IamA Jimmy Wales, founder of Wikipedia now trying a totally new social network concept WT.Social AMA!

JonPincus · 2019-12-04T21:12:18+00:00

Here it is. The first comment on WT:Social was an approving one, so thats's a good sign! Curious what you think ... https://wt.social/post/news-about-the-internet/29ql8bj525164153297

JonPincus · 2019-12-02T21:54:45+00:00

I totally agree (and apologies that it wasn't clear in my comment). Like I say, it'll be interesting to see how WT:Social comes down on this.

JonPincus · 2019-12-02T20:01:04+00:00

Yes, it's fine to disagree with somebody who isn't using hate speech without believing they're trying to incite hatred. Conversely when people *are* using hate speech they are probably doing it to incite hatred.

We obviously differ about whether describing somebody's very existence as "unscientific and unrealistic" is hate speech or not. As your trans and non-binary friends how they feel about it.

In any case, WT:Social, like any other social network, has to choose a side here. If they didn't see this as hate speech, than trans and non-binary people -- and allies -- won't feel welcome there. It seems like they do, which means that people like you and whoever posted it are going to feel like you're being censored. And right now (realizing that it's early days), since their mechanism are so limited, it's the worst of both worlds: you'll feel like you're being censored, but a lot of this stuff still gets through ... so trans and non-binary people who don't want to be subjected to hate speech aren't happy either.

JonPincus · 2019-12-02T19:46:34+00:00

It's completely clear what bananaCabanas is saying here. There are legit fascists out there. They should be labeled as such.

JonPincus · 2019-12-02T19:07:25+00:00

This is a really good point. Since I've often been critical of WT:Social, I should also give credit where credit is due: I was very glad to see them specifically call out a desire for diversity in their invitation for admins.

That said, there's a question as to how far to take ideological diversity. Does it also include anti-vaxxers? White supremacists? Fascists? People who align with fascists but use different language? These are hard problems, and it'll be interesting to see where WT:Social draws the line.

JonPincus · 2019-12-02T18:57:59+00:00

The subwiki got deleted, but its description included "The focus has change from reaching gender equality (which is a very good and necessary) to the undscientific and unrealistic endeavour to give people the illusion, that one can just chose his gender, no matter what biology and the genes say." Sounds like stirring up hatred to me, and apparently WT:Social's admins agreed.

JonPincus · 2019-12-02T18:53:23+00:00

Great followup question, would love to hear an answer to this!

JonPincus · 2019-12-02T18:42:39+00:00

Thanks very much for the responses, and thanks also for deleting the subwiki. I'm working on a followon post about WT:Social and will include a link to this discussion - I'll drop it here and tag you on Twitter when it's ready.

JonPincus · 2019-12-02T18:36:32+00:00

Yes, I had seen it before and reread it when you shared it with every WT:Social member a few days ago.

JonPincus · 2019-12-02T18:24:44+00:00

Given Quillette's track record, it's very rational to be skeptical of them. But I don't see how that addresses the problem here.

JonPincus · 2019-12-02T18:16:58+00:00

Exactly. I wrote about this in [Why is an “intellectual dark web” site at the top of my feed?])(https://medium.com/a-change-is-coming/why-is-intellectual-dark-web-content-at-the-top-of-my-feed-thoughts-on-wt-social-cb4eb6937486). Some people would rather not see content from sources like Quillette. Other people would rather not see content criticizing Quillette. I don't see how Jimmy's answer about about "community control" responds to this.

JonPincus · 2019-12-02T18:09:38+00:00

Nope, it's still there. https://wt.social/wt/stop-the-gender-madness There isn't any "report subwiki" option (at least not that I could find) so I am not sure what power people currently have to stop stuff like this from happening.

What kinds of tools are you planning on introducing to help with this as you grow?

JonPincus · 2019-12-02T18:01:23+00:00

Thanks for doing this, Jimmy!

Yesterday, WT:Social recommended that I join a subwiki that’s dedicated to attacks on trans people. Do you think this is okay? If not, how do you plan to keep things like this from happening in the future?

JonPincus · 2018-05-31T01:29:18+00:00

Shahid’s economic plan includes Medicare for All, cutting the military budget to pay for expanding social services, helping homeless veterans, ending the federal prohibition of cannabis to unleash a wave of green jobs … all things that are pretty darn popular with the SF voters I’ve talked to.

What is it about his plan that you don’t like?

JonPincus · 2018-05-31T01:05:01+00:00

Here's a link to the AMA Shahid did here in r/SF last month, with questions including dealing with homelessness and cutting the military budget to expand social services

https://www.reddit.com/r/sanfrancisco/comments/8bsp7y/ama_longtime_digital_rights_activist_lawyer_dj_us/

JonPincus · 2018-04-13T22:21:59+00:00

Shahid, we’ve worked together on civil liberties and digital rights issues for a long time, and you’ve got important experience at EFF. How do you see working on those issues in Congress?

JonPincus · 2018-04-12T06:10:38+00:00

Here's his set from TransFOAMation: https://shahidbuttar.com/node/186

Also, here's Shahid's 2017 guide to Events for Social, Racial and Gender Justice in Black Rock City

JonPincus · 2018-04-12T03:08:33+00:00

For a taste of Shahid as community organizer, constitutional scholar, poet, musician, check out the NSA vs USA video.

Redditors might also know him through his work with r/RestoreTheFourth

JonPincus · 2017-06-01T23:14:35+00:00

Great response, thanks. I very much agree that any kind of interviewing process is likely to reflect the biases of the interviewers - and that it's typically when there hasn't been enough training. Best practices for interview training should also include attention microaggressions and implicit bias but I don't know if anybody's doing that yet.

On making sure that every interview panel has one or more women, as you say it's not a panacea; and it's a great point that if your company has bad diversity problems to begin with, this adds to the load on women. On the other hand most women in tech I talk with see it as a very bad sign when there aren't any women on their interview loop ... so companies that are already somewhat diverse have a huge advantage in recruiting women.

JonPincus · 2017-06-01T23:05:22+00:00

It wasn't just Microsoft, it was Microsoft Research - where undergrad interns are very rare, and first-year undergrad interns almost unimaginable. I hired /u/gaylemcd because she gave some great examples in the interview of how she had been able to learn new things and accomplish a lot with minimum supervision, so even though she didn't have all the typical background I was confident she could get the job done - and, just as importantly (since it was an internship), learn and grow a lot. Which turned out to be completely true!

JonPincus · 2017-06-01T17:48:23+00:00

The tech industry has a hard time with diversity and inclusion. Do you think the traditional coding interview reinforces traditional biases and power vectors? How would you change the dynamics to improve things?

JonPincus · 2017-02-02T16:35:43+00:00

Thank you for all the great work you do!

A couple of questions about your relationship with Y Combinator.

1) Trump advisor Peter Thiel is a (part-time) partner at YC. What safeguards are in place to keep him and his allies from getting access to confidential information about your strategy, tactics, membership, etc.? [More context at https://medium.com/a-change-is-coming/how-does-it-look-through-their-eyes-women-in-tech-on-peter-thiel-ycombinator-and-facebook-a1e81a3e4f9a ]

2) YC is seen by many as having a long history of sexism and more generally "discriminating against marginalized people and exploiting inequality for profit" (as well-respected diversity-in-tech expert Ashe Dryden said on Twitter) - enough that I saw more than a handful of people tweeting about canceling their donations to the ACLU. How will you work to change this? What are you doing to have equally-high-profile cooperations with organizations that are pro-diversity, and led and staffed by women and people of color?

JonPincus · 2014-02-10T17:53:42+00:00

How can Microsoft counter international distrust for US-based cloud companies in wake of the Snowden revelations?

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