Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales is set to speak in Trinity on October 26, as part of Ireland’s Internet Day. Wales is to discuss issues such as the phenomenon of fake news, threats to sharing information on online platforms, as well as the launch of his news website WikiTRIBUNE.
The talk will be held in the MacNeill Theatre, where Wales will take questions from the audience at the end of the event as well as via Twitter.
Wales has previously been ranked as one of TIME Magazine’s most influential people. He founded Wikipedia, a free online encyclopaedia, in 2001. It is the fifth most visited site in the world, with 1 billion unique visitors monthly. WikiTRIBUNE, which launched in April, is an independent news platform run by journalists and volunteers, through evidence-based journalism.
The event is hosted by IE Domain Registry (IEDR), the company who manages Ireland’s internet domain.
According to Business Word, Chief Executive of IEDR David Curtin, said: “Alongside the founders of Google, Facebook and Twitter, Jimmy Wales has been one of the most important contributors to the modern internet age. Through Wikipedia, the sum of human knowledge is available to us in hundreds of different languages from the convenience of our smartphones and computers, for free and in real time.”
Curtin continued: “Mr Wales’s vision of a more open internet, accessible to everyone, is something that aligns with IEDR’s objectives for the internet in Ireland and the overarching theme of Internet Day. We want to make the internet more accessible to individuals and to businesses the length and breadth of the country, be they in the centre of Dublin or rural Roscommon.”
Ireland’s Internet Day, coinciding with International Internet Day, is entering its third year and promotes awareness of how the internet impacts society.
