Wales publicly criticized the Wikipedia article on the Gaza genocide, calling it 'one of the worst Wikipedia entries I've seen in a very long time' for stating 'in Wikipedia's voice, that Israel is committing genocide, although that claim is highly contested.' He called it a violation of NPOV (Neutral Point of View) policy requiring immediate correction.
Jimmy Wales
Founder Wikimedia Foundation
Co-founder of Wikipedia and founder of the Wikimedia Foundation. Holds the Founder's Seat on the Wikimedia Foundation Board of Trustees. Known for advocacy on free knowledge, press freedom, and criticism of AI hallucination problems. British citizen since 2019.
Career History
Track Record
At the CNBC Technology Executive Council Summit, Wales issued a stark warning about AI hallucination problems, stating 'The hallucination problem is still very bad.' He also criticized Elon Musk's Grokipedia project, saying 'The LLMs he is using to write it are going to make massive errors.'
Wales stated Wikipedia would not comply with UK Online Safety Act age verification requirements, saying 'We will not be identifying users under any circumstances. We will not be age-gating Wikipedia under any circumstances. So, if it comes to that, it's going to be an interesting showdown, because we're going to just refuse to do it.'
In a Times Radio interview, Wales criticized President Trump's repeated 'fake news' claims, saying they mirror tactics used by strongmen around the world. He noted it was 'an astonishing situation' when a President 'clearly contradicts himself, or denies that he said things that we can all play tapes of him saying.'
Criticized Elon Musk for Twitter censoring content at Turkey's request during elections
May 15, 2023Wales criticized Musk for Twitter censoring posts at Turkey's request during elections, contrasting it with Wikipedia's successful legal battle in Turkey. He stated 'We do not bend to the will of governments, anywhere' and questioned whether Musk was saying 'we don't care about freedom of expression if it interferes with making money.'
Wales publicly called Trump a 'lunatic' in response to his threats to regulate social media companies, stating 'Worst case scenario is that platforms don't have courage to tell Trump to go away, that they begin to adapt policies to his whims because he is a lunatic.'
Jimmy Wales joined eleven other business leaders in signing an open letter to American voters urging them not to vote for Donald Trump in the 2016 presidential election.
Jimmy Wales served as committee chair for Democrat Lawrence Lessig's 2016 presidential campaign, supporting Lessig's platform focused on campaign finance reform and fighting corruption in politics.
Supported changing Wikipedia's Chelsea Manning article to reflect her gender identity
Aug 22, 2013Wales was a vocal supporter of changing Wikipedia's article from 'Bradley Manning' to 'Chelsea Manning' following her coming out as transgender, writing 'We ought to very strongly defer to how people identify themselves.'