Do you remember the surprise announcement of a new social network in Davos this past January? Something that promised to be the "first" European social network?
Its name is #WSocial and it's a fork of #Bluesky. Its founders have ties with European politicians - but there is no official involvement by the EU.
You wouldn't know any of this from media reports because they all rehashed their talking points. So I wrote a post about it, dispelling some myths:
blog.elenarossini.com/w-social…
W Social uncovered: the reality behind the hype
An article dispelling myths about W Social, the new European platform that aims to rival X: it is a fork of Bluesky that shares many similarities with Eurosky and requires government ID to sign up.Elena Rossini
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Elena Rossini ⁂
in reply to Elena Rossini ⁂ • • •Regarding my W Social exposé: it was months in the making and I could have written a LOT more, showing additional examples of technical blunders, but I kept it "brief" at 3500 words 😅
I ran out of characters to tag all the awesome people I mentioned in the piece: @doktorzjivago (thanks for the top notch meme), @tom @mapache and @Em0nM4stodon
And special thanks to people who volunteered to proof-read a draft and gave me fantastic feedback: @bitzero and @DataKnightmare
It takes a village ❤️
jose
in reply to Elena Rossini ⁂ • • •Pepijn
in reply to Elena Rossini ⁂ • • •Thanks! Let's hope the message lands!
Journalism has been disappointing. One journalist picking up on it was working for Dutch NOS. On launch she asked "Bluesky fork?" and got shut down with a "we'll share tech details later". ⏰🔔
>Eurosky .. carefully planned out,
But also dishonest. Eurosky is an offshoot from a failed global grift now trying the Europe angle.
On launch I emailed back-and-forth with them multiple times to fix their privacy policy. Even now they make false claims.
Em
in reply to Elena Rossini ⁂ • • •This is truly an excellent piece! Thank you for conducting this important research, and for bringing this issue to the attention of the public. This is a very important topic!
And thank you so much for linking to my article
Elena Rossini ⁂
in reply to Elena Rossini ⁂ • • •I just refreshed the #WSocial website and it's showing a MAJOR redesign... with a label at the top stating "built on the open AT-protocol."
This is the first time ever they acknowledge this – I know, as I've been visiting their website for MONTHS and also never heard about this in any interviews. So the claims in my exposé stand (the Internet Archive's Wayback Machine would confirm this).
Of note: they changed their URL from wsocial.eu to wsocial.news
BTW thanks for all your feedback ❤️
Oblomov
in reply to Elena Rossini ⁂ • • •still no mention of Mastodon or the Fediverse, LOL. That .news TLD really brings back to memory that failed attempt to capture the Xodus and the short-lived post.news experiment (shut down in 2024)
techcrunch.com/2024/04/19/post…
Taking bets on how long W will last!
Post News, the a16z-funded Twitter alternative, is shutting down | TechCrunch
Amanda Silberling (TechCrunch)Krafting
in reply to Elena Rossini ⁂ • • •Chewie
in reply to Elena Rossini ⁂ • • •Michel Patrice
in reply to Elena Rossini ⁂ • • •Félicitations, Elena Bly* Rossini.
(* Nellie Bly, trailblazing female figure in investigative journalism.)
Sahil 🍉
in reply to Elena Rossini ⁂ • • •Andy Piper
in reply to Elena Rossini ⁂ • • •the "trusted feed" thing will be interesting. I'm trying out eYou Social - mobile-only for now, fully proprietary, but, it also promises an EU-based, trusted platform. The "trust" element comes via an AI verification that happens on *every* post; and it gets tripped up (?) on certain things... just imagine posting about the rights of certain groups in society - opinion, or fact? Hmm! It's a dangerous and tricky path, and those AIs are not always great at that. 😬
Let's see how W does.
fab:log
in reply to Elena Rossini ⁂ • • •Powerful woman 👍
ikuturso 🇪🇺
in reply to Elena Rossini ⁂ • • •it's pretty interesting they still really want to avoid saying "Bluesky" and only say "AT-proto".
Almost every other project goes as far as including "sky" in their name and repeatedly mentions Bluesky because that's the thing some people might know at this point so it's good marketing...
Except if you're trying to present yourself as the new European social platform that replaces the US ones such as Bluesky I guess.
MarjorieR
in reply to ikuturso 🇪🇺 • • •I don't think they go to any length to acknowledge that either.
Elena Rossini ⁂
in reply to MarjorieR • • •ikuturso 🇪🇺
in reply to Elena Rossini ⁂ • • •@marjolica just the nature of free software that anyone can use it for any purpose. There's a North Korean Linux distro but that's not because Linus Torvalds or any of the contributors support North Korea.
Nobody has to federate with them and in fact they decided they don't want to federate with anyone anyway.
IIRC Truth Social was in breach of the license terms at first but later started releasing their changes to the source code too.
Olivia Vespera
in reply to Elena Rossini ⁂ • • •Daniel Prindii
in reply to Elena Rossini ⁂ • • •She mentioned that they work with Trust Anchor Group(Swedish company) for identity checks.
trustanchorgroup.com
Trust Anchor Group
Trust Anchor GroupElena Rossini ⁂
in reply to Daniel Prindii • • •Michael Mathy
in reply to Elena Rossini ⁂ • • •Michael Mathy
Unknown parent • • •Luca Sironi
in reply to Elena Rossini ⁂ • • •Of all the people I know reporting to being interested in this w thing, no one did effectively mentioned or tried #eurosky , that is already available and people can migrate to at no social cost.
Michael Mathy
in reply to Michael Mathy • • •Jan Dytrych🇨🇿🇺🇦
in reply to Elena Rossini ⁂ • • •Michael Mathy
Unknown parent • • •Lee 🌏
in reply to Elena Rossini ⁂ • • •It does leave me asking: what can we learn from this to help us promote the Fediverse?
Perhaps a spoof website called "Euro Social" that just links to Fediverse 😉 🙂
Ken M Sweeney
in reply to Elena Rossini ⁂ • • •Luca Fabbri
in reply to Elena Rossini ⁂ • • •Phoenix Paulina Schmid
in reply to Elena Rossini ⁂ • • •tangy
in reply to Elena Rossini ⁂ • • •ee
Unknown parent • • •ee
Unknown parent • • •seeing how gullible people on X are, though, is really something...
xcancel.com/pubity/status/2014…
Michel Patrice
in reply to Elena Rossini ⁂ • • •Après cinéaste et photographe, tu pourrais maintenant ajouter journaliste d'enquête.
Merci pour cet article très fouillé et très recherché.
Feyter
in reply to Elena Rossini ⁂ • • •At least for me it's clear... W social is a financial project to grap some founding money. It's not a project with European sovereignty in mind or with sovereignty for Europeans.
Therefore, it should be avoided.
@BjornW@mastodon.social
in reply to Elena Rossini ⁂ • • •Alpaca Male
in reply to Elena Rossini ⁂ • • •Simon Zerafa
in reply to Elena Rossini ⁂ • • •Lou Reynolds
in reply to Elena Rossini ⁂ • • •Toni Aittoniemi
in reply to Elena Rossini ⁂ • • •Same shit as US big tech, wearing an EU mask…
Which is what I think a lot of this sovereignty hype will boil down to:
A lot of US companies will establish subsidies, that will ”Eurowash” their products. In the background the data access for them stays, and nothing changes. We use the same products under a different name and somebody gets a cut.
Neoliberal corporatism is an ideology, and this is the result. So very few people can even see it.
shwell
in reply to Elena Rossini ⁂ • • •Gina
in reply to Elena Rossini ⁂ • • •Mick 🇨🇦
in reply to Elena Rossini ⁂ • • •Gander: The Social Media You Want, Built in Canada
Gander SocialZiClaud has moved
in reply to Elena Rossini ⁂ • • •Feyter
Unknown parent • • •jaj
in reply to Elena Rossini ⁂ • • •wraptile
in reply to Elena Rossini ⁂ • • •Reiner Knudsen
in reply to Elena Rossini ⁂ • • •An algorithm is their way of guiding news and communication. Who still wants that?????
@BjornW@mastodon.social
Unknown parent • • •MarkChristopherson🇬🇧🇵🇹🇪🇺
in reply to Elena Rossini ⁂ • • •Thank you, this kind of work is so important and sadly underappreciated.
The difficulty for a lot of people (like me!) is not really understanding the tech we're using. So we end up trusting whatever we're told.
Hopefully, articles like this will gradually educate people so they understand how to make their choices align with their principles.
Elena Rossini ⁂
in reply to MarkChristopherson🇬🇧🇵🇹🇪🇺 • • •Gabriel Markley
in reply to Elena Rossini ⁂ • • •Catha
in reply to Elena Rossini ⁂ • • •Although living in 2 EU-countries makes the change of reading more about it bigger you'd think, but ... No. Sorry.
But thanks for your interesting 'backgroundcheck', at least I know I don't have to feel like I have missed anything, staying at masto is still the best choice. 😁
FediThing
in reply to Elena Rossini ⁂ • • •Ryoma123
in reply to Elena Rossini ⁂ • • •Mastodon Migration
in reply to Elena Rossini ⁂ • • •Fantastic work, as always Elena!
Great exposé!
Zło To 🏴☠️
in reply to Elena Rossini ⁂ • • •Jimmothy Baggins
in reply to Elena Rossini ⁂ • • •anytime you see a privacy policy page with anything more than we don’t collect your data you should run screaming .. and they have a very lengthy privacy policy.
Is this different than eYou ?
Babette Knauer
in reply to Elena Rossini ⁂ • • •Jürgen 𐐘
in reply to Elena Rossini ⁂ • • •WSocial and Eurosky.Social are not a fork of BlueSky. In fact all of them are AT protocol instances. Which btw. you could also host yourself. Basically very comparable with the many ActivityPub instances. I think we in the Fediverse should keep being fair.
Definitely better at AT protocol is, that you can move your account including your posts. You can even keep your handle if you have an own domain. Something that the Fediverse could do better.
Michael 🇺🇦
in reply to Jürgen 𐐘 • • •Jürgen 𐐘
in reply to Michael 🇺🇦 • • •@heluecht Yes I know this. There is also a list of relays that are active, just don’t find the link right now. Including some in Germany. There are als many Apps, so no harm if someone blocks you from their AppView. Event the official BlueSky Mobile App supports Eurosky and other PDS, or just use any other App.
Edit: Hab den Link zu der Liste von Relays wieder gefunden: pulsar.feeds.blue
Pulsar - ATProto relay observatory
pulsar.feeds.blueMichael 🇺🇦
in reply to Jürgen 𐐘 • • •When the people from Bluesky decide to block you from their AppView, then you are cut off. AFAIK there is currently only the AppView from the people from Blacksky as an alternative.
Different apps don't help, because they need to talk to an AppView server and your PDS. And the PDS needs AppView for the message flow.
Dr. Eric J. Fielding, PhD
in reply to Elena Rossini ⁂ • • •Damián Búho
in reply to Elena Rossini ⁂ • • •André Koot
in reply to Elena Rossini ⁂ • • •Mickey
in reply to Elena Rossini ⁂ • • •ruurd@mastodon.social
in reply to Elena Rossini ⁂ • • •Bill
in reply to Elena Rossini ⁂ • • •I didn't pay attention to Davos so I missed it. To many rich people high-giving each other for being rich.
Thank you for digging into what is going on behind the scenes. Are the investors just more techbros, just European?
Polly Kraisus
in reply to Elena Rossini ⁂ • • •wojtek
in reply to Elena Rossini ⁂ • • •Michael 🇺🇦
Unknown parent • • •{ id: d2718, ok: 🇵🇸🌈🏳️⚧️🇺🇦 }
in reply to Elena Rossini ⁂ • • •This was great, thanks!
And maybe it's because I'm old, but I would have gladly read a much longer article shining light into the dark corners of W.
Elena Rossini ⁂
in reply to { id: d2718, ok: 🇵🇸🌈🏳️⚧️🇺🇦 } • • •ikuturso 🇪🇺
Unknown parent • • •Elena Rossini ⁂
Unknown parent • • •@hannes99 @ikuturso @petitcoeur I heard through the grapevines (very trusted open web insider) that W social will host its own PDS, relay and AppView... but will use Bluesky's moderation at the beginning. So not fully independent after all...
As far as I know, Eurosky for now only has a PDS (and not the relay or AppView) but I could be wrong
hannes99
in reply to ikuturso 🇪🇺 • • •@ikuturso
"the only thing Eurosky provides right now is a PDS"
So does W.
@petitcoeur
ikuturso 🇪🇺
in reply to hannes99 • • •hannes99
in reply to ikuturso 🇪🇺 • • •Joe Brockmeier
in reply to Elena Rossini ⁂ • • •Elena Rossini ⁂
in reply to Joe Brockmeier • • •clarkiestar
in reply to Elena Rossini ⁂ • • •Elena Rossini ⁂
in reply to clarkiestar • • •Elena Rossini ⁂
in reply to clarkiestar • • •ikuturso 🇪🇺
in reply to Elena Rossini ⁂ • • •Eurosky only having a PDS is correct, you can see what they have and are working on here: eurosky.tech/build/
@hannes99 @petitcoeur
Build – Help us build Europe's social web infrastructure
Euroskythe_infamous
in reply to Elena Rossini ⁂ • • •I need to read this for real.
I was excited about trying out a new platform.
Elena Rossini ⁂
Unknown parent • • •Wilfried Klaebe
in reply to Elena Rossini ⁂ • • •Elena Rossini ⁂
in reply to Wilfried Klaebe • • •tuga
in reply to Elena Rossini ⁂ • • •the_infamous
in reply to Elena Rossini ⁂ • • •Just finished reading your article and wow lots of interesting points to digest.
I went to the website the other day it definitely looks a ton more polished than back in January when it was first announced.
As usual I signed up for beta access because I like seeing new social platforms but this one has age verification and that's a deal breaker for me right there.
Great post Elena and excellent information in the article.
Elena Rossini ⁂
in reply to the_infamous • • •the_infamous
in reply to Elena Rossini ⁂ • • •