#WSocial will open up their beta program today… and I have a SCOOP for you: it appears that they have quietly gone closed-source!
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This was definitely NOT on my bingo card for this year:
European Commission president Ursula von der Leyen taking a moment between G7 meetings to promote the launch of the closed-source, for-profit network #WSocial.
I fear this may be a harbinger of things to come: MANDATORY AGE VERIFICATION for social media across Europe. I hope I'm wrong on this.
I am SO fed up, with this crook the EU has only gone backwards.
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@_elena OK, we should send some letters and organise some public "demonstration" to show that we already have a much better alternative in place.
Otherwise she and the other politicians will never know that the Fediverse is already relevant and is much more democratic and digitally independent than Bluesky/W Social could ever be.
Or maybe they already know and it's all due to lobby, but than it would be even more important.
@streetcoder They know. And none of them want anything like Mastodon. It's just too decentralized to be attractive for the "jetset autocrats" these people are.
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@_elena do you think you can make some posts on Reddit too? Buyfromeu sub doesn't seem like it's informed about it
@lefteristrip23 feel free to share on Reddit!
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@cquest I think that if they couldn't learn with Musk buying twitter, they won't ever learn
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@lefteristrip23 feel free to share on Reddit!
@_elena share what though?
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@_elena OK, we should send some letters and organise some public "demonstration" to show that we already have a much better alternative in place.
Otherwise she and the other politicians will never know that the Fediverse is already relevant and is much more democratic and digitally independent than Bluesky/W Social could ever be.
Or maybe they already know and it's all due to lobby, but than it would be even more important.
streetcoder
If you want to do that, pick (or set up) a single instance to push in a region. One of the primary reasons the Fediverse fails to catch on is that no one will promote a specific website. Most people don’t care about the syndication feature and, in fact, find it confusing. And no ome cares about “Mastodon” any more than they’re really hype about Joomla.Throw up a Mastodon site. Give it a pleasing front end with identifiable branding, and push the site, not the technology and people will show up and stick around.
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#WSocial will open up their beta program today… and I have a SCOOP for you: it appears that they have quietly gone closed-source!
This is ironic, considering that the @EUCommission just unveiled their Tech Sovereignty Package, emphasizing the importance of #OpenSource. And yet they have migrated their main ATproto accounts to W Social - whose code can no longer be inspected!
My full article - with a great analysis by @aral:
@netdynadmin @EUCommission @aral @_elena Considering the pressing the accelerator and the brake pedal at the same time, I had that : social.netdynamics.eu/display/…
RE: social.netdynamics.eu/objects/… -
#WSocial will open up their beta program today… and I have a SCOOP for you: it appears that they have quietly gone closed-source!
This is ironic, considering that the @EUCommission just unveiled their Tech Sovereignty Package, emphasizing the importance of #OpenSource. And yet they have migrated their main ATproto accounts to W Social - whose code can no longer be inspected!
My full article - with a great analysis by @aral:
@aral @_elena @EUCommission authoritarian tendensies be authoritarian
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This was definitely NOT on my bingo card for this year:
European Commission president Ursula von der Leyen taking a moment between G7 meetings to promote the launch of the closed-source, for-profit network #WSocial.
I fear this may be a harbinger of things to come: MANDATORY AGE VERIFICATION for social media across Europe. I hope I'm wrong on this.
@_elena neoliberals gonna neoliberal. not a surprise at all
oh and she's also a zionist so yeah. utterly horrible person all around
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#WSocial will open up their beta program today… and I have a SCOOP for you: it appears that they have quietly gone closed-source!
This is ironic, considering that the @EUCommission just unveiled their Tech Sovereignty Package, emphasizing the importance of #OpenSource. And yet they have migrated their main ATproto accounts to W Social - whose code can no longer be inspected!
My full article - with a great analysis by @aral:
@_elena Theater is the perfect term @EUCommission @aral
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#WSocial will open up their beta program today… and I have a SCOOP for you: it appears that they have quietly gone closed-source!
This is ironic, considering that the @EUCommission just unveiled their Tech Sovereignty Package, emphasizing the importance of #OpenSource. And yet they have migrated their main ATproto accounts to W Social - whose code can no longer be inspected!
My full article - with a great analysis by @aral:
I am not a programmer, at all, zero knowledge, but for 20 years, I've been listening to OS evangelicals tell me how important OS is
and you know what ?
I don't care
I really don'tand I am, among my entire circle of friends/family/coworkers, the "odd guy" who cares about stuff like this
so if I don't care, I would guess that 98% of the population doesn't care
so maybe OS evangelicals need a better message ?
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Of course, because the EU has never had a problem with what the US does domestically in terms of things like surveillance, information control, censorship etc, they just want to be able to do it for themselves.
@contrasocial @_elena @aral Just read that @EUCommission vice chair and notable Russia hawk Kaja Kallas was on Peter Thiel's invitees to his "Dialog" society.
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#WSocial will open up their beta program today… and I have a SCOOP for you: it appears that they have quietly gone closed-source!
This is ironic, considering that the @EUCommission just unveiled their Tech Sovereignty Package, emphasizing the importance of #OpenSource. And yet they have migrated their main ATproto accounts to W Social - whose code can no longer be inspected!
My full article - with a great analysis by @aral:
@_elena @EUCommission @aral
Hmm, then I think Mastodon is a better place than that W stuff -
@_elena @EUCommission @aral The same nonsense we saw with #Mistral. It says on the official Wikipedia page that it’s down to Google, Meta and the usual hedge funds. Then billions are thrown at it; Mistral is utterly incompetent – in other words, rubbish. But everyone made money. I reckon there’s no getting round reading Rosa Luxemburg’s *The Accumulation of Capital*. That’s what it’s always about. Always.
@reverend @_elena @EUCommission @aral I'm pretty sure many in the Commission don't want Mistral to compete. They expect Trump to go away and things to go back to "normal" and then they want to be in the US admin's good graces.
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#WSocial will open up their beta program today… and I have a SCOOP for you: it appears that they have quietly gone closed-source!
This is ironic, considering that the @EUCommission just unveiled their Tech Sovereignty Package, emphasizing the importance of #OpenSource. And yet they have migrated their main ATproto accounts to W Social - whose code can no longer be inspected!
My full article - with a great analysis by @aral:
@_elena @EUCommission @aral
"Nein!" "Doch!" "Oh!"
#LouisDeFunes -
I am not a programmer, at all, zero knowledge, but for 20 years, I've been listening to OS evangelicals tell me how important OS is
and you know what ?
I don't care
I really don'tand I am, among my entire circle of friends/family/coworkers, the "odd guy" who cares about stuff like this
so if I don't care, I would guess that 98% of the population doesn't care
so maybe OS evangelicals need a better message ?
Closed source (black box software) is mainly a tool to the large corpos for wealth extraction.
Open sourcing is a way of community resistance against abuse.
If Mastodon somehow went closed source you could fork, since the protocol was built in the open you have all the tools needed to keep your own server running even if Mastodon were to dissapear.
If they started closed source none of this talk would be applicable, server shuts down & the service just goes bye-bye.
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Closed source (black box software) is mainly a tool to the large corpos for wealth extraction.
Open sourcing is a way of community resistance against abuse.
If Mastodon somehow went closed source you could fork, since the protocol was built in the open you have all the tools needed to keep your own server running even if Mastodon were to dissapear.
If they started closed source none of this talk would be applicable, server shuts down & the service just goes bye-bye.
@milagemayvary
I repeat
it is 2026
is there any evidence that anyone actually cares ? -
#WSocial will open up their beta program today… and I have a SCOOP for you: it appears that they have quietly gone closed-source!
This is ironic, considering that the @EUCommission just unveiled their Tech Sovereignty Package, emphasizing the importance of #OpenSource. And yet they have migrated their main ATproto accounts to W Social - whose code can no longer be inspected!
My full article - with a great analysis by @aral:
@_elena @EUCommission @aral europeen instutution being hypocritical like usual
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@Mabande I think it's more just being clueless and wsocial being very well politically connected so they are able to convince these politicians to do this. It was evident this was their stategy from day one with the announcement at Davos etc. but I wouldn't necessarily have bet on them being this successful with it.
Ultimately this might still not mean that much though.
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@milagemayvary
I repeat
it is 2026
is there any evidence that anyone actually cares ?
: 
