Ein erster Eindruck von W Social: So wird das nichts

W Social will als Gegen­ent­wurf zu Twit­ter Europa eine starke Stimme in der Sphäre der so­zia­len Medien ver­leihen. Der erste Test fällt er­nüch­ternd aus: Mit der

W Social's Beta Is Live. The Problems Didn't Wait. - Ewan’s Blog

I am definitely not touching W.

Two tests of social displacement through social media use

The present manuscript presents two tests of the hypothesis that social media use decreases social interaction, leading to decreased well-being. Study 1 used the Longitudinal Study of American Yout...

Small talk acts like social glue – here’s how to get better at it

Maybe think of small talk as a technology: a human invention for accomplishing social goals.

W Social: a Broken Ghost Town?

W Social has been experiencing major technical problems for over a week: it is effectively a ghost town, filled with thousands of new accounts that cannot use the platform.

Study: Social media probably can’t be fixed

The [structural] mechanism producing these problematic outcomes is really robust and hard to resolve."

W Social: Hello World!

Hello World! 🙂 This category is for discussing W Social, a new member on the AT-protocol federation. Launched in conjunction with the World Economic Forum in Davos on January 19, 2026, the project has sparked a lot of praise, interest, rumors and slander. In fact, our social media monitoring console registered 1 billion post views (across all the main social media) for posts mentioning #wsocial within the first week. As I write this, W Social is not yet open for business. There i...

W Social: Kurznachrichtendienst für per Ausweis verifizierte User vor Öffnung

Blueskys AT-Protokoll bietet die Basis für immer mehr soziale Dienste. Nun schickt sich W Social an, ein europäisches Netz für verifizierte User zu etablieren.

W Social is a textbook case for everything wrong with digital sovereignty

Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again, but expecting different results. This saying is attributed to the famous socialist (and theoretical physicist) Albert Einstein but actually traces back to novelist Rita Mae Brown. I have been thinking about this saying a lot lately. The reason is

W Social Isn't New. It Isn't Truly European. It Isn't Even Theirs. - Ewan’s Blog

Another rant on this “European” alternative

The Nightmare of Eternal Spring: Why Social Media Can't Survive on "Niceness" Alone - Nightflight

Pluralistic: Social media without socializing (19 Jan 2026) – Pluralistic: Daily links from Cory Doctorow

From the earliest days of social media, social media bosses have been at war with sociability. To create a social media service is to demarcate legitimate and illegitimate forms of sociability. It's a monumental act of hubris, really.

The Untold Story About W Social: Unconventional Beginnings, Strategic Pitches and Conflicting Signals

A deep dive into the origin story of W Social, an analysis of the strategic arguments they have been using to appeal to government officials, media companies and advertisers... and the discussion of conflicting signals they have been sending