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  • Hacker News
  • Divide and conquer?! Twitter could have been IT and somehow did not make it. Now we have many contenders and with Europe witnessing being cut off from American services, many are betting on growing public budgets for infrastructure projects. I paid for Mastodon(.social) for a while and somehow still think, projects funded by users should be the norm, but web B2C always had a hard stance in EU, pitching for public funds seems to remain "the winner"/most viable option in this space.
    by jraedisch
  • Sovereignty is mostly just a protectionist racket. European firms struggle to compete with dominant US platforms, framing industrial policy as "sovereignty" rather than protectionism just sounds more strategic and security-oriented. I've seen US platforms bend over backwards to meet the requirements and they still choose their preferred winner. Predictably the goalposts keep moving.
    by kristianc
  • This seems a bit tone deaf. Trump can force American tech companies to hand over data or disable accesss of European accounts. Eg a year ago he didn’t like what some judges at the International Criminal Court in The Hague (NL) were doing so he had Microsoft block their email access.

    Sure it vibes very well with protectionists but the sovereignty angle is real. The USA is no longer a reliable partner.

    (And just before someone mistakes my comment as having any stance on W Social, I do not)

    by skrebbel
  • EU doesn't have enough money to just buy the competition
    by oytis
  • An unfortunate step backwards. I'm cheering for Eurosky and open networks.
    by BigTuna
  • Eurosky actually looks like a promising alternative (speaking as non-european) but the AT protocol should have more open friendly competition than just the flagship instance of bluesky. Eurosky seems interesting as well.
    by Imustaskforhelp
  • “There have been so many red flags with W Social since its hastily cobbled-together *announcement at Davos*”

    I think that last bit explains why European govt orgs have migrated to it, over the open source Eurosky.

    by threecheese
  • Just use https://mu.social, it's essentially the same thing, just built in the open by the Eurosky stack.
    by maelito
  • Really sad seeing europa.eu and high profile politicians switching switching to such obviously bullshit low effort hacks. Ursala von der Leyen just joined and fired off a hello, for example. Many agitated replies to it, discussing the matter, with lots and lots of discontent for W Social: https://bsky.app/profile/vonderleyen.ec.europa.eu/post/3moio...

    There's two really good blog posts in these W Social people, with really good research. https://blog.elenarossini.com/the-untold-story-about-w-socia... https://blog.elenarossini.com/w-social-public-institutions-a...

    There's a fantastic thread covering this and many other issues. This seems to go against the core EU directives for self sovereignty, just signing up to a very rogue platform that happens to have some protocol interoperability. Also, lol, they have no cross site scripting protection. https://bsky.app/profile/stollmeyer.eurosky.social/post/3moi...

    Given the presence of https://eurosky.tech and https://mu.social, the EU folks going to W over them is either massive out of touch pitiful incompetence, or worse, sharks preferring to go with other sharks they feel they can control, instead of something actually positive and better, but not as directly manipulable.

    by jauntywundrkind
  • How to create an account on #WSocial in 13 easy steps:

    1. choose a username

    2. choose a password

    3. choose your interests

    4. download the #WIdentity app to your phone (two options: Apple AppStore or Google Play Store)

    5. scan a QR code

    6. create a PIN code

    optional: enable biometrics; re-enter PIN

    7. choose whether you simply want to verify that you're human or if you also want to verify your name

    8. choose the verification method (automatic photo review, request a manual review or scan your passport chip)

    9. scan your passport's picture page

    10. scan your passport's chip

    11. take a selfie

    12. scan a QR code to link the W Identity to your W Social account

    13. enter your PIN code

    https://aseachange.com/@elena/statuses/01KVD55YBYVM3B46ACQTE...

    Or.... How about not? Seriously, join Mastodon!

    by mystraline
  • > Or.... How about not? Seriously, join Mastodon!

    Which decentralised instance?

    by colesantiago
  • > Seriously, join Mastodon!

    not bad but bluesky/eurosky is just better. activitypub based networks treat instances as sovereign with full control over users data. they can permanently delete your posts and the posts you see depend on who the admin wants to federate with. the only way to be independent is run your own server so non technical users get stuck under reddit style moderation.

    at protocol is global by default and puts you in control with full account portability. and it looks like its easier to expand it to new use cases like tangled (github alternative) or rocksky (social listening like last fm).

    by tancop
  • The guy who runs W Social, whilst he has a software developer background, has worked most of his time in the financial world. W social is also an LLC. It's a corporation with shares looking to make a profit somehow. No doubt there will be ads on there, and paid features.

    I don't see how this will ever become a success, not because it's going closed source (people here don't care), or because it might have paid features (people here don't care) in the future, or even ands (people here don't care), but because of the name. Who the hell thought "W Social" was a good name for a company?

    We are so bad at company names here in the EU it's embarrassing.

    by mortarion
  • Yeah, terrible name indeed.
    by hackerbeat
  • Haha. uvWXyz .still bad, agreed. Also if you somewhat fluent in german: "vögeln" as replacement for twitter with a dating platform twist.
    by NonHyloMorph
  • Maybe they just chose the letter before X?
    by RobotToaster
  • W Social is a Swedish company and therefore not an LLC. It is an Aktiebolag (AB), it is closer to a Corporation (Inc). Still for profit but not necessarily evil, just the most common business type in Sweden.
    by malmz
  • I think they just choose W, because it's the letter before X (former twitter). Apart from the EU leaders and politicians stroking each other egos, I hardly think anyone would be there and it would die out in few years.
    by sajithdilshan
  • Looking at the people who immediately joined and this being presented at WEF, this looks less like an EU BlueSky or X and more like an EU Truth Social - i.e. the core users seem to be EU politicians who don't want to depend on a platform owned by their political opponents for reach and so want to have their own platform.
    by xg15
  • And get confirmation bias on whatever they write from like-minded cronies, without the usual anonymous piss-takers.. kinda sad really!
    by boznz
  • It isn't so much about platform owned by political opponents as platforms now being political and/or that we always have to assume they come with a political agenda.
    by bborud
  • I thought this was a good post on the topic: [W Social is TruthSocial with a European accent.][1]

    [^1]: https://wecanjustdothings.leaflet.pub/3mokohkfb4224

    by tao_oat
  • i wish there was a disclosure about letting LLM write this article
    by croisillon
  • W Social felt extremely shady since their first advertisement on HN.

    Also, for all their talk about human verification, I have 6 accounts under different names :)

    by pocksuppet
  • The name is terrible too.
    by hackerbeat
  • Super shady.

    The german public broadcaster gave them a 5 minute feature on yesterdays evening news, that felt more like a paid ad than journalism. The report made it sound like it is some kind of semi-official EU-endorsed project, but its just... a closed source, for-profit social network? I guess the folks behind it are just well connected in Brussels.

    Thank you but no thank you.

    by sparkling
  • > Europe already has an ATproto social network - Eurosky - run by a non-profit foundation - Modal - that is building everything in the open, with full transparency, sharing all the steps in their development roadmap:

    And weirdly, there was never a peep about this in the press - while the W Social launch was on national news and a bunch of high-profile EU politicians immediately joined. What's going on here?

    by xg15
  • There’s no money or power to be had in providing free/libre tools to the masses

    So there’s no chance a politician or marketer or anyone who has commerce as their primary motivation will spend any effort promoting it

    by AndrewKemendo
  • They want people to get used to digital id.
    by jasonvorhe
  • Mastodon is also European
    by RobotToaster