiting people is a tiny little one-on-one conversation with them because you're able to target using targeted advertising, suddenly you don't need consistent, you just need a really good targeting operation, really good Cambridge Analytic style machine learning algorithm data to convince people. And that just feels really problematic. So, I mean, until they can think about how to solve that problem, I would just say, you know what, it's going to cost us X amount, but it's going to be worth it to kind of say, you know what, we actually think our political advertising policy hasn't really helped contribute to.discourse and dialogue and finding reasoned middle ground and compromised solutions. So let's just not do that for a while.”

    2023-06-18 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #385 – Jimmy Wales: Wikipedia · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

42. “By questionable people that push false narratives or the classic kind of thing is you run, I saw a study about Brexit. In the UK where people were talking about there were ads run to animal rights activists saying finally when we're out from under Europe the UK can pass proper animal rights legislation. We're not constrained by the European process. Similarly for people who are advocates of fox hunting to say, finally when we're out of Europe we can re-implement. So you're telling people what they want to hear. In some cases it's really hard for journalists to see that. So it used to be that for political advertising you really needed to find some kind of mainstream narrative and this is still true to an extent mainstream narrative that”

    2023-06-18 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #385 – Jimmy Wales: Wikipedia · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

43. “One of the things that's really interesting about Facebook compared to a lot of companies is that Mark has a pretty unprecedented amount of power. His ability to name members of the board, his control of the company is pretty hard to break, even if financial results aren't as good as they could be because he's taken a step back from the perfect optimization to say actually for the long-term health in the next 50 years of this organization, we need to rein in some of the things that are working for us and making money because they're actually giving us a bad reputation. So one of the recommendations I would say is, and this is not to do with the algorithms and all that, but you know, how about just a moratorium on all political advertising? I don't think it's their most profitable segment, but it's given rise to a lot of deep, hard questions about dark money, about ads that are run.”

    2023-06-18 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #385 – Jimmy Wales: Wikipedia · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

44. “Slightly different ways. But to do that, you may have to say, actually we're not necessarily going to increase page views to the maximum extent right now. And I've said this to people at Facebook. It's like, If your actions are convincing people that you're breaking Western civilization, that's really bad for business in the long run. Certainly these days I'll say Twitter is the thing that's on people's minds as being more upsetting at the moment. But I think it's true. And so”

    2023-06-18 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #385 – Jimmy Wales: Wikipedia · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

45. “Trying to do. So a piece of it is it's hard. So I don't, the problem with making a recommendation to Facebook is that I actually believe their business model makes it really hard for them. And I'm not anti-capitalism. I'm not, you know, great. Somebody's got business, they're making money. That's not where I come from. But certain business models mean you are going to prioritize things that maybe aren't that long-term healthful. So that's a big piece of it. So certainly for Facebook, you could say, you know, with vast resources, start to prioritize content that's higher quality, that's healing, that's kind. Try not to prioritize content that seems to be just getting a rise out of people. Now those are vague human descriptions, right? But I do believe good machine learning algorithms, you can optimize it.”

    2023-06-18 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #385 – Jimmy Wales: Wikipedia · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

46. “Everybody jumps in to go shut up on Uncle Frank, you know, like that's outrageous And it's like, oh, there's engagement, there's page views, there's ads, right? And those algorithms, I think they're working to improve that. But it's really hard for them. It's hard to improve that if that actually is working. If the people who are saying things that get engagement, if it's not too awful, but it's just, you know, like maybe it's not a racist uncle, but maybe it's an uncle who posts a lot about what an idiot Biden is, right? Which isn't necessarily an offensive or blockable or bannable thing, and it shouldn't be. But if that's the discourse that gets elevated because it gets a rise out of people. Then suddenly, in a society, it's like, oh, we get more of what we reward. So I think that's a piece of what's gone on.”

    2023-06-18 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #385 – Jimmy Wales: Wikipedia · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

47. “One the sweet grandma. And I always want to point out about all of my uncles and my family were wonderful people. So I didn't have a crackbot race. But everybody knows the stereotype. Grandma, she just posts sweet comments on the kids' pictures and congratulates people on their wedding anniversary. And crackpot uncles posting his nonsense. And normally, sort of at Christmas dinner, everybody rolls their eyes. Oh, yeah, Uncle Frank's here. He's probably going to say some racist comment and we're going to tell him to shut up or, you know, maybe let's not invite him this year, normal human drama. He's got his three mates down at the pub who listen to him and all of that. But now grandma's got 54 followers on Facebook, which is the intimate family. And Racist Uncle has 714. So he's not a massive influence or whatever. But how did that happen? It's because the algorithm notices, oh, when she posts, nothing happens. He posts.”

    2023-06-18 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #385 – Jimmy Wales: Wikipedia · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

48. “Although it's taken longer than it should in some cases. But if you have a very large following and you're really spouting hatred or misinformation, disinformation, they've kicked people off. They've done some reasonable things there. But actually, the deeper issue is of the anger we're talking about, of the contentiousness of everything I make of a family example with two great stereotypes. So one, the crackpot racist uncle.”

    2023-06-18 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #385 – Jimmy Wales: Wikipedia · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

49. “Yeah, yeah. Well, and we certainly see it online. A series of tweets, you know, sort of a tweet thread of 15 tweets that assesses the quality of the evidence for masks, pros and cons, and sort of where this, that's not going to go viral. But a smackdown for a famous politician who was famously in favor of masks who also went to a dinner and didn't wear a mask. Going to go viral. And that's partly human nature. People love to call out hypocrisy and all of that, but it's partly what these systems elevate automatically. I talk about this with respect to...”

    2023-06-18 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #385 – Jimmy Wales: Wikipedia · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

50. “And 90 zillion retweets and people liked it and it was all very good. But I'm like, you know what? It's cute line, right? And it's a good mic drop and all that. And I was pleased with myself. It's not really discourse, right? It's not really sort of what I like to do, but it's what social media really rewards, which is kind of a... Lets you and him have a fight, right? And that's more than it's funny because at the time I was texting with Elon, who's very pleasant to me, all of that.”

    2023-06-18 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #385 – Jimmy Wales: Wikipedia · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source