As we have communicated. We did the update on Septemebr 17th. Now a question back to you @wdonthavetime.selfhosted.social Who have funded you and what is your connection to other PDS operators? What is your motive to create a site framing public information as a "data-leak" what's your motive?
W Social (@wsocial.eu)
This is not a leak. It is public information all our users have given consent when they verified
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.
W Social, public institutions and the theater of European digital sovereignty | Hacker News
And weirdly, there was never a peep about this in the press - while the W Social launch was on national news and a bunch of high-profile EU politicians immediately joined. What's going on here?
Elena Rossini 🌈 (@_elena@mastodon.social)
#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@ec.social-network.europa.eu 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@mastodon.ar.al: 🔗: https://blog.elenarossini.com/w-social-public-institutions-and-the-theater-of-european-digital-sovereignty/ #FOSS #DigitalSovereignty #BigTech
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.
Elena Rossini on GoToSocial ⁂ (@elena@aseachange.com)
[1 media attachment] #WSocial state of the network - September 15th, 2026 There is a lot of misinformation regarding W Social and how active/successful it is. So, from time to time, I'd love to share some numbers. The beauty of #opendata! The network endorsed by the #EuropeanCommission may be the darling of Brussels political circles and European media organizations (who simply rehash PR talking points). But the look behind the curtain is really troubling. As @pallenberg often says, this network is #DOA (dead on arrival). A social media graveyard, or rather, a simple moribund database. There is no way that Zeiter, Rentzhog & co. can start monetizing it in 2027. Numbers from this morning at 10:30am: - Accounts on their PDS: 37,531 - Users with verified ID: 7,492 - Users with 1+ post: 3,388 - Users who have never posted: 34,143 - Users with 0 posts and who follow 0 accounts: 26,444 - % of users with 0 posts, who follow 0 accounts: 70,4% - % of users who have never posted: 90,97% So, whenever you hear someone hyping it up, feel free to forward this post or point people to my articles at https://blog.elenarossini.com/tag/w-social/ The one thing I will give W credit for though is how good they are at lobbying and hyping up their image. While this playbook may have worked in the past, not anymore. On an open network, with open data, it's child's play to expose misrepresentations and show the real, raw data. sources: pdsls.dev, clearsky.app, atproto.at and the csv of their full PDS that I download daily 💁♀️
W Social – Public Beta Launch
Have you been Wned: Has W Social made your personal information public?
Check if W Social has made your personal information public.
Free Our Feeds
Social media is broken: controlled by a handful of billionaires who shape what people see, say, and believe. These platforms profit from division, exploit user data, and lock people into closed systems.
Facebook Data Privacy Scandal: A Cheat Sheet - TechRepublic
Read about the saga of Facebook's failures in ensuring privacy for user data, including how it relates to Cambridge Analytica, the GDPR, the Brexit campaign, and the 2016 US presidential election.
Public Service Social Media as a Democratic Safeguard | TechPolicy.Press
Christine Galvagna proposes an EU fund to support decentralized, public service focused social media networks to protect digital rights and democracy.
FR#166 – No Change
Many people in Europe see the open social web as a path to digital sovereignty. This week demonstrated a problem: the assumption that European governments actually want to be sovereign.
Back at #AtmosphereConf @transrights.northsky.social demoed a very raw alpha of our private data solution Stratos. I'm happy to say that we are ready for a public Alpha! To level the playing field, it supports space *and* non-space PDS users so you can talk privately together clubhouse.atverkackt.de
I understand perfectly well. My questions concern the people behind the flood of content about W since we launched our beta in June. Who are they? Who funds them? What other financial interests might they have? And why is the site anonymous? Those are reasonable questions about transparency.
As we have communicated. We did the update on Septemebr 17th. Now a question back to you @wdonthavetime.selfhosted.social Who have funded you and what is your connection to other PDS operators? What is your motive to create a site framing public information as a "data-leak" what's your motive?
