#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.
@_elena “for profit” is not the same as “evil.” If we want an open-source future, it has to be economically sustainable. Big Tech gets paid with our personal data; if you want the same level of service without handing over data, someone still has to pay for it. There’s no such thing as a free lunch.
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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.
They are completely owned by the tech bros.
Kaja Kallas is hanging out with Peter Thiel at his Nazi Dialog camp, of course they want to surveill us.
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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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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 @EUCommission it's such a betrayal.
🥺
They can't be bothered to #plusOne the open free democratic social web. But they can cuddle up with weird business people in Davos? What's the point in believing in our representatives like von der Leyen anymore? Who advices them?
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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.
welcome to the left.
in the US, we have the Democrats who pretend to want all the good things and have great PR but somehow never seem to fight hard enough when it matters or provide what the people really need and want. they are bought off. I'm sure this exists in other countries too but at least you guys have universal health care
anyway I think that game is getting played in the tech world too. bluesky etc. the same excuses get made, while they retain power and profit.
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@sanzky @_elena It's Ursula von der Leyen. Here in Germany, she epitomizes - perhaps more than anyone else - a combination of corruption and utter incompetence.
She has never won a single popular vote anywhere - quite the opposite: she lost constituencies that had previously been considered safe seats for her party - and has built her entire career exclusively on her corrupt networks, while scandals would always catch up with her just in the nick of time, before she was promoted to the next post@derZeitreiser @sanzky @_elena Is she the same
politician that had some 'tiff' with #rammstein
??! or was it somebody with a similar surname ??!
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@derZeitreiser @sanzky @_elena Is she the same
politician that had some 'tiff' with #rammstein
??! or was it somebody with a similar surname ??!@harib_murshidi @sanzky @_elena Yep. Same politican who censor as Federal Minister for Family Affairs th Rammstein Album „Liebe ist für alle da“.
Censoring something is her main solution to ... literally everything.
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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 We are starving
No f00d n0 support and d0nations have st0pped
My children are hungry and we have n0thing to feed them
Any help can save live us
https://chuffed.org/project/178829
#WorldCup #WorldCup2026 #Ireland #Belfast #España #CaboVerde #Cucurella #France #Arcom #Gavi #Donate # -
#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:
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@_elena @themipper When I first heard about #wsocial, I had high hopes of a genuine European, privacy-preserving, open source solution.
Fool me.
Definitely won’t be joining.
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@_elena share what though?
@lefteristrip23 @_elena Share this link to the post on reddit: https://mastodon.social/@_elena/116764267869694589, or the link to the blogpost.
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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.
-
#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
*dons tin foil hat*When something this fishy is going on you can be sure that a lot of money is changing hands and a "not-for-public-knowledge" agenda is being implemented behind the scenes.
IMO the answers to your top 3 questions are probably something like:
1) shhh of course but I won't acknowledge that to you.2) irrelevant--the image of being "the"
European alternative is the important thing, and besides (shhh) some components need to be hosted in places where certain inconvenient EU privacy laws don't apply, and3) Because we wouldn't be able to manipulate it or any other open source platform to our goals.
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@_elena
*dons tin foil hat*When something this fishy is going on you can be sure that a lot of money is changing hands and a "not-for-public-knowledge" agenda is being implemented behind the scenes.
IMO the answers to your top 3 questions are probably something like:
1) shhh of course but I won't acknowledge that to you.2) irrelevant--the image of being "the"
European alternative is the important thing, and besides (shhh) some components need to be hosted in places where certain inconvenient EU privacy laws don't apply, and3) Because we wouldn't be able to manipulate it or any other open source platform to our goals.
@leadore @_elena @EUCommission No tin-foil hat necessary. It’s just institutional corruption (lobbying and revolving doors).
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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
And there's more sad news on this trap
@EUCommission @aral
@rysiek -
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.
@kichae We shouldn't push into a specific region. The internet is global and so is the Fediverse. Services are not evil because they are from a specific country.
But the whole world would be to much for one instance. Even more if we want to promote the other use cases like video, shorts, photos, podcasts, events, blogs, sport tracks, books and so on too.
The EU should help setting up instances as public infrastructure and start promoting the ones they already have, instead of lobby marketing.
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@_elena
And there's more sad news on this trap
@EUCommission @aral
@rysiek@XavCC @_elena @EUCommission @aral sigh.
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@leadore @_elena @EUCommission No tin-foil hat necessary. It’s just institutional corruption (lobbying and revolving doors).
@aral @leadore @_elena @EUCommission
"You don't need a formal conspiracy when interests converge. These people went to the same universities, they're on the same boards of directors, they're in the same country clubs, they have like interests, they don't need to call a meeting, they know what's good for them and they're getting it." - George Carlin
Also:
"It's a large club, and you're not invited." -George Carlin
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@_elena oh no, what a surprise. I really try to make a surprised face now. They must have good marketing if the even outrun Eurosky, which obviously has Euro in its name. Honestly van der Leyen was never about independence etc. @EUCommission @aral
@bjoern @_elena @EUCommission @aral
On the other hand, "Eurosky" sounds like off-brand Bluesky. I've been intentionally not reading about it for months now, and when I finally did do basic googling today, was surprised by their pitch.
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F folfdk@helvede.net shared this topic
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@_elena “for profit” is not the same as “evil.” If we want an open-source future, it has to be economically sustainable. Big Tech gets paid with our personal data; if you want the same level of service without handing over data, someone still has to pay for it. There’s no such thing as a free lunch.
Thermophilus For profit is definitionally exploitative – the profits are labour value withheld from workers – so, whether it’s evil or not depends on whether or not it’s evil to exploit people.
You can do commerce without profit. You can invest in your organization without profit. In fact, business expenses are explicitly not counted as profits. Only money kept by the ownership are.
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