Dear Fedi friends,
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@_elena @EUCommission Unfortunately, no wonder at all.
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@passenger indeed! I've seen dozens of presentations they've given and they want to build a European Everything App, WeChat style. Microblogging, identity, payments... with no previous background in this space, just a desire to build alternatives, hosted in Europe, of INCREDIBLY PROBLEMATIC and toxic Big Tech apps. Digital sovereignty goes beyond having servers hosted in Europe.
My suspicion, and I cannot prove this because I was not in the room at the time, is that this is also what the closed-door investor pitches for other social media apps were like. The difference here is that they aren't bothering with also having a pitch to the end users. I'm going to guess that this approach probably will not help with widespread adoption, given that attention is so sought-after nowadays.
On the one hand, we could read this as a parable about the Commission as a whole: so accustomed to the top-down insider-first approach that they never considered even the appearance of asking users what they wanted and then building that.
On the other hand, this may simply be where we are in the common era year twenty twenty six: wannabe oligarchs talking to governments about what sort of tech the peasants will be herded into.
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@_elena @EUCommission I think your line "platform soft-launched at Davos" rather sums up how this happened
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My suspicion, and I cannot prove this because I was not in the room at the time, is that this is also what the closed-door investor pitches for other social media apps were like. The difference here is that they aren't bothering with also having a pitch to the end users. I'm going to guess that this approach probably will not help with widespread adoption, given that attention is so sought-after nowadays.
On the one hand, we could read this as a parable about the Commission as a whole: so accustomed to the top-down insider-first approach that they never considered even the appearance of asking users what they wanted and then building that.
On the other hand, this may simply be where we are in the common era year twenty twenty six: wannabe oligarchs talking to governments about what sort of tech the peasants will be herded into.
@passenger
perfectly said! And I find it ironic that the whole purpose of W is to "replace X" and yet I am getting so many "Muskian" vibes from them. They're even copying the idea of the Everything App and payment system
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Dear Fedi friends,
Apologies for another toot about #WSocial but I am genuinely shaking right now.
The @EUCommission and its president Ursula von der Leyen have recently migrated their ATproto (Bluesky) accounts to W Social.
I cannot fathom why they would pick a private enterprise whose leaders didn't even have ATproto accounts 3 months ago... and who are so open to having their users' data mined to train European AI models.
My articles on them:
: https://blog.elenarossini.com/tag/w-social/Wow. Just wow.
@_elena Thanks for the work! Davos, follow the money, the whole launching of that platform smells like investor's interests and hard lobbyism. When journalists sound like press releases: a sign that they don't have time for more or ... lobbyism. And we all know that lobbyism is one of the biggest problems inside EU structures.
Hope they will not burn too much public money.For the new accounts, we had a saying in the 1968s: "imagine, they make (war), and nobody joins in." Will
@EUCommission -
@_elena@mastodon.social @EUCommission@ec.social-network.europa.eu I really try to be hopeful, but time and time again they show themselves to be absolute ghouls.
@bovaz @_elena @EUCommission
yes, I'm speechless... -
@_elena Thanks for the work! Davos, follow the money, the whole launching of that platform smells like investor's interests and hard lobbyism. When journalists sound like press releases: a sign that they don't have time for more or ... lobbyism. And we all know that lobbyism is one of the biggest problems inside EU structures.
Hope they will not burn too much public money.For the new accounts, we had a saying in the 1968s: "imagine, they make (war), and nobody joins in." Will
@EUCommission@_elena normal non-tech people want to join that ID-
? Would they use it because of Mrs von der Leyen?The EU should give more help to the Fediverse. But somehow I'm glad that the Mastodon crew concentrates on sustainable, not forced growth.
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Dear Fedi friends,
Apologies for another toot about #WSocial but I am genuinely shaking right now.
The @EUCommission and its president Ursula von der Leyen have recently migrated their ATproto (Bluesky) accounts to W Social.
I cannot fathom why they would pick a private enterprise whose leaders didn't even have ATproto accounts 3 months ago... and who are so open to having their users' data mined to train European AI models.
My articles on them:
: https://blog.elenarossini.com/tag/w-social/Wow. Just wow.
@_elena
“Make Europe Great Again” hat.As the Polish meme goes “I know from whom you are”¹
This movement was kickstarted by Steve Bannon trying to transplant MAGA onto the EU. He found a lot of eager Polish supporters, including MPs and MEPs.
And with those come ties to Russia, as the main adversary of the EU.
1. “A ja wiem od kogo wy są”
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@passenger
perfectly said! And I find it ironic that the whole purpose of W is to "replace X" and yet I am getting so many "Muskian" vibes from them. They're even copying the idea of the Everything App and payment system
I think you're right, yeah.
It seems that what offends them about Musk doing harmful things is not the harm, but that it's not *them* doing it - or sometimes that he's doing harm incompetently.
"The proprietor of the orphan-crushing machine is crushing orphans badly. We should build our own European orphan-crushing machine, it could crush orphans at a far higher rate."
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@liaizon yes, Clearsky may not be the best designed website, but it's SO USEFUL!
@_elena @liaizon @Gina @hbons @EUCommission yeah after I posted that message, I thought "oh no what if that's something someone made by themselves"
I originally thought it was W social or Blue sky
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Dear Fedi friends,
Apologies for another toot about #WSocial but I am genuinely shaking right now.
The @EUCommission and its president Ursula von der Leyen have recently migrated their ATproto (Bluesky) accounts to W Social.
I cannot fathom why they would pick a private enterprise whose leaders didn't even have ATproto accounts 3 months ago... and who are so open to having their users' data mined to train European AI models.
My articles on them:
: https://blog.elenarossini.com/tag/w-social/Wow. Just wow.
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Dear Fedi friends,
Apologies for another toot about #WSocial but I am genuinely shaking right now.
The @EUCommission and its president Ursula von der Leyen have recently migrated their ATproto (Bluesky) accounts to W Social.
I cannot fathom why they would pick a private enterprise whose leaders didn't even have ATproto accounts 3 months ago... and who are so open to having their users' data mined to train European AI models.
My articles on them:
: https://blog.elenarossini.com/tag/w-social/Wow. Just wow.
@_elena Mastodon is not really not based in one country or one company like other social networks so putting the Mastodon in that map would be misleading (probably not what they were thinking though).
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For context, my two articles on #WSocial didn't include some explosive things I found out in my research because:
- I was given some information on background, confidentially
- I found a particular thread to be a bit distracting (aka the MEGA hats sold on a website with far right paraphernalia)Plus there are so many white lies... a pattern of misrepresentation that makes it really hard for me to trust them.
Do I have to write a THIRD article about W now? 🫠
@_elena huh, so that's what W Social is up to - I could be convinced on a network with verified real name policy but that combined with AI training, urgh!
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For context, my two articles on #WSocial didn't include some explosive things I found out in my research because:
- I was given some information on background, confidentially
- I found a particular thread to be a bit distracting (aka the MEGA hats sold on a website with far right paraphernalia)Plus there are so many white lies... a pattern of misrepresentation that makes it really hard for me to trust them.
Do I have to write a THIRD article about W now? 🫠
@_elena thanks for your service Elena, I was getting an eye on WSocial since it started and people was defending it as "the European bluesky", which always sounded weird to me.
I should've thought they were going to be this kind of shit eventually...
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Dear Fedi friends,
Apologies for another toot about #WSocial but I am genuinely shaking right now.
The @EUCommission and its president Ursula von der Leyen have recently migrated their ATproto (Bluesky) accounts to W Social.
I cannot fathom why they would pick a private enterprise whose leaders didn't even have ATproto accounts 3 months ago... and who are so open to having their users' data mined to train European AI models.
My articles on them:
: https://blog.elenarossini.com/tag/w-social/Wow. Just wow.
@_elena @EUCommission it is baffling to me that they are not using Mastodon (EU instance) as their primary communication tool.
I hear the argument a lot that Mastodon is lacking reach but the instance could literally treated like a government website where the "reach" argument wouldn't count anyways.
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Dear Fedi friends,
Apologies for another toot about #WSocial but I am genuinely shaking right now.
The @EUCommission and its president Ursula von der Leyen have recently migrated their ATproto (Bluesky) accounts to W Social.
I cannot fathom why they would pick a private enterprise whose leaders didn't even have ATproto accounts 3 months ago... and who are so open to having their users' data mined to train European AI models.
My articles on them:
: https://blog.elenarossini.com/tag/w-social/Wow. Just wow.
@_elena @EUCommission Entirely unexpected move from von der Leyen /s
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@_elena @EUCommission On the ATmosphere, I have a Eurosky account. It may be better, but they just launched a new ATproto Web interface which requires age declaration...
@bortzmeyer @_elena @EUCommission UuuuUUuuuggggh.
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For context, my two articles on #WSocial didn't include some explosive things I found out in my research because:
- I was given some information on background, confidentially
- I found a particular thread to be a bit distracting (aka the MEGA hats sold on a website with far right paraphernalia)Plus there are so many white lies... a pattern of misrepresentation that makes it really hard for me to trust them.
Do I have to write a THIRD article about W now? 🫠
@_elena hell yeah, please!
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For context, my two articles on #WSocial didn't include some explosive things I found out in my research because:
- I was given some information on background, confidentially
- I found a particular thread to be a bit distracting (aka the MEGA hats sold on a website with far right paraphernalia)Plus there are so many white lies... a pattern of misrepresentation that makes it really hard for me to trust them.
Do I have to write a THIRD article about W now? 🫠
@_elena yes you do need to keep the info coming!
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@_elena @EUCommission Entirely unexpected move from von der Leyen /s
