@_elena OF COURSE they based it off of ATProto instead of using ActivityPub, because AT is "we want it to look open but instead be lock-in"...

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 #WSocial and it's a fork of #Bluesky. 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:

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.

Elena Rossini (blog.elenarossini.com)

#OpenWashing

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 #WSocial and it's a fork of #Bluesky. 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:

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.

Elena Rossini (blog.elenarossini.com)

#OpenWashing

@_elena Just finished reading your article and wow lots of interesting points to digest.

I went to the website the other day it definitely looks a ton more polished than back in January when it was first announced.

As usual I signed up for beta access because I like seeing new social platforms but this one has age verification and that's a deal breaker for me right there.

Great post Elena and excellent information in the article.

@the_infamous thank you! I have a part 2 coming soon-ish, which has more interesting elements

I just refreshed the #WSocial 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 ️

@_elena it's pretty interesting they still really want to avoid saying "Bluesky" and only say "AT-proto".

Almost every other project goes as far as including "sky" in their name and repeatedly mentions Bluesky because that's the thing some people might know at this point so it's good marketing...

Except if you're trying to present yourself as the new European social platform that replaces the US ones such as Bluesky I guess.

@ikuturso @_elena in exploring the relationship between #WSocial, #Bluesky and the AT protocol it's perhaps worth noting that Trumps Nazi Bar/megaphone Truth Social is actually based on a modified Mastodon platform.
I don't think they go to any length to acknowledge that either.

@marjolica @ikuturso not exactly based on... they stole / borrowed the code base and never federated

@_elena @marjolica just the nature of free software that anyone can use it for any purpose. There's a North Korean Linux distro but that's not because Linus Torvalds or any of the contributors support North Korea.

Nobody has to federate with them and in fact they decided they don't want to federate with anyone anyway.

IIRC Truth Social was in breach of the license terms at first but later started releasing their changes to the source code too.