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W Social, public institutions and the theater of European digital sovereignty
- teddyh 3mo agoMaybe they moved to Codeberg?
- vivzkestrel 3mo ago- am i the only one or does anyone else think this website is somehow hijacking the scrollbar?
- bolbishvili 3mo agoI don't notice anything with the scrollbar. I tried with and without ublock origin enabled.
- pocksuppet 3mo agoW 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 :)
- darig 3mo ago[dead]
- sparkling 3mo agoSuper 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.
- okr 3mo agoAnd probably stuffed with tax money. As usual.
- mortarion 3mo agoThe company is "W Social AB", meaning "aktiebolag" which in Swedish is what you in the USA would call an LLC or "joint stock company. So they are 100% looking to monetize and turn a profit. I wouldn't call it shady, but closed source, for-profit sounds accurate.
- TazeTSchnitzel 3mo agoAktiebolag is the overwhelmingly most common company form in Sweden and similar to common corporation forms in many other countries. It's not the same thing as a US LLC, which is a strange entity that has pass-through taxation. Which is to say, there's nothing particularly remarkable about it being an Aktiebolag. It would be more remarkable if it wasn't.
- rvba 3mo agoYou can have an "open" non profit, that is actually closed and is working to turn into a for profit... so those distinctions dont seem to count much nowadays
- KPGv2 3mo agoWhere is this possible? In the US, it is impossible. Non-profit's do not have owners, so they cannot be sold or changed to for-profit ones, so there are only two ways for a non-profit to "turn into" a for-profit: * sell non-profit's assets to a for-profit company (so it's not turning into a for-profit company, and ownership of the non-profit can never be sold since it's not owned by anyone that can approve the sale, there are no shares, etc.) This is only legal if sold at fair market value. So the for-profit can't just take the IP, equipment, land, etc. It has to buy it at what anyone else would buy it at. It also has to be approved of by the state's government. Then the proceeds of the sale have to be transferred to another non-profit. * form a for-profit subsidiary, which is still controlled by the non-profit. And the for-profit is owned by the non-profit, so the profits flow upward to the non-profit to be used to support the non-profit's agenda. Either way, the non-profit cannot become a for-profit, and it takes corporate governance shenanigans (like the bullshit happening with OpenAI) to even approximate this. Essentially, it requires corruption and a non-profit board that is unaccountable to its stakeholders.
- hackerbeat 3mo agoThe name is terrible too.
- boznz 3mo agoYeah, based on the people and organizations moving there, RedSky would be more appropriate.
- raffael_de 3mo agoit's actually a double-v as in "the vvitch"
- sunshine-o 3mo agoI thought it was a reference to the Weimar Republic.
- SoftTalker 3mo agoAre you alluding to the association of "W" with George W Bush? Not sure that's really a thing outside the USA. And as far as I heard that reference, it was always pronunced "Dubya" not "Double-You"
- bjord 3mo agothis is sarcasm, right?
- jwr 3mo agoI don't understand why anyone would want to make the same mistake all over again: jumping onto a private platform owned by a company inevitably results in you becoming the product sold and enshittification. We've seen it so many times. Learn the lesson. Use Mastodon this time.
- matteomrj 3mo agoEurosky is also an option.
- 17383848 3mo ago[dead]
- Landing7610 3mo agoBut thats just the thing with atproto. The company sucks? Just move your PDS.
- RobotToaster 3mo agoIf they filter you at the relay or appview level that doesn't work.
- afavour 3mo agoatproto is also open source and in my experience (solely as a user rather than a developer on the API/network) it simply works better than Mastodon.
- mort96 3mo agoAnd what is that experience of yours? Do you have experience from deployments with many independent atproto data servers and relays federating together? Or do you have experience from bluesky, meaning you're only interacting with one central server and none of the complexities of federation come into play?
- BigTuna 3mo agoAn unfortunate step backwards. I'm cheering for Eurosky and open networks.
- Imustaskforhelp 3mo agoEurosky 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.
- BigTuna 3mo agoIn addition to Eurosky there's also Blacksky, Northsky, and Anisota. Plus dozens of other non-microblogging apps. AT is growing pretty quickly now.
- danabramov 3mo agoNote that “instance” is Mastodon-brained and is a wrong way to think about atproto. The correct parallel is RSS / Google Reader. Atproto has two types of things: hosting and apps. - Hosting is like RSS. You can host your data on your own server and broadcast from it. It’s just an open source Docker container. - Apps are like Google Reader. They aggregate from all hosts and usually build an index so they can show a rich view over the network. That’s what Bluesky, Leaflet, Tangled, etc, so. So there is no “instance”. There’s hosting and there’s apps.
- danabramov 3mo agoUpdate: I just wrote a post about this since I keep typing it over and over in these threads. https://overreacted.io/there-are-no-instances-in-atproto/ https://overreacted.io/there-are-no-instances-in-atproto/
- TalkingCodeMonk 3mo agoYour post changed my prespective on atproto! It also solidified the architectural issues I've had all along with the fediverse, and view that it's more of an interim solution which doesn't resolve the core centralisation and censorship issues; often exacerbating them to the extreme. Just noticed who you are. Big fan of you're work and approach to problem solving! Do you have any similar posts about alternative protocols in this space, like nostr et al? I've been ruminating on the incorporation of censorship resistance by adopting core concepts from tor/I2P and Monero using cryptographic techniques for validation and obfuscation that enable users to subscribe to specific communities, chatrooms, or channels within a PDS, so they also operate like private/public-PDS's to replace messaging providers with a uni/multi/any-cast rss. The reason I think this should coexist in the same protocol is that if the hosting provider itself is untrusted by default, and all comms are E2EE between all consumers from the ground up (public comms could contain a decryption key in the response, or one assembled by relays), the individual hosting providers can't choose to selectively filter or censor individual comms they disagree with at any layer, because they can't see the speech, where it's coming from, or where it's going; even for publicly broadcasted comms, until at least after the response has been transmitted to relays (enforced by the protocol).
- rvz 3mo agoAnother social network with 0 network effect and is dead on arrival. Now being closed makes it far worse than Bluesky and no better than a prototype pre-production version of Threads; with 0 users. From [0] > W Social unveiled at the WEF That's everything I need to know. [0] https://www.iamexpat.de/expat-info/germany-news/german-ceo-launches-w-social-european-alternative-x https://www.iamexpat.de/expat-info/germany-news/german-ceo-l...
- joe_mamba 3mo ago>That's everything I need to know. Careful, you'll be branded a conspiracy theorist if you notice WEF involvement as dangerous.
- tao_oat 3mo agoI thought this was a good post on the topic: [W Social is TruthSocial with a European accent.][1] [^1]: https://wecanjustdothings.leaflet.pub/3mokohkfb4224 https://wecanjustdothings.leaflet.pub/3mokohkfb4224
- croisillon 3mo agoi wish there was a disclosure about letting LLM write this article
- bluepuma77 3mo agoWhy, GPTZero states about the main text: "We are highly confident this text is entirely human"
- croisillon 3mo agofrom the text: "They quietly updated their messaging to praise the protocol once the story was already out." "Two closed platforms. Two open source projects. Two cases of building on community infrastructure while obscuring that fact for as long as possible." "Then, with no announcement and no explanation, the repository was deleted. Not deprecated. Not redirected. Deleted." "These are not the same politics." "None of that makes W Social evil. It does however make the "this is for the people" framing worth scrutinising." "Davos doesn't mean grassroots. W Social is what happens when the establishment decides again that it wants its own internet: it finds the nearest community-built toolkit, rebrands it, performs openness long enough to land institutional credibility, then closes the door. The users become the product. The community becomes the unpaid resource. The mission statement becomes the marketing." from the headings: "The Ideology Is Different. The Structure Isn't." "Why This Matters Right Now" etc etc
- LoopiLoops 3mo agoI don't get your argumentt. That doesn't sound LLM written to me.
- maelito 3mo agoJust use https://mu.social https://mu.social, it's essentially the same thing, just built in the open by the Eurosky stack.
- hahajk 3mo ago> Europe already has an ATproto social network - Eurosky Why is this a different network? Are Eurosky relays not indexing anything outside Eurosky?
- maelito 3mo agoThey are, it's just a second instance of a realy. For independance, resilience, moderation, and also probably minor technical choices.
- dutchCourage 3mo agoThe article explains what's needed to run something like Bluesky (ctrl-f "To be fully sovereign you need"). My understanding is that Eurosky aims to be a non-profit ran alternative, hosted in EU. It integrates with Bluesky seamlessly (Bsky users and EUSky users can interact) but would keep working if Bluesky was taken down. I believe it also gives Eurosky agency when it comes to moderation.
- xg15 3mo ago> 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?
- jasonvorhe 3mo agoThey want people to get used to digital id.
- jauntywundrkind 3mo agoThis, a thousand times this. A network where mandatory government id is fine. Sure it maybe run by the shadiest sharks. But these are sharks that are pushing for the anti-internet, the anti-speech, the anti-privacy, and that's all that matters to the politicos of the world right now. https://blog.elenarossini.com/w-social-fictional-metrics-and-the-beauty-of-open-data/ https://blog.elenarossini.com/w-social-fictional-metrics-and... Left right center: every politician is aligned on trying to put the Declaration of Indepdence of Cyberspace out for good. They all want to end un-attributed speech. In the US that means KOSA, and once again, bipartisan agreement comes only for screwing over speech, rights, freedom, and the citizenry. https://punchbowl.news/article/tech/house-kosa/ https://punchbowl.news/article/tech/house-kosa/
- RobotToaster 3mo agoMastodon is also European
- Cider9986 3mo agoMastodon is too secure and private for them.
- maelito 3mo agoIt means that marketers won over technical, factual people.
- pedromlsreis 3mo ago[flagged]
- pixel_popping 3mo agoW Social isn't built with proper cryptography and so-on, it's amateurish.
- 3997531578 3mo agoRegime-aligned social media, just what people needed. And as an not completely unintended side-effect, some nephews of EU bureaucrats will make hay.
- sunshine-o 3mo agoThe whole * media industry got so bad we just assume it will be controlled, whether it is on a piece of paper, TV or the Internet. Sad.
- rafram 3mo agoI have a hunch that many - most? - of these European digital sovereignty projects will end up being grifts. Whenever money is being thrown at any crappy, low-effort startup that knows how to speak the right language, you get grifters coming out of the woodwork.
- throwaway85825 3mo agoThere's billions available for whoever greases the right palms.
- kristianc 3mo agoSovereignty 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.
- oytis 3mo agoEU doesn't have enough money to just buy the competition
- joe_mamba 3mo agoEU had more money than China yet shipped fewer dominant software platforms
- dudisubekti 3mo agoYeah money is just a fancy paper if you can't translate it to actual productivity.
- m00dy 3mo agomoney and credit are different things. EU has credit.
- oytis 3mo agoChina doesn't allow foreign social media on their territory at all. US had one for a short time, then panicked and forced them to sell. EU can neither buy American platforms, nor does it want to build a great firewall of Europe, so it's trying to find other ways to get in control
- joe_mamba 3mo ago> nor does it want to build a great firewall of Europe Oh yes they are. Just more stealthily via ID doxing age verification and speech censorship regulations.
- mortarion 3mo agoThe 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.
- RobotToaster 3mo agoMaybe they just chose the letter before X?
- georgemcbay 3mo agoThis thread is the first time I've even heard of "W Social" so I have no specific insight into their naming, but I'd assume it comes from (gaming/lifestyle) streaming culture where "chatters" will often say "W <thing>" (good, win) or "L <thing>" (bad, lose) as short-form feedback on how they feel about <thing>.
- tao_oat 3mo agoThis would make sense but seems unlikely to me, because the people involved come across as incredibly offline.
- malmz 3mo agoW 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.
- sajithdilshan 3mo agoI 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.
- xg15 3mo agoLooking 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.
- bborud 3mo agoIt 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.
- throwaway85825 3mo agoIts about restricting replies to sycophants.
- SpicyLemonZest 3mo agoTheir splash page is the sentence "Trust Your Feed." in gigantic font. I'm not sure what that could possibly be interpreted as other than an inherently political promise to shape the feed away from sources they consider untrusted.
- boznz 3mo agoAnd get confirmation bias on whatever they write from like-minded cronies, without the usual anonymous piss-takers.. kinda sad really!
- threecheese 3mo ago“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.
- jauntywundrkind 3mo agoReally 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/3moiosz24yk2j 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-social-unconventional-beginnings-strategic-pitches-conflicting-signals/ https://blog.elenarossini.com/the-untold-story-about-w-socia... https://blog.elenarossini.com/w-social-public-institutions-and-the-theater-of-european-digital-sovereignty/ 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/3moisjvh7tk2i https://bsky.app/profile/stollmeyer.eurosky.social/post/3moi... Given the presence of https://eurosky.tech https://eurosky.tech and https://mu.social 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.
- advisedwang 3mo agoEU bigwigs don't care about Open Source. They care about EU data sovereignty and supporting EU businesses (well the appearance of doing so, anyway).
- mystraline 3mo agoHow 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/01KVD55YBYVM3B46ACQTECDMT2 https://aseachange.com/@elena/statuses/01KVD55YBYVM3B46ACQTE... Or.... How about not? Seriously, join Mastodon!
- tancop 3mo ago> 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).
- zoul 3mo agoOn the other hand, the currently overwhelmingly dominant Bluesky app and infrastructure can control what users see, presenting a centralized chokepoint. It’s nice to own your data but if your social circle uses a single centralized app to view it, shrug.
- colesantiago 3mo ago> Or.... How about not? Seriously, join Mastodon! Which decentralised instance?
- 3mo ago
- CM30 3mo agoNot sure if the backlash got to them or they got word of potential legal issues caused by doing this, but I can see their GitHub page and its associated repositories just fine now: https://github.com/w-social-eu https://github.com/w-social-eu But I do kinda wonder the legality of this sort of move anyway. If other people contributed code and didn't agree to some terms of service saying their work would become the property of the project owner, would it even be legal to make it closed source under a different license?
- tancop 3mo agobluesky is mit/apache so they can legally make a closed source fork. what they cant do is sue people who reupload any version before they went closed, even if they used a copyright assignment cla because neither of the licenses can be revoked.
- fp64 3mo agoThere's no much there? A fork of some component where the only changes are some lines in config, and a bunch of shell scripts for a docker image?
- CM30 3mo agoI suspect they didn't actually make many changes at all. Their product is literally a rebranded version of Bluesky, to the point the original test login didn't even change the background image or text.
- fp64 3mo agoThey at least need to add the ID verification somehow to the backend, which is why I'd be really curious seeing how that is implemented
- DavideNL 3mo agoSlightly off topic, but what's the origin / where does the name "W" come from?
- binaryturtle 3mo agoThe site loads somewhat, burns 100% CPU non-stop, I can't really click any of the buttons. I guess it's not for me. :)
- wazoox 3mo agoTypical EU corrupt bureaucracy at work.
- trolleski 3mo agoEuropean elites are so corrupt and complicit that if they say they will do something, you can rest assured the opposite will take place.
- jongjong 3mo agoWell I guess it's slightly more honest than US social media. In this case the government doesn't keep their involvement a secret.
- jraedisch 3mo agoDivide 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.
- pedromlsreis 3mo ago[dead]
- vlan121 3mo agoWhy a shell company in Stockholm?