Regarding my W Social exposé: it was months in the making and I could have written a LOT more, showing additional examples of technical blunders, but I kept it "brief" at 3500 words

I ran out of characters to tag all the awesome people I mentioned in the piece: @doktorzjivago (thanks for the top notch meme), @tom @mapache and @Em0nM4stodon

And special thanks to people who volunteered to proof-read a draft and gave me fantastic feedback: @bitzero and @DataKnightmare

It takes a village ️

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 ️

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:

https://blog.elenarossini.com/w-social-uncovered-the-reality-behind-the-hype/

#OpenWashing

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 on LinkedIn I asked if it would speak activitypub. No answer yet after 2 days. That's bad for a hot launch...

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 ️

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:

https://blog.elenarossini.com/w-social-uncovered-the-reality-behind-the-hype/

#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:

https://blog.elenarossini.com/w-social-uncovered-the-reality-behind-the-hype/

#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:

https://blog.elenarossini.com/w-social-uncovered-the-reality-behind-the-hype/

#OpenWashing

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 ️

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 ️

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 yes, I noticed the (probably only temporary) redirect to wsocial.news, too. They must have set it only today in the afternoon, as confirms https://web.archive.org/web/20260506062956/https://wsocial.eu/public/signup, too.

More things I noticed:

1) they advertise with random Bluesky posts as one from Annalena Baerbock, also the "topic chart" refers to Bluesky, while some very first WSocial server posts exist.

2) they explicitly advertise an article about W Social from the now pro-Russian, far-right German newspaper "Berliner Zeitung".

@_elena on LinkedIn I asked if it would speak activitypub. No answer yet after 2 days. That's bad for a hot launch...

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 ️

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 ️

@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

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

3) they indeed list the (current!) German Federal Government's Data Protection Commissioner Louisa Specht-Riemenschneider as part of their team - that's shady AF.