Launching their new social network, W, the EU posted a map of where other social networks are hosted.

[faraiwe@mstdn.social]

@ricci every #DTBO socmedia is a scam based off of lies, aimed solely at turning users into PII/advert cows.

[raymaccarthy@mastodon.ie]

@ricci
I don't think W is an EU backed SMN. I think it's simply in Europe?

I could be wrong, but it looks like PR baloney.

[ricci@discuss.systems]

@xrobau @colinburgess yeah I wish I had a way to peek behind it but obfuscating the actual source is kinda the whole point, to avoid load on the origin

[ricci@discuss.systems]

@raymaccarthy idk I just saw their shitty map that is bad and they should feel bad about it

[colinburgess@mastodon.nz]

@ricci @xrobau hey Rob, what’s that database you added our servers to the other day? Could that be useful to Rob for locating mastodon hosts more accurately?

[su_g@aus.social]

@ricci
Nice to see the little dot points on Australia… 🦘plenty of room for more! Same in Greenland… Africa… other places… Great idea to do this mapping of Fedi worlwide!

[ricci@discuss.systems]

@Su_G there are probably more there than it looks like, some are behind CloudFlare, Fastly, etc which generally makes them look like they are in the US

[allanb@mastodon.social]

@ricci Nice!

[su_g@aus.social]

@ricci
Good to know! So it’s the minimum that we’re seeing mapped for the seemingly sparse areas.

[ricci@discuss.systems]

@Su_G yup. wish I had a way to map stuff behind CDNs, but I don't, that's kinda the purpose of a CDN

[xrobau@mastodon.au]

@colinburgess @ricci https://fedidb.com/software/mastodon?region=oceania

[ricci@discuss.systems]

@colinburgess @xrobau thanks maybe I can pull this kind of thing from their API, I'll check

Also, unrelated, I'm the owner of xrob.org so uh hi

[su_g@aus.social]

@ricci

[gimulnautti@mastodon.green]

@ricci I bet it’s owned by another bunch of techbros. Just techbros not from USA.

Let’s call them ’Eurobros’ because they just want to do a repeat inside Europe of what the neoliberal project managed to make of the US.

[mfr@mastodon.coffee]

@ricci @azuidhof for a moment I really thought the EU was wasting money and time on this. But it’s only a bunch of independent organizations/companies that are reinventing the wheel again. This will fail before it’s even started.

[ricci@discuss.systems]

@azuidhof @mfr they're actually using atproto, which is what Bluesky runs on, so I give them a little more chance of success because of that

[jollysea@chaos.social]

@ricci can you point me to a source that "the EU" has launched that network? With a CEO from Switzerland, famously not an EU member?

[mfr@mastodon.coffee]

@ricci @azuidhof ah , I didn’t look that far. But then it’ll be just another instance on an existing network methinks, or do they want to be decoupled and make a Chinese walled version?

[ricci@discuss.systems]

@azuidhof @mfr idk unclear, but so far they are connecting to the Bluesky relay, which you could think of as the atproto equivalent of "federating"

[ricci@discuss.systems]

@jollysea I realize they are not a government entity. But they are using a .eu domain (yes I know basically anyone can get one) so clearly this is the way they're trying to sell themselves