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Good morning Fedi friends.
Is anybody curious about how the #WSocial experiment is going?
You know, the private, for profit "European answer to X" endorsed by the European Commission, which is a fork of Bluesky and has quietly gone closed-source before its beta launch (à la #TruthSocial)?
I've got numbers for you!
Nearly two months in, W Social has almost the same number of accounts as #Eurosky... You know, the European fork of Bluesky that does NOT require government IDs to post.
W Social: 23.5k accounts
Eurosky: 24.8k accounts
In order to post on W Social you need to provide your government ID and go through a 13-step verification process. So far 4.5k accounts are verified but only 2036 (as of this morning) have ever published a single post or reply.
There is a handy website - https://pdsls.dev - that allows you to monitor the "firehose" of any ATproto-powered PDS.
Inspired by @pallenberg and his awesome videos (example: https://mu.social/profile/palle.eurosky.social/post/3mskkqrrc522l) I have been comparing the live activities of the two networks.
The difference is SHOCKING.
W Social is largely a zombie, dormant network, with a high number of accounts that do not interact. Eurosky by contrast shows very lively activity.
The screenshot I grabbed yesterday shows a side-by-side comparison of their firehose over a 27 minute period.
W Social had a total of 240 events (follows, likes, posts...) whereas Eurosky registered 7596 events in the same time interval.
A couple of days ago I downloaded their PDS and saw that 67,8% of their accounts have 0 follows, 0 followers and 0 posts. That's what I mean when I call it a "zombie network."
W Social's CEO says they plan to start monetizing by introducing ads in 2027.
WITH THESE NUMBERS?!?
Sure Jan.
I love how with the transparency of open data you can't really use the standard playbook of CEO hype and hubris. Because we can all see their numbers. And they are BAAAAD.
I have been feeling very strong second hand embarrassment for the European Commission and especially Ursula von der Leyen - who went so far as to publicize the W launch in between G7 meetings in June. I wonder how they feel about it... and if they are even aware of how badly the network is doing right now.
I suspect the network can be on life support for a year or two but things aren't looking good.
Thought you should know!
For my series of articles about W Social, check out: https://blog.elenarossini.com/tag/w-social/ I may have another one coming in the fall...
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It hurts and stings so much that our presumable leaders and representatives like von der Leyen completely ignore the Fediverse and Mastodon for years and years and then immediately jump on this scam artist social without even vetting it properly.
@leanderlindahl it would but "Zensursula" did never shine with digital competence. Or really with anything.
@bekopharm Perhaps, but she's still the president of my beloved European Union and it's her job to represent us well regardless of her personal knowledge and interest in digital platforms. She should have advisers that help her. Clearly they have failed sorely.
@leanderlindahl @bekopharm One wonders if those advisers have "failed", or if they are simply ensconced in the bubble of corporate lobby groups. Which is still failure, of course, but of a different sort.
@leanderlindahl @bekopharm her interest is not to represent „us“, she‘s only interested in growing her power. To protect her rich friends. Flintenuschi, Zensursula, you are not my president 🤮
It might be that if it isn't a platform, they don't seem to understand the underlying theory. Without a platform, there's distributed "ownership"—cathedral-and-bazaar style—so people can't tell if it's European or not, even though the origins are often very much European. Ownership itself seems to be the lens that matters most: if no single entity can claim it, it doesn't get counted, regardless of where it actually came from.
@leanderlindahl @elena @pallenberg @EUCommission
Because they actually have no clue at all…
@xs4me2 @leanderlindahl @elena @pallenberg @EUCommission No clue or just follow the smell of money?
@ainmosni @leanderlindahl @elena @pallenberg @EUCommission
Entirely possible...
@ainmosni @xs4me2 @leanderlindahl @elena @pallenberg @EUCommission
Two things can be true at the same time. 😜
@KimSJ @ainmosni @xs4me2 @leanderlindahl @pallenberg so true 😂
@leanderlindahl @elena @pallenberg @EUCommission
I think it’s great that these zombies, like Zensursula, are hanging around in a zombie network. We don’t need corpses like that in the Fediverse – the sort who only keep accounts ‘for prestige’ and contribute nothing else.
@leanderlindahl @elena @pallenberg @EUCommission
it's a german we-shat.
integrated law inforsement and payment transaction.
bluesky has been investigated for decades.. it is the european answer to WeChar. talk about the financal capital behind it without dismantling european governemnt as a dictorship :D it's 💸 millenium. we can just watch and clap hands
@pallenberg@mastodon.social @elena@aseachange.com @leanderlindahl@mastodon.social @EUCommission@ec.social-network.europa.eu
European politicians ignoring the fediverse is basically the best case for the fediverse.
@pallenberg@mastodon.social @elena@aseachange.com @leanderlindahl@mastodon.social @EUCommission@ec.social-network.europa.eu
Digital sovereignty should focus on not letting the us have our companies, institutions and bureaucrats by the balls.
When it comes to individual communication I'm actually not that opposed to a hybrid of US freedom of speech and EU privacy laws even if both are routinely violated. Nothing the EU does at the moment with regards to personal communication is strengthening our rights.
@leanderlindahl @elena @pallenberg The fediverse is, by design, highly resilient to state control. State control is the whole point of L Social and of every internet-related endeavour von der Leyen has ever been involved in. What EU higher-ups want from a social network and what the Fediverse wants to be is fundamentally incompatible.
@ratsnakegames @elena @pallenberg
There is certainly merit to your perspective, but I don't think we can regard "the EU" and it's officials as a monolith with one single purpose and will.
They're fragmented and pulling in different directions like the society they represent. So our job is to support and nurture what is good and help that flourish. Such as their participation in an open information system.
@elena @pallenberg "endorsed" by the commission? In what way?
"Endorsed" meaning "Some cool person with flair and a big mouth came talking to us about this absolute 💩 of an idea, and managed to onboard us onto a closed source and sh-t-for-brains solution, instead of getting onto the Fediverse using a number of Mastodon/GoToSocial instances"
@tml @pallenberg THIS https://mastodon.social/@_elena/116764738020685078 and on the European Commission's website they even swapped the Bluesky logo for the W Social logo...
This is super ironic: they went from being on an American open network (Bluesky PBC) to a European, closed-source network that is still fully reliant on Bluesky PBC's infrastructure (appview, moderation, etc.) 🤷♀️
@elena @pallenberg thank you, very interesting!
It is always super awkward moment when these high level front politicians reveal how little they really understand about things. And I'm not even expecting great deal of expertise on things, just the basics.
@elena @pallenberg Politicians are completely disconnected from society (and therefore, from reality), they only care about corporations
@elena I try to avoid those Euro* services that are popping up now just for marketing reasons. To me this differentiation is more separating than bringing people together. @pallenberg
@Lioh @elena @pallenberg Fuck European supremacy.
Spending public money seems to require very little.
In fact, the less effort you put into it, the more public money you seem to get away with spending without being questioned about why and how 😑
@elena If W does not interact, it is therefore, a botfarm and not real people. The identification process are probably for real people signing up.
@elena @pallenberg
Thanks Elena
It bears out that any govt oversight and/or commercial activities behind a social media network is bound to fail in the end — at least in the #fediverse
@elena @pallenberg bad numbers aren't a real problem if you just state loudly enough they're fake and sling enough emotions and fake facts. But that is a playbook the EU is hopefully not willing to use...
@mr_harm @pallenberg I have already seen W Social fans claim that the numbers are high on Eurosky and Bluesky "because of bots" - which in their eyes justifies the ID verification. It's a cult
Is the number of accounts a valid number?
Can we somehow track interactions?
A: I want to know?
B: here a link
A: Thank you.
@elena @pallenberg First tier politicians are well used to one-off endorsements. They're most probably organized by second order collaborators, and left adrift when failing or forgotten. It's a multi targetting strategy, you bet on a thousand proposals, coming from the most prominent lobbyists, and then claim success with those that statistically reward good reputation.
This is the sense for "public interest" that any top politician has. Following any ideal has already shown not proficient enouf
@luc0x61 @pallenberg what's fascinating is that people at the EC were aware of Eurosky and some people even recommended it in one of their official papers. Then 8 weeks later the EC migrated their most prestigious accounts to W Social when it launched its beta program - which was really faulty and buggy from the start. A total clown show
@elena @pallenberg
It doesn't help that it's just about impossible to sign up. After various things not working I got to the processing stage. It's been like that since the Friday before last, a week and a half!
@chris108 @pallenberg their reviews on the German Google Play Store are over 120, with an average rating of 1.1 stars out of 5 (W Identity I mean). Most people call it an early alpha rather than a beta
@elena @pallenberg That would fit with my experience.
I first received an invite, followed the link and when I attempted to get verified got a message "invalid QR code". The invitation has no QR code. After posting here someone sent a new invitation..it worked untill I tried to NFC read my passport, when it said "your chip cannot be trusted". After trying again a few times I fell back to the photo verification, which has been on the processing stage for a week and a half
@elena @pallenberg lmao this is the first time I'm even hearing about wsocial
@swanson @pallenberg lucky you! actually they may not be around for long...
Quick question Elena.
I set up an account on Bluesky a long time ago, but really haven’t used it, for ahem… “reasons”
Especially now that the new CEO of Bluesky has come out and said that they no longer want to be known as a liberal bubble and will be doing whatever they can to change that. (which I can only assume means rolling out the welcome mat for MAGA)
Is it possible to migrate my Bluesky account to Eurosky? And if so, is it even worth the trouble? Mastodon is my main home base and I love it here, but I wouldn’t mind having a toe hold on Eurosky if it’s worth the trouble.
Yeah, that's possible, they have some helper wizard for that
If it's worth the trouble only you can really answer. Fwiw I don't think he meant to flood BS with MAGAts, because the only way to do that would be to remove the atomic block feature (that the Fediverse should copy, because it's awesome)* and he said wanted the users to be able to curate their timelines
* if you block somebody under your post the replies of that person are removed so your followers don't see them
@Starkimarm @elena
Ok, thanks!
@markmetz @elena The migration is painless if your account doesn't have much data (posts, images). https://move.eurosky.tech
Or even simpler, if your old account is more or less empty, just create a new one. https://portal.eurosky.tech
If your account *does* have a lot of data, like mine had, the migration is a real pain in the ass, the Eurosky people are of no help when they just redirect you to their unhelpful FAQ, and I needed a 3rd party tool to complete the migration.
The main disadvantage >>
@markmetz @elena << of going "full Eurosky" is that they don't have a phone app yet. For me that's no problem as 99% of the time I'm behind a computer when using the social networks. And the Bluesky app also still works fine with a Eurosky login. And you can save the https://mu.social website (= the Eurosky portal) to your home screen as a web app (but that's not quite the same sometimes).
@markmetz sure thing! Both Sascha and I have migrated our Bluesky accounts to Eurosky. It's super simple: https://eurosky.tech/accounts/migrate/
@elena @pallenberg I can picture this as a documentary. At the end, a large text displays in the middle of the screen:
ALL THEY NEEDED TO DO WAS SETTING UP A MASTODON INSTANCE.
@Krazov @pallenberg if someone makes a documentary about W Social, it'd better be me, LOL. I'd happily come out of retirement for it 😜
@elena @pallenberg Feel free to use my twist above. If you're short of ideas, of course. Seems like you have it figured all out.
@Krazov @elena @pallenberg worst thing is, they already had: see @EUCommission
@juandesant @elena @pallenberg @EUCommission I would add it after a couple of seconds under my text. Chef's kiss.
@elena @pallenberg Not to mention wSocial sounds rather Trump-esque, whereas Eurosky sounds nice and European...
@pa27 @pallenberg totally Trumpian and Muskian vibes from the W Social folks.
Plus the name is TERRIBLE from the POV of SEO 🤡
she admires "X" (the woman who is behind wSocial)
"W" is a straight play on that, as one letter before "X"
obviously what Europe needs is not someone who is trying to recreate the shit that killed the USA
Europe has techbros just like any other place. they are always the source of the rot. Europe: listen to this American and reject your techbros
edit: i searched for her name
Anna Zeiter
i wonder who wrote this blog, good blog 😂
How not to suspect that there is something behind that admirer of "X".
A certain medieval fortress in the capital of a northern empire.
I'll console myself that this is paranoia...
@benroyce @elena @pa27 @pallenberg
Hi there 🙂
Here are some information about wsocial.
Sorry, it is from Wikipedia Germany, but i´m sure your translater will do a goog job 🙂
Have a great day.
https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/W_Social
@greynerd65 @elena @pa27 @pallenberg
"Auf der Weltkarte, die auf W Social gezeigt wird, und die die großen sozialen Netze zeigen soll, ist Europa leer. Damit werde der bereits etablierte quelloffene und nicht kommerzielle Dienst Mastodon unterschlagen. Er kommt aus Deutschland."
wow, wSocial has such strong European identity and respect for Europe 🤦
@benroyce @elena @pa27 @pallenberg
And i hope that Europe will go on 🙂
I´d never used anything from META, and since King Donald was reelected, i quit completly with google.
Actually i use just open sorce, like Libre Office, Firefox, Signal and so on...
@benroyce @elena @pa27 @pallenberg
Btw, you know that?
How lovely – since early 2026, there’s even been a social media platform for AI agents, in the style of Facebook.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moltbook
And who’s involved? META.
I find it ‘funny’ on the homepage that humans are welcome as observers… THANK YOU 😜
But it seems even AI isn’t aware of this, because when I asked ChatGPT about it in Firefox, the LLM initially thought I was joking.
@elena
Thanks for the update!
Concerning von der Leyen - I cringe on everything she does, anyway.🤷
Otoh, I doubt she even realises. I doubt she ever used social media, anyway, and any accounts are run by some "social media team" that will be happy to post wherever they are told to as long as they get paid.
Lol, I thought it should be an alternative to LinkedIn.
While that would be cool (instead of throwing my data to America, I'd prefer EU's data protection...), I guess W Social died already.
Thanks for the info!
@elena I haven't followed this topic from the start but I have a simple question: why were these networks created in the first place? To replace what? Bluesky was supposed to be a Twitter replacement (or wannabe...), these are replacements for what exactly? And why would anyone want to switch to these networks?
@elena @pallenberg mastodon is better right? Can't somebody tell EU?
#UseMastodon #Buyeuropean #MastodonisGreat
@elena @pallenberg Monetizing with Ads... Political Ads?
@elena@aseachange.com @pallenberg@mastodon.social wish WSocial all the bad luck it deserves. And shame onthe European Commission for endorsing them. But the bosses there seem like the normal right-leaning scum that infests the whole world.
@elena I remain gripped by this horrific tale of style over substance. Thank you for continuing to report on it (even though I think you said you were super done with it!)
@juliette thanks juliette. Not exactly done with it, I keep monitoring it and gathering evidence.
It’s very entertaining (my Signal group chats about it are 🔥). I may write a new chapter in the saga in September 😇
@leanderlindahl @juliette I can start messaging you about this on Delta! I have something like 12 group chats on Signal about this, LOL
@elena @pallenberg Ads are just one more reason to not look unto it (let alone to really go there) ...
@elena @pallenberg who would have thought that a mandatory ID check keeps people off … 🤣
@nohillside @pallenberg their founders are BIG LinkedIn people - as in, it's their favorite network - and I think they got the idea of identity verification from there... and didn't think so much through it.
They are pretty much terrible at microblogging
@elena @pallenberg 5 minutes on LI should be enough to convince everyone that identification (and professional reputation risks) don't stop people from acting/commenting outside of social norms. But I see the appeal such a social network (with identified users and a link to their wallet) has for people who think in terms of (marketable) "content".
@elena @pallenberg So pleased to hear 'W' is tanking.
As far as I could see, it was nothing much more than an underhand attempt at collecting detailed user IDs under the guise of social media.
There was no naiveté in von der Leyen's publicising it's launch - the EC wants your data.
Glad to see so few fell for it! 👏👏
@Oyu_Fka @pallenberg I wouldn't qualify it as "tanking" because the ship never really left the port 😜
I see it as a Trojan Horse trying to bring in mandatory identity verification for social media platforms.
Their biggest mistake / original sin was picking an open protocol - ATproto - and then immediately forking and quietly going closed-source.
We can see all their numbers (no bullshitting possible) and they stick out like a sore thumb in the world of FOSS... it's a total clown show
@elena @pallenberg Yes! Very much a trojan horse...a perfect metaphor 🙂!
Well pleased, lol!
@elena @pallenberg i forgot that it exists
@elena @pallenberg
Grazie Elena for the update.
I was actually tempted to try out W but I stopped before the required 13 steps authentication process
I will have a look at the alternative you are mentioning
@umbeebmu @pallenberg Eurosky is an excellent alternative!
@haploc totally!
But they managed to cultivate a small posse of people who are ardent supporters 🤷♀️
@elena @pallenberg I don't think zombie network nails it. Zombies are undead. W social looks quite dead.
@ASBFreiburg @pallenberg ha you're right! 😆
@elena @pallenberg And these are just PDS which still rely on the Bluesky relay. Just perfect. The state institutions endorsing surveillance and capitalism? Color me unsurprised.
@elena @pallenberg what social?
seriously, what is the w for?
i like my schadenfreude with coffee. how do you like yours?
Quick question: do you consider Eurosky as being a part of the Fediverse? Or is only ActivityPub part of it?
@elena @pallenberg Almost like they want it to fail. 
@elena @pallenberg
oh well, as we say in french: pas de nouvelles, bonnes nouvelles !
"2036 (as of this morning) have ever published a single post or reply"
mwuahahaha. who could have thought? ;-p
thanks for your post and work!
W Social is a top-down failure like so many that come out of EU/Bruxelles.
These people live on an imaginary planet.
@elena W social comunity managers are emailing content creators inviting them to join W.
@DiogoConstantino @pallenberg and they email critics asking to set up phone calls "to explain things" - happened to me and two people I know
I've experienced second hand embarrassment about Ursula von der Leyen ever since she was kicked upstairs to Bruessels.
She never gave us any glimpses of competence when she was in German national politics, and I still can't figure out how she got her current job. Whose idea was this, and why did she get this much support?
@elena @pallenberg but if you can talk to some of the Eurocrats on the platform it could be useful...
(If they listen)
@elena @pallenberg Can't find it with google...
Probably sabotage.
@elena @pallenberg the EU has all this legislation to prevent member states to tear down state-owned enterprises and discourage unfair state intervention in the free market. And then this? So weird.