Post by @elena@aseachange.com
Another day, another opportunity to roast #WSocial. Grab your 🍿
W Social had been hyping up the live broadcast of Ursula von der Leyen's State of the Union address for weeks.
"Watch it on W!" (You'd think they had an exclusive). Nah, it was also shown live on YouTube and X and other places.
The funniest thing is that co-founder Ingmar Rentzhog bragged in the live chat: "we are doing our best. The boradcast (sic) is truly Made in Europe."
You'd think they had built their own live streaming service. Think again: they used stream.place by Eli Mallon, an ATproto developer based in Seattle. Last time I checked, Seattle is in Washington state? U.S.A.? W, the social network of European digital sovereignty!
So I put Rentzhog on the spot and he became all defensive:
🔗: https://mu.social/profile/elenarossini.com/post/3mvmmu5gua225
But it gets better!
W Social had been bragging that only verified W users could comment in the live chat.
Yesterday I found out that people with a blue checkmark by Bluesky could also comment.
And I have one!
It all went by really fast... At the end of the event I made sure to credit Eli Mallon and stream.place for powering the live stream. If W Social wouldn't do it, well, I would.
I find it incredible that their modus operandi is to exploit open source infrastructure, giving the impression they built everything from scratch, without ever crediting anyone.
#LSocial = Leech Social.
The open social web is a highly collaborative space and it pains me to see the parasitic behavior of certain players who just take, take, take without ever giving anything back.
The @EUCommission was in the live chat. Von der Leyen took time out from G7 meetings in June to publicize the W Social launch.
I strongly believe they picked the wrong platform, which is openwashing and sovereignwashing. I typically do not tag the EC Mastodon account in posts about W, but this time it's important. (Apologies in advance to their social media interns, I know these choices were not made by you.)
We deserve better platforms.
I will keep speaking up about W Social, the black flamingo of the open social web.
And if you disagree with what they are doing, please speak up too. W Social leaders have started resorting to ad hominem attacks, calling my posts and articles "targeted disinformation."
At first I was a lonely voice of dissent against them. Then @pallenberg joined in. My wish: from a solo, to a duet, to a whole chorus of voices speaking up ⚡
And if you want to catch up on all the W Social red flags, I wrote a series of blog posts about them:
https://blog.elenarossini.com/tag/w-social/
(start at the bottom)
23 boosts
Chewie@chewie@mammut.gogreenit.net
Dragofix@Dragofix@veganism.social
Marco Bresciani@AAMfP@fosstodon.org
Udo B.@udob@chaos.social
shom@shom@gts.shom.dev
Lord Caramac the Clueless, KSC@LordCaramac@discordian.social
Flowermob@Flowermob@mastodon.social
Patrick 🚴📸🌴@patnat@social.tchncs.de
Arni@arni@veganism.social
Regendans@regendans@todon.eu
Nick@Nickiquote@mstdn.social
Ænðr E. Feldstraw@aeveltstra@mastodon.social
⏩︎VOTE⏪︎ ᶜʸⁿⁱᶜⁱˢᵐ⁼ᵃᶜᶜᵉᵖᵗᵃⁿᶜᵉ (Ben Royce)@benroyce@mastodon.social
Fabian ¯\_(ツ)_/¯@BafDyce@chaos.social
Weltzeitgeist@wackJackle@norden.social
Nicole Parsons@Npars01@mstdn.social
Thibaultmol 🌈@thibaultmol@en.osm.town
jpoesen | 🇪🇺 | 🏳️🌈@jpoesen@social.jpoesen.com
Oblomov@oblomov@sociale.network
ticho@ticho@mas.to
Hyde 📷 🖋 
@hyde@lazybear.social
Debby ⁂📎🐧
@debby@hear-me.social
Elena Rossini 🌈@_elena@mastodon.social
Or, you'd think that they would embrace what they sell:
- Privacy oriented platforms
- Open platforms
- Contribute to OSS / FOSS
- European (hosted) solutions only
Like:
But hey, what do I know, I'm only a European OSS/FOSS developer, hoster, and promoter 😎
@joho @elena @pixelfed @peertube @Mastodon @EUCommission @pallenberg They don't want open technology, they want something they control.
"Open" is just there for PR purposes, but it pisses them off that a bunch of peasants could have a say.
@ticho @joho @pixelfed @peertube @Mastodon @EUCommission @pallenberg they definitely picked an open network because ATproto had already 40 million users.
Too bad for them that with open data, I can expose how dead W Social really is: https://aseachange.com/@elena/statuses/01M2J98BTQ8H4FFV85F5N93N2J
@elena @EUCommission @pallenberg Thank you a lot for the writeup and keeping us informed. WSocial really does look like a disorganized propaganda machine, using open source software and pretending they would create everything from scratch.
It wouldn't surprise me if some people also get rich of it doing it.. But that's just guessing so far 😅
@kb01 thanks.
Considering how moribund the network is, I highly doubt they can start monetizing anytime soon (or ever!)
👀 https://mu.social/profile/elenarossini.com/post/3mvkecrratc2w
@elena @EUCommission @pallenberg
as an american deeply disappointed in my country, i look to europe for solace as a more sane place
and i am disgusted to find through elena's expose that there are europeans who are just as much craven grasping losers as so many americans
Humans are the same everywhere....
They could look different because of different context.
@tanavit @elena @EUCommission @pallenberg
true but how politics and society is structured amplifies some characteristics and downplays others
That is what I consider been the "context".
I have no doubt that once France will get a government of the same flavour than the Trump Administration, my country will be indiscernible from USA.
@tanavit @elena @EUCommission @pallenberg
the problem i have with this formulation is that it is self-fulfilling prophecy
to escape such fates we must fight for better
we might not succeed
but we will definitely fail if we don't fight, and resigned attitudes lead to not fighting
cynical defeatism is merely acceptance of the unacceptable
i by no means champion airhead optimism
but premature capitulation and toxic positivity are not our only two choices
@benroyce @elena @EUCommission @pallenberg
I agree.
I was reacting to your opinion that Europe seems better than USA.
In France, we have the same ratio (1/3 to 1/2) of electors that will lean to the candidates who promise the greatest "dividendes".
They are not stupid : they are just betting the "Pascal's wager".
No. Another alternative, as Swanigan proposed, is fight the Long Defeat, and forestall darkness for a time.
https://www.noemamag.com/its-time-to-give-up-hope-for-a-better-climate-get-heroic/
@elena Thank you Elena, for your ongoing work on this.
I am continually dismayed by W Social - what it is, how it's presented, and by whom - and this just serves as another depressing example as to why.
@clickhere thank you Joanie. There is SO MUCH MORE going on that I have not reported on (some stuff that involves me directly). Maybe one day I'll dish... 🥲
Hucksters... does the @EUCommission actually even respond to anything ? They seem like a pure megaphone, nothing else.
@atro_city @EUCommission @pallenberg they were commenting in the W Live chat earlier this morning, during the livestream. Well, some poor intern was.
EC interns, sending you a hug, I'm sorry for the negative comments you may receive about cloWn Social 🫶
@elena @EUCommission @pallenberg : BoratCasting is Very Nice European technology!
@ploum hahaha yes indeed!
I will forever troll them from now on and comment with the hashtag #WBoratCasting for all their future livestreams 😂
@elena @EUCommission @pallenberg don't stress out too much. Some of this might be tilting at windmills. W social is the definition of dead Internet theory. 90% of accounts have never posted and of the 10% that have, 90% of those have only posted once or now then 6 months ago. So you're left with 1-2% active user base.
This thing is going to fall apart on it's own. I'm glad folks like you are working to build something better.
For reference, according to https://fediverse.observer/stats in September so far, about 3.8% of Fedi accounts were actively used.
A ghost town with over a million monthly active users and a timeline that goes by faster than I can read it? Doesn't seem very ghostly to me.
@bebadefabo @EUCommission @pallenberg yes I fully agree they are destined to fail, but with all the prestigious support they've been getting by politicians and media organizations, I feel a sense of duty to keep exposing their unethical ways (and the reality behind the hype)
@pallenberg@mastodon.social @elena@aseachange.com
I'm so disgusted they refused to credit Eli's hard work. If it wasn't him posting about the collab, we would discover only when trying to log in to comment during the stream. Which is not that surprising, it's basically the same behavior as when they announced W at Davos without mentioning the fediverse or saying they were using atproto, we had to discover that ourselves.
May this be a clear lesson to other atproto devs not to trust them.
#WSocial
@vicwalker @pallenberg I know! That's why I keep raising awareness about their unethical ways. This is NOT how the open social web works... and it's maddening how they've been embraced by the European Commission. Le sigh times a million
@txo_elurmaluta thank you! ❤️
I find it important to expose the black sheep of the open social web, before they reel in too many people (who are unaware of their shenanigans).
The media runs such glowing pieces about W, you'd think they were on their payroll
@elena@aseachange.com @EUCommission@ec.social-network.europa.eu @pallenberg@mastodon.social What began as an aria, is becoming a symphony.