Wikipedia founder brands Australia’s social media ban an ‘unmitigated disaster’ and an ‘embarrassment’
Jimmy Wales remembers a toxic internet even before social media and says AI is ‘not a disaster’ for the free – and freely edited - online encyclopaediaFollow our Australia news live blog for latest updatesGet our breaking news email, free…
By · May 4, 2026 · 1 min read
This article was originally published by
The Guardian World
and is republished here under license.
Jimmy Wales remembers a toxic internet even before social media and says AI is ‘not a disaster’ for the free – and freely edited – online encyclopaedia
Wikipedia’s founder, Jimmy Wales, has branded the Australian social media ban an “unmitigated disaster” and an “embarrassment” that is teaching kids to accept surveillance from tech companies when they go online.
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.
Leave a Reply