Wales: Tell me about the culture of trust.

Newmark: Customers pretty much run the site and we handle the infrastructure. My title is Customer Service Rep and Founder, and that’s what I do. It’s important as it keeps him from being detached from reality, which often happens when people become

Wales: Tell us about information warfare.

Newmark: I may be overdramitizing this by using the term, but we have problems with scams, west africans, traditional pranks, but we can handle that. But around Oct 1 from last year, started seeing political disinformation. Lots of ugly stuff, much of it posted anonymously. There’s an ugly obsession with Hillary to even today. You’ll also see people shilling for or against products.
W: I’ve heard you say crooks are early adopters.

N: We started seeing Nigerian scammers and that kind of stuff early. It doesn’t increase that much, though. The motivating system of most people is do unto others, and as more not technological people get online, the better the community becomes.

W: You’ve said Tivo will save democracy.

N: Politicians have to save a lot of money for TV ads. But Tivos allow you skip ads. His fantasy is that people would skip political ads, politicians wouldn’t have to save for them, and that would be a good thing. I think it’s a patriotic duty for people to skip political commercials.