<![CDATA[Do you remember the surprise announcement of a new social network in Davos this past January?]]>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 and it's a fork of . 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:

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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.

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Elena Rossini (blog.elenarossini.com)

]]>https://citiverse.it/topic/800249e9-8937-442e-95da-68de2b19561e/do-you-remember-the-surprise-announcement-of-a-new-social-network-in-davos-this-past-januaryRSS for NodeFri, 08 May 2026 19:47:28 GMTFri, 08 May 2026 05:41:02 GMT60<![CDATA[Reply to Do you remember the surprise announcement of a new social network in Davos this past January? on Fri, 08 May 2026 19:11:14 GMT]]>@_elena

And sadly, https://w-social.eu doesn't exist any more ;(

]]>https://citiverse.it/post/https://mammut.gogreenit.net/users/chewie/statuses/116540537240570179https://citiverse.it/post/https://mammut.gogreenit.net/users/chewie/statuses/116540537240570179Fri, 08 May 2026 19:11:14 GMT<![CDATA[Reply to Do you remember the surprise announcement of a new social network in Davos this past January? on Fri, 08 May 2026 19:05:54 GMT]]>@_elena

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?

]]>https://citiverse.it/post/https://mastodon.world/users/w_b/statuses/116540516215992800https://citiverse.it/post/https://mastodon.world/users/w_b/statuses/116540516215992800Fri, 08 May 2026 19:05:54 GMT<![CDATA[Reply to Do you remember the surprise announcement of a new social network in Davos this past January? on Fri, 08 May 2026 19:02:01 GMT]]>@_elena @jwildeboer High time we all start to follow that account

]]>https://citiverse.it/post/https://mastodon.social/users/ruurd/statuses/116540500941809946https://citiverse.it/post/https://mastodon.social/users/ruurd/statuses/116540500941809946Fri, 08 May 2026 19:02:01 GMT<![CDATA[Reply to Do you remember the surprise announcement of a new social network in Davos this past January? on Fri, 08 May 2026 18:53:27 GMT]]>@_elena Their website is so laggy on mobile. High quality engineering 😅

]]>https://citiverse.it/post/https://social.gfsc.studio/users/mickeymarse/statuses/116540467307182248https://citiverse.it/post/https://social.gfsc.studio/users/mickeymarse/statuses/116540467307182248Fri, 08 May 2026 18:53:27 GMT<![CDATA[Reply to Do you remember the surprise announcement of a new social network in Davos this past January? on Fri, 08 May 2026 18:31:47 GMT]]>@_elena AT Proto ? sad

]]>https://citiverse.it/post/https://mamot.fr/users/krafting/statuses/116540382116185090https://citiverse.it/post/https://mamot.fr/users/krafting/statuses/116540382116185090Fri, 08 May 2026 18:31:47 GMT<![CDATA[Reply to Do you remember the surprise announcement of a new social network in Davos this past January? on Fri, 08 May 2026 18:13:54 GMT]]>@meneer they are based on a different protocol... Bluesky's ATproto, so it's normal they won't implement ActivityPub. Remains to be seen if BridgyFed can be enabled for their accounts

]]>https://citiverse.it/post/https://mastodon.social/users/_elena/statuses/116540311738655935https://citiverse.it/post/https://mastodon.social/users/_elena/statuses/116540311738655935Fri, 08 May 2026 18:13:54 GMT<![CDATA[Reply to Do you remember the surprise announcement of a new social network in Davos this past January? on Fri, 08 May 2026 18:04:07 GMT]]>@_elena that’s better. I still think the thing will fail. I also highly suspect it is vibe-coded, at the very least the website front-end is.

]]>https://citiverse.it/post/https://mastodon.nl/ap/users/116404991435260606/statuses/116540273312998437https://citiverse.it/post/https://mastodon.nl/ap/users/116404991435260606/statuses/116540273312998437Fri, 08 May 2026 18:04:07 GMT<![CDATA[Reply to Do you remember the surprise announcement of a new social network in Davos this past January? on Fri, 08 May 2026 18:02:00 GMT]]>@_elena on LinkedIn I asked if it would speak activitypub. No answer yet after 2 days. That's bad for a hot launch...

]]>https://citiverse.it/post/https://social.myfed.space/users/meneer/statuses/01KR4C1T2CJW9DT54620SCXNN5https://citiverse.it/post/https://social.myfed.space/users/meneer/statuses/01KR4C1T2CJW9DT54620SCXNN5Fri, 08 May 2026 18:02:00 GMT<![CDATA[Reply to Do you remember the surprise announcement of a new social network in Davos this past January? on Fri, 08 May 2026 17:58:08 GMT]]>@_elena 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)

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Post News, the a16z-funded Twitter alternative, is shutting down | TechCrunch

Post was backed by Andreessen Horowitz and Scott Galloway, an NYU professor and tech commentator, but the platform never disclosed how much it raised.

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TechCrunch (techcrunch.com)

Taking bets on how long W will last!

]]>https://citiverse.it/post/https://sociale.network/users/oblomov/statuses/116540249745269873https://citiverse.it/post/https://sociale.network/users/oblomov/statuses/116540249745269873Fri, 08 May 2026 17:58:08 GMT<![CDATA[Reply to Do you remember the surprise announcement of a new social network in Davos this past January? on Fri, 08 May 2026 17:51:10 GMT]]>I just refreshed the 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 ❤️

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]]>https://citiverse.it/post/https://mastodon.social/users/_elena/statuses/116540222378861958https://citiverse.it/post/https://mastodon.social/users/_elena/statuses/116540222378861958Fri, 08 May 2026 17:51:10 GMT<![CDATA[Reply to Do you remember the surprise announcement of a new social network in Davos this past January? on Fri, 08 May 2026 17:24:22 GMT]]>@_elena excellent investigation, thank you for putting the work.

]]>https://citiverse.it/post/https://mastodon.social/ap/users/116508178487334481/statuses/116540117009246381https://citiverse.it/post/https://mastodon.social/ap/users/116508178487334481/statuses/116540117009246381Fri, 08 May 2026 17:24:22 GMT<![CDATA[Reply to Do you remember the surprise announcement of a new social network in Davos this past January? on Fri, 08 May 2026 17:12:09 GMT]]>@ikuturso @_elena Yes, I hope it will not. The risk is real however, and this is essentially the status quo.

We should recognize how bad things really are. I feel the most danger is that people want to feel hopeful and they close their eyes on how the train tracks are laid down.

]]>https://citiverse.it/post/https://mastodon.green/users/gimulnautti/statuses/116540068938993475https://citiverse.it/post/https://mastodon.green/users/gimulnautti/statuses/116540068938993475Fri, 08 May 2026 17:12:09 GMT<![CDATA[Reply to Do you remember the surprise announcement of a new social network in Davos this past January? on Fri, 08 May 2026 16:27:47 GMT]]>@_elena @pluralistic Wow, this is surprising. I don’t live in Europe, so I didn’t hear about W Social at all.

]]>https://citiverse.it/post/https://mastodon.social/users/EricFielding/statuses/116539894479697461https://citiverse.it/post/https://mastodon.social/users/EricFielding/statuses/116539894479697461Fri, 08 May 2026 16:27:47 GMT<![CDATA[Reply to Do you remember the surprise announcement of a new social network in Davos this past January? on Fri, 08 May 2026 15:39:56 GMT]]>@michaelmathy @_elena why do people say such stupid things?

]]>https://citiverse.it/post/https://norden.social/users/prefec2/statuses/116539706367708161https://citiverse.it/post/https://norden.social/users/prefec2/statuses/116539706367708161Fri, 08 May 2026 15:39:56 GMT<![CDATA[Reply to Do you remember the surprise announcement of a new social network in Davos this past January? on Fri, 08 May 2026 15:39:25 GMT]]>@_elena@mastodon.social

What can be expensive is the AppView layer (kinda as an API for the app) when you are trying to process all the millions of users from the Bluesky microblog platform. And this layer can also be affected by moderation decisions from the provider.

For now only Blacksky has an AppView alternative as big as Bluesky's. But Eurosky and Northsky both have building an AppView in their roadmaps.

]]>https://citiverse.it/post/https://app.wafrn.net/fediverse/post/518e74b4-5491-4d1f-835c-2ae525288466https://citiverse.it/post/https://app.wafrn.net/fediverse/post/518e74b4-5491-4d1f-835c-2ae525288466Fri, 08 May 2026 15:39:25 GMT<![CDATA[Reply to Do you remember the surprise announcement of a new social network in Davos this past January? on Fri, 08 May 2026 15:26:41 GMT]]>@_elena@mastodon.social

Good article, but I just want to correct one information from a quote you added to the article.

Technically is because setting-up/supporting/maintaining the firehose/relay layer is very expensive. Every single message would flow through there; creating the biggest firehose in Europe is such a power. So, it is easier to be controlled, and very unlikely to be replicated by other entities.

This is very outdated information. Currently, it's very cheap to run an atproto relay ( https://bsky.app/profile/bad-example.com/post/3mfkrfvy3ok2u ), there are multiple of them up and running https://pulsar.feeds.blue/ (both relays and firehoses). So this theory has no foundation. Though it is a centralization point of an app (if the app doesn't allow you to change your relay, because some Bluesky clients allow that) that can be used as an additional moderation point for the app, which can end up in censorship if things go evil (though so far relays only block spam networks).

]]>https://citiverse.it/post/https://app.wafrn.net/fediverse/post/0090b953-b2a5-47ab-ad3e-5b2ab03e8cebhttps://citiverse.it/post/https://app.wafrn.net/fediverse/post/0090b953-b2a5-47ab-ad3e-5b2ab03e8cebFri, 08 May 2026 15:26:41 GMT<![CDATA[Reply to Do you remember the surprise announcement of a new social network in Davos this past January? on Fri, 08 May 2026 15:16:25 GMT]]>@_elena
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

]]>https://citiverse.it/post/https://infosec.exchange/users/Em0nM4stodon/statuses/116539613839449996https://citiverse.it/post/https://infosec.exchange/users/Em0nM4stodon/statuses/116539613839449996Fri, 08 May 2026 15:16:25 GMT<![CDATA[Reply to Do you remember the surprise announcement of a new social network in Davos this past January? on Fri, 08 May 2026 15:08:18 GMT]]>@babetteknauer thank you Babette! 😘

]]>https://citiverse.it/post/https://mastodon.social/users/_elena/statuses/116539581954469862https://citiverse.it/post/https://mastodon.social/users/_elena/statuses/116539581954469862Fri, 08 May 2026 15:08:18 GMT<![CDATA[Reply to Do you remember the surprise announcement of a new social network in Davos this past January? on Fri, 08 May 2026 14:53:09 GMT]]>@_elena 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.

]]>https://citiverse.it/post/https://fedifreu.de/ap/users/116408733594977069/statuses/116539522407349373https://citiverse.it/post/https://fedifreu.de/ap/users/116408733594977069/statuses/116539522407349373Fri, 08 May 2026 14:53:09 GMT<![CDATA[Reply to Do you remember the surprise announcement of a new social network in Davos this past January? on Fri, 08 May 2026 14:46:12 GMT]]>@_elena

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.

]]>https://citiverse.it/post/https://hachyderm.io/users/d2718/statuses/116539495060724160https://citiverse.it/post/https://hachyderm.io/users/d2718/statuses/116539495060724160Fri, 08 May 2026 14:46:12 GMT<![CDATA[Reply to Do you remember the surprise announcement of a new social network in Davos this past January? on Fri, 08 May 2026 14:41:04 GMT]]>@_elena Thanks for doing all the research and for writing this up!

]]>https://citiverse.it/post/https://mastodon.social/users/babetteknauer/statuses/116539474862568429https://citiverse.it/post/https://mastodon.social/users/babetteknauer/statuses/116539474862568429Fri, 08 May 2026 14:41:04 GMT<![CDATA[Reply to Do you remember the surprise announcement of a new social network in Davos this past January? on Fri, 08 May 2026 14:40:20 GMT]]>@ikuturso @petitcoeur we will see tomorrow 😉

]]>https://citiverse.it/post/https://mastodon.social/ap/users/116155612437593224/statuses/116539472018571523https://citiverse.it/post/https://mastodon.social/ap/users/116155612437593224/statuses/116539472018571523Fri, 08 May 2026 14:40:20 GMT<![CDATA[Reply to Do you remember the surprise announcement of a new social network in Davos this past January? on Fri, 08 May 2026 14:36:49 GMT]]>@hannes99 @petitcoeur pretty sure W will also launch with at least an app so they've got more (though still far from complete) services to provide instead of relying on Bluesky for even the basics.

]]>https://citiverse.it/post/https://mastodon.social/users/ikuturso/statuses/116539458155822415https://citiverse.it/post/https://mastodon.social/users/ikuturso/statuses/116539458155822415Fri, 08 May 2026 14:36:49 GMT<![CDATA[Reply to Do you remember the surprise announcement of a new social network in Davos this past January? on Fri, 08 May 2026 14:33:07 GMT]]>@_elena 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 ?

]]>https://citiverse.it/post/https://mstdn.games/users/64bithero/statuses/116539443627764387https://citiverse.it/post/https://mstdn.games/users/64bithero/statuses/116539443627764387Fri, 08 May 2026 14:33:07 GMT