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Wikipedia Co-founder Slams Mark Zuckerberg, Twitter and the 'Appalling' Internet (cnbc.com) 97

Larry Sanger, who co-founded Wikipedia in 2001, is not happy with how the internet has evolved in the nearly two decades since then. From a report: "It's appalling frankly," he said in an interview with CNBC this week. Sanger's main gripe is with big social media platforms, especially Facebook and Twitter. These companies, he says, exploit users' personal data to make profits, at the expense of "massive violations" of privacy and security. "They can shape your experience, they can control what you see, when you see it and you become essentially a cog in their machine," he said. Sanger launched a "social media strike" this week to draw attention to his concerns.

In a "Declaration of Digital Independence" published on his personal blog, he said "vast digital empires" need to be replaced by decentralized networks of independent individuals. [...] Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg has responded to seemingly endless concerns about privacy and security on the platform with a new vision for the company, highlighting measures like encrypted messaging. Sanger questioned whether Zuckerberg's intentions are "sincere" and blasted the Facebook executive for abusing the company's power online. "The internet wouldn't have been created by people like Mark Zuckerberg, or any of the sort of corporate executives in Silicon Valley today," he said. "They wouldn't be capable, they don't have the temperament, they're too controlling. They don't understand the whole idea of bottom up."

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Wikipedia Co-founder Slams Mark Zuckerberg, Twitter and the 'Appalling' Internet

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  • I agree that Zuck sucks. So does Google. So does Wikepedia.

    • I think I would prefer the beggathon than what facebook and google do.

    • by hey! ( 33014 )

      Yeah, it should be *free*. Maybe they could sell advertising... Or better yet, they could profile you based on your searches and sell that information to vendors. Or the government.

    • by Anonymous Coward

      I agree that Zuck sucks. So does Google. So does Wikepedia.

      I edited a Wikipedia article to format a listing of entries so they had the same complete information. It was rolled back by one of Wikipredia's cabal of self-appointed Guardians of the Universe. Plus they blocked my IP address because I use a VPN service. Pricks.

  • If you have a problem with the terms and service of any of them then don't use them. Exceptions should be made for children who don't understand, but there's no excuse for adults. If you're old enough to vote you're old enough to make decisions that may be bad for you.]

    And no "I use it to keep up with friends and family" is not a valid excuse for handing over your personal details IMO. There are alternatives - the phone system or SMS or email or even - god forbid! - meeting them in person!

    • by Anonymous Coward

      I disagree. Some people, like trump voters, are so utterly stupid that they are in fact virtually FORCED to use social media -- why? Because they are addicted to drama and trauma, cult of personality, and the constant intravenous feed of echo chamber goodness that tells them exactly what they want to hear. These people are far, far too stupid --and yes I said it -- these MAGA hat wearing crayon eaters are dumber than rocks -- they are just plain too stupid to decide anything on their own, much less to disco

    • If you have a problem with the terms and service of any of them then don't use them.

      Facebook and Google collect data on you whether you use them or not.

      Shadow profiling [cnet.com]

      • by Viol8 ( 599362 )

        Thats small beer compared to people willingly handing over their personal identity and all the data about their lives, families and friends.

        • Those people are happy to hand over personal information about YOU as well. Unless you don't have any family or friends, I suppose.

  • I want to believe what I want to believe and I want the Internet to support me in those beliefs.

    The world is flat.
    Vaccines are bad.
    Obama is a racist, Muslim who is in love with the Besty Ross Flag.
    Trump is going to end western civilization.
    Climate change is a myth.
    We evolved from chimps.
    Humans and dinosaurs did not exist at the same time.
    Aliens built the pyramids.
    The universe happened by chance.
    UFO are visiting earth and stationed at the pentagon.
    Chocolate milk comes from brown-cows.
    Twinkies have an infinit

  • Re: (Score:2, Insightful)

    Comment removed based on user account deletion
    • by Anonymous Coward

      Citation needed

    • by Anonymous Coward

      I'll believe that people who call themselves "center right" really are "center right" when they stop pretending left wingers who call people with Swastikas on their Twitter avatars fascists are "just calling everyone right of AOC nazis", and when they condemn Trump's punishments for perfectly legal asylum seekers - including child separation/torture and the camps, rather than making up excuses or pretending they don't exist.

      If you're pretty much an apologist for fascism, you aint "center right".

    • Re:Irony... (Score:5, Informative)

      by phantomfive ( 622387 ) on Friday July 05, 2019 @11:38AM (#58877990) Journal
      Don't use Wikipedia for controversial topics. Consider it unreliable in general, and look at the citations when it's important.
    • by Anonymous Coward

      When you guys are done attacking the messenger, can we all agree that he's still right and we need to do something about it?

  • Is he talking about the small, select group of Wikipedia editors that have a monopoly on the content of articles?

  • by ReneR ( 1057034 ) on Friday July 05, 2019 @10:41AM (#58877658)
    for all their toxic editor fighting and random deletion of smaller open source project pages and such.
  • Suspect timing (Score:3, Insightful)

    by DarkOx ( 621550 ) on Friday July 05, 2019 @10:45AM (#58877672) Journal

    Lets talk about how open/transparent/democratic wikipedia is right after wikimedia decided to completely side step the community process and ban a prolific editor (Fram).

    Screw Jimmy, he is no different than folks at any of those other companies other than he runs a non-profit so he tends to tread just little more lightly. However when democracy yields results that are truly out of line with HIS idea of what's right; he becomes no less a top down abusive authoritarian than the rest of them.

    • Let's not forget about TheDevilsAdvocate who was first banned for supposed off-site harassment, none of which was ever discussed with any details or specificity outside of the arbitration committees' private internal communications, and then when they admitted that was made up they changed the ban reason to some incredibly vague accusations of just being an annoying contrarian. A year later when he was able to dispute the ban he also asked for specifics and didn't really get anything beyond a slightly less
  • by Archtech ( 159117 ) on Friday July 05, 2019 @10:57AM (#58877734)

    "Larry Sanger, who co-founded Wikipedia in 2001, is not happy with how the internet has evolved in the nearly two decades since then".

    Mr Sanger has a point, but he is using a double-barrelled shotgun instead of a hunting rifle. Facebook, Twitter, Amazon and the other Web giants are not the Internet; in spite of their huge size, they are only a tiny fraction of it.

    Identifying the social media corporations with the Internet is like confusing mites and ticks with the elephant on which they are parasitic.

    • by Anonymous Coward

      You are very naive.

      There are google, facebook, and amazon tracking bugs on virtually every web page you visit.

      "login with google/facebook/twitter" is becoming ubiquitous.

      You don't have to go to these sites to be tracked by them. They are everywhere, and unavoidable on the internet.

    • by doom ( 14564 )

      Facebook, Twitter, Amazon and the other Web giants are not the Internet; in spite of their huge size, they are only a tiny fraction of it.

      Right, the bulk of the internet is netflix.

  • by Sqreater ( 895148 ) on Friday July 05, 2019 @11:10AM (#58877812)
    I'm not saying things are perfect, but this seems to happen in all areas of tech: founders or people in at the beginning of a thing become disenchanted because it didn't go in the naive way they envisioned.
  • There I said it. If you’re a woman, you’re not notable on Wikipedia. Wikipedia needs to get rid of it’s sexist editors before complaining about other services.
    • by doom ( 14564 )
      The first pages I created on wikipedia (before I gave up writing for it, as most sane people have) were about women, including some non-white women. The pages were all still there, last I looked. This is of course not proof of lack-of-sexism, but I don't think you've established your case very well.
  • It's the Eternal September and the profiteers they brought with them.
  • by Rick Schumann ( 4662797 ) on Friday July 05, 2019 @11:19AM (#58877862) Journal
    Out of 33 comments, Slashdot shows me the top 5 or 6, and they're all attacks against Wikipedia and it's founder.
    Meanwhile are those commentors commenting on what he's saying? No.
    I don't give a fuck about what they think about Wikipedia's policies or what they think of it's founder personally. I do however agree with what he's saying about what's become of the Internet in general, and isn't that more important than whether you like Wikipedia or it's founder or not?
    • by Anonymous Coward

      I think the point is; the man has blood on his hands, while pointing at zuck saying "he's got blood on his hands"

      • No, that is NOT THE POINT, you've completely missed it, either through ignorance or by design.
        "So-and-so is no better than such-and-such therefore we can ignore everything he has to say"
        You see the problem with that excuse for logic?
      • Even if he has blood on his hands, does it make the message any less truthful or correct?

    • not going to be popular here but if your ISP or the authority (police ?) had some way to trace your comment back to you and have some consequences if you said something shitty, crappy or plain evil, I'm sure a lot of crap we see today would simply stop.
  • The reason that all these social media sites (FaceBook, Twitter, etc.) are so popular is because they made it really cheap and easy to participate. I love the idea of a global data network where everything is distributed instead of centralized and I get to control all of my data. Unfortunately, that is easier said than done. If it takes a computer science graduate to figure out how to install and run the data nodes within your personal domain, then few people will use it. Most attempts to create something r
  • Ironically the ads on Facebook annoy me less than the giant pop-up begging banner that Wikipedia brings up every time their bank account has less than several tens of millions of dollars.

    Imagine an entire internet begging for your cash. You think micropayments are bad in games? Pay $1 for Slashdot, $5 for Google, $2 for CNN, and multiple by the number of unique websites you visit. If you're not broke by the end of this thought experiment, well you've got money and Wikipedia needs your help.

  • ... that the majority just don't care about privacy nor companies profiting off of their data.

    It is not a matter of IF but WHEN these companies will get hacked. Even _with_ the Facebook scandal fuck all has changed. People are not interested in changing.

    They are completely clueless about WHY Ben Franklin once wrote:

    "Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety."

  • PLEASE DONATE. Do you want the death of knowledge? WELL YOU BETTER DONATE TO WIKIPEDIA NOW or knowledge will be DEAD FOREVER.

    Also facebook and the internet are bad places.

    DONATE NOW.

    • After the last few grudging times they admitted that they have decades of funding, I just adblocked the begging banners.

  • Dismissing Larry Sanger "because wikipedia!" is a little peculiar: Yeah, he's the co-founder-- he's the co-founder who bailed on the project because he thought it had problems. It was founded in 2001, he left in 2002. https://150sec.com/wikipedia-i... [150sec.com]

    "Another hurdle was to figure out how to rein in the bad actors so that they did not ruin the project for everyone else. Unfortunately, we never did come up with a good solution for that one," Sanger added. "Wikipedia is a broken system as a result," he said

  • except banking passwords etc. Most people don't really care about privacy over comfort of feeling good when people "like" their cat picture. And that is almost all of the market. When asked "Do you value privacy?" they will answer "Sure sir" but "would you refrain sharing every goddamn details on internet?" "No Sir"

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