Elena Rossini 🌈 (@_elena@mastodon.social)

📝 #WSocial state of the network 📣 for those who are curious about it, considering the enthusiastic endorsement by prestigious European institutions. #OpenData allows me to crunch numbers (information about Bluesky PDSs is readily available). On day 18 since its beta launch in Brussels, W Social has 7935 accounts: - 90,5% have never* published a single post - 82,2% have 0 followers - 78% follow 0 accounts (may be related to #WIdentity and its 13-step process) LMK if you find this useful

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...

Elena Rossini on GoToSocial ⁂ (@elena@aseachange.com)

[1 media attachment] Good morning Fedi friends. Is anybody curious about how the #WSocial experiment is going? You know, the private, for profit "European answer to X" endorsed by the European Commission, which is a fork of Bluesky and has quietly gone closed-source before its beta launch (à la #TruthSocial)? I've got numbers for you! Nearly two months in, W Social has almost the same number of accounts as #Eurosky... You know, the European fork of Bluesky that does NOT require government IDs to post. W Social: 23.5k accounts Eurosky: 24.8k accounts In order to post on W Social you need to provide your government ID and go through a 13-step verification process. So far 4.5k accounts are verified but only 2036 (as of this morning) have ever published a single post or reply. There is a handy website - https://pdsls.dev - that allows you to monitor the "firehose" of any ATproto-powered PDS. Inspired by @pallenberg and his awesome videos (example: https://mu.social/profile/palle.eurosky.social/post/3mskkqrrc522l) I have been comparing the live activities of the two networks. The difference is SHOCKING. W Social is largely a zombie, dormant network, with a high number of accounts that do not interact. Eurosky by contrast shows very lively activity. The screenshot I grabbed yesterday shows a side-by-side comparison of their firehose over a 27 minute period. W Social had a total of 240 events (follows, likes, posts...) whereas Eurosky registered 7596 events in the same time interval. A couple of days ago I downloaded their PDS and saw that 67,8% of their accounts have 0 follows, 0 followers and 0 posts. That's what I mean when I call it a "zombie network." W Social's CEO says they plan to start monetizing by introducing ads in 2027. WITH THESE NUMBERS?!? Sure Jan. I love how with the transparency of open data you can't really use the standard playbook of CEO hype and hubris. Because we can all see their numbers. And they are BAAAAD. I have been feeling…

Elena Rossini 🌈 (@_elena@mastodon.social)

Attached: 2 images Dear Fedi friends, Apologies for another toot about #WSocial but I am genuinely shaking right now. The @EUCommission@ec.social-network.europa.eu 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.

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

I am definitely not touching W.

Elena Rossini 🌈 (@_elena@mastodon.social)

#WSocial posted a message on their official account talking about "temporary profile issues" for "some W users." Reality (exposed in my latest article): their network was BRICKED for ALL NEW USERS who joined starting on June 22 (some 3100+ accounts out of 5000) for 7+ days. An amateur reporter and self-hosting newbie (aka me) figured out the problem and the solution, bringing attention to this matter. I had to respond: https://mu.social/profile/elenarossini.com/post/3mpig4ggkpk2q hope others chime in 🤭

W Social: Hello World!

It appears the w-social client has gone closed source. Any comment on this @janlindblad.bsky.social ? The article linked therein also poses another important question: Are all the components in W Social’s ATproto stack self-hosted in Europe? So, not just the PDS, but also the relay, AppView and moderation.

As many as 48 million Twitter accounts aren't people, says study

A big chunk of those "likes," "retweets," and "followers" lighting up your Twitter account may not be coming from human hands.

Elena Rossini 🌈 (@_elena@mastodon.social)

Do you remember the surprise announcement of a new social network in Davos this past January? Something that promised to be the "first" European social network? Its name is #WSocial and it's a fork of #Bluesky. Its founders have ties with European politicians - but there is no official involvement by the EU. You wouldn't know any of this from media reports because they all rehashed their talking points. So I wrote a post about it, dispelling some myths: https://blog.elenarossini.com/w-social-uncovered-the-reality-behind-the-hype/ #OpenWashing

FediForum | Growing the Open Social Web:<br>An Online Un-Workshop

Since the Twitter takeover by Elon Musk over three years ago, the Open Social Web has been adopted by an enthusiastic community. People world-wide are building and using open social platforms and open social protocols to better interact with others online.

How Bluesky, Alternative to X and Facebook, Is Handling Explosive Growth (Published 2024)

The fledgling social media site has been flooded with new users since the election. It hasn’t all been easy.