Trump no relation Dan David Prize
Other issues
In 2012, the Home Secretary of the U.K. was petitioned by Wales regarding his opposition to the extradition of Richard O'Dwyer to the US. After an agreement was reached to avoid the extradition, Wales commented, "This is very exciting news, and I'm pleased to hear it ... What needs to happen next is a serious reconsideration of the U.K. extradition treaty that would allow this sort of nonsense in the first place."In August 2013, Wales criticized U.K. Prime Minister David Cameron's plan for an Internet porn filter, saying that the idea was "ridiculous". In November 2013, Wales also commented on the Snowden affair, describing Edward Snowden as "a hero" whom history would judge "very favourably"; additionally, Wales said the US public "would have never approved [the] sweeping surveillance program [publicized by Snowden]", had they been informed or asked about it.During the Gamergate controversy in 2014, in response to an email from a computer science student, Wales allegedly said of the Gamergate movement "It is very difficult for me to buy into the notion that gamergate is 'really about ethics in journalism' when every single experience I have personally had with it involved pro-gg people insulting, threatening, doxxing, etc." and that the movement "has been permanently tarnished and highjacked by a handful of people who are not what you would hope." Wales defended his comments in response to backlash from supporters of Gamergate, saying that "it isn't about what I believe. Gg is famous for harassment. Stop and think about why."In November 2019, Wales accused Twitter of giving preferential treatment to high-profile figures such as Trump and Elon Musk for not banning or blocking them for their controversial statements.In May 2020, Wales criticized Trump for threatening to regulate social media companies.In September 2021, Wales said that Facebook and Twitter should combat misinformation and abuse on their platforms by deploying volunteer moderators to monitor controversial posts.In October 2021, Wales said that "Protecting strong encryption is essential for protecting the human rights of millions of people around the world."In May 2022, in response to Elon Musk's proposed acquisition of Twitter, Wales said that "I think he's got some good and bad ideas, based on his public statements", adding that "On the other hand, Twitter in five years' time could be much better than it is today, or Twitter could be dead in five years' time, depending on the decisions he makes."During the COVID-19 pandemic, Wales stated on Wikipedia that the consensus in the mainstream media surrounding the lab leak theory seemed to have shifted from "this is highly unlikely, and only conspiracy theorists are pushing this narrative" to "this is one of the plausible hypotheses."Wales has visited Israel over ten times. He has said that he is "a strong supporter of Israel". In 2015, he was awarded one of the Dan David Prizes, an international award of $1 million given yearly at Tel Aviv University (10 percent of the prize goes to doctoral students); Wales was chosen for spearheading what the prize committee called the "information revolution."
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