Mastodawn

Frank Mulder Jun 17

Elena Rossini 🌈

#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:

🔗: https://blog.elenarossini.com/w-social-public-institutions-and-the-theater-of-european-digital-sovereignty/

#FOSS #DigitalSovereignty #BigTech

W Social, Public Institutions and the Theater of European Digital Sovereignty

European public institutions are betting big on digital sovereignty and open source software. And yet they recently moved their Bluesky accounts to W Social, a private, for profit network owned by Swedish entrepreneurs that has quietly gone closed-source.

Elena Rossini

Elena Rossini 🌈Jun 17

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.

🔗 : https://web.archive.org/web/20260617083436/https://www.linkedin.com/posts/rentzhog_kind-of-cool-to-see-ursula-von-der-leyen-ugcPost-7472769475885461504-hwct/

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.

#privacy #SurveillanceCapitalism #EUBigTech

Elena Rossini 🌈Jun 17

Latest SCOOP on #WSocial:

The European Commission Spokesperson for tech sovereignty Thomas Reigner just migrated his ATproto account from Bluesky (open source) to W Social (closed-source). How ironic!

🔗 : https://clearsky.app/thomasregnier.ec.europa.eu/profile

And now excuse me as I go pick up my child from daycare. I'll be intermittently online for the rest of the day. Thank you for all your boosts and comments!

#DigitalSovereignty #OpenWashing #EuropeWashing #SovereigntyWashing

ClearSky

ClearSky - Bringing information closer to you

sloth_hug_planet

@_elena Why not eurosky? Bonkers

🫧 Social coding commons Jun 17

@_elena @aral @EUCommission

Unbelievable, and really disheartening. What a farce. I just commented yesterday that "sovereignty" had become this new fad, a business buzzword to indicate where the low-hanging revenue is for the big enterprises, like earlier the hollow phrase of "digital transformation" (digital transformation for the purpose of what?). This more anecdotal proof that this is indeed the case..

https://social.coop/@smallcircles/116759881586257835

Maxi 12x 💉Jun 17

@smallcircles @_elena You can find two excellent discussions of the term "digital sovereignty" in these threads (beware, it’s in German):

https://chaos.social/@stk/116711117194599688

🫧 Social coding commons Jun 17

@frumble thank you!

@_elena for fuck sake they won't ever learn!

Yesterday, I watched this video https://videos.assemblee-nationale.fr/video.18843051_69fb3ac192f70.vulnerabilites-systemiques-dans-le-secteur-du-numerique--table-ronde-sur-le-logiciel-libre-6-mai-2026 with @renchap where he explained how public administrations just want an access to the service, not operate it and it grinds my gear so fuckin much

Vulnérabilités systémiques dans le secteur du numérique : Table ronde sur le logiciel libre - Mercredi 6 mai 2026

- Table ronde, ouverte à la presse, sur le logiciel libre réunissant : - M. Renaud Chaput, directeur technique de Mastodon - MM. Loïc Dayot, membre du conseil d’administration de l’April, et Étienne Gonnu, chargé de mission affaires publiques - M. Pierre-Yves Gosset, coordinateur des services numériques de Framasoft - M. Nicolas Vivant, fondateur de France Numérique libre, directeur de la stratégie et de la culture numériques de la commune d’Echirolles

videos.assemblee-nationale.fr

Christian Quest 🌍Jun 17

@baalroga @_elena @renchap

To learn you need to understand.

They will, but the hard way, and too late.

@cquest I think that if they couldn't learn with Musk buying twitter, they won't ever learn

Lefteris T.Jun 17

@_elena do you think you can make some posts on Reddit too? Buyfromeu sub doesn't seem like it's informed about it

Santiago ☀️🏝️Jun 17

@_elena she must be getting a cut or something, right?

Radomír Žemlička Jun 17

@sanzky @_elena Definitely seems like it.

L'égrégore André ꕭꕬ Jun 17

@Razemix @sanzky Likely not a direct cut, but a sense of opportunity. As @_elena said: mandatory ID checks.

Helps quell dissent against authoritarianism.

ikuturso 🇪🇺Jun 17

@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.

@Razemix @sanzky @_elena

Maxi 12x 💉Jun 17

@ikuturso @Mabande @Razemix @sanzky @_elena Kanzlerin Merkel has had a regular podcast which basically nobody has listened to/watched besides the journalists. There is hope it’s the same with Ursel.

hiphopheaven Jun 17

@ikuturso @Mabande @Razemix @sanzky @_elena why would you expect evil people like her to be clueless

eestileib (she/hers)Jun 17

@ikuturso @Mabande @Razemix @sanzky @_elena

This is evil not stupidity.

derZeitreiser 🇪🇺🇩🇪🇯🇵🇬🇧Jun 17

@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

Jürgen Hubert Jun 17

@derZeitreiser @sanzky @_elena

Her getting her current job was one of the bigger political #WTF moments of the previous decade.

☭ Father Hardstone Jun 17

@derZeitreiser @sanzky @_elena Is she the same 🇩🇪 politician that had some 'tiff' with #rammstein
??! or was it somebody with a similar surname ??!

derZeitreiser 🇪🇺🇩🇪🇯🇵🇬🇧Jun 17

@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.

@derZeitreiser @harib_murshidi @sanzky @_elena her past really makes this newest endeavor seem deeply suspect. its gonna probably just turn out to be a way to collect and sell EU citizen data lol

Disisdeguey🍉🔻PalestineAction🇵🇸1d ago

@sanzky @_elena My first thought always with her. She must get something. Read also Google and her work to protect them.

@_elena even without being into the background of that topic right now, everything in me screams “this is wrong” 😭

streetcoder Jun 17

@_elena OK, we should send some letters and organise some public "demonstration" to show that we already have a much better alternative in place.

Otherwise she and the other politicians will never know that the Fediverse is already relevant and is much more democratic and digitally independent than Bluesky/W Social could ever be.

Or maybe they already know and it's all due to lobby, but than it would be even more important.

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.

streetcoder Jun 17

@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.

You can’t sell the fediverse globally with a single brand. That has been attempted, and it has failed. People don’t grok it. It’s time to stop trying to make them, and to try something else. Something more anarchist in nature.

I am not saying “only promote the fediverse in one region”. I am saying start an instance and promote it to one region, to the exclusion of other instances. Someone else can start a diferet instance and promote it to a different region.

Just don’t call amy of them “Mastodon” or “Masto-whatever”. Pick independent names that appeal to different groups, and sell them on specific websites made with them in mind, and let ActivityPub worry about the rest. That way they don’t haave to know whaat a Mastodon is,oran instance is, or whaat a communication protocol is.They just have to sign up to a social site that is targetes at their interests.

streetcoder Jun 17

@kichae No why should I start another instance when they already have one. For whom?

I just want the EU Commission to use it and talk about it https://ec.social-network.europa.eu

But Ursula von der Leyen is not active there. Don't know if she even tried and why not?

In Germany we already have:

For federal authorities https://social.bund.de

For the state I'm living https://nrw.social

Instances for cities e.g. https://bonn.social

VIP accounts with relevance https://netzbegruenung.de/blog/das-ende-der-dominanz-microblogging-wandel-in-deutschland-in-zahlen/

European Commission on Mastodon

Mastodon instance managed by the European Commission.

Mastodon hosted on ec.social-network.europa.eu

streetcoder Jun 17

@kichae It's not me not talking and not promoting the instances I use.

It seems Ursula von der Leyen prefers W Social over Mastodon. I want to know why? Because she could have already used the EU Commission instance she is working for.

And why is W Social so important for her that it's announced during G7? She is a representative and her words have a lot of power.

I assume she has done her research on alternatives before dropping things on important meetings. Why was Mastodon not an option?

Loohoosaher Jun 17

@_elena please, my European friends, you mustn't comply.

F4GRX SÃ©bastien Jun 17

@hwll @_elena comply with what? A new twitter appears. Oh ok. Anyways.

Loohoosaher Jun 17

@f4grx you're good

@_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.

David Culley Jun 17

@t3rcermillenium https://hachyderm.io/@davidculley/116766485335101563

David Culley (@[email protected])

@[email protected] @[email protected] The social network W is presumably named after the 1920 novel "We". "We" basically founded the dystopia genre and predates even 1984 and Brave New World, and is said to have influenced both. "W" requires you to provide your ID and "We" is all about a panopticon. The CEO of W wore a red "Make Europe Great Again" cap, which can only be read as dogwhistle for European fascism. Now they say they wouldn't have problems hosting even Alice Weidel. That entire network and its CEO are toxic as hell, from the beginning and its introduction at Davos. It checks out that Ursula von der Leyen and other members of the EU already created their accounts there when they don't give a fuck about Mastodon. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/We_(novel)

Hachyderm.io

@_elena It is coming to the UK. They say for new accounts #ageverification will be necessary. Old accounts will become valuable, think twice before closing them. Old account credentials will become valuable too I should think. Set up 2FA. #privacy

DataKnightmare Jun 17

I am SO fed up, with this crook the EU has only gone backwards.

bazkie 👩🏼‍💻 bitplanes 🎵Jun 17

@_elena neoliberals gonna neoliberal. not a surprise at all

oh and she's also a zionist so yeah. utterly horrible person all around

@_elena this is just wild!

There have to be kickbacks or I can't explain it... what a saga

eestileib (she/hers)Jun 17

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.

Leander Lindahl Jun 17

@_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?

https://folkdata.se/en/plus-one/

william ⁂ maggos Jun 17

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 :p

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.

David Culley Jun 17

@_elena @aral Is that even legal for a government official who is supposed to be in service of the people and represent their interests, to advertise for the product of a for-profit company? I'm pretty sure that's against the law.

Maybe @noybeu can do something?

@_elena I never really trusted Ursula van der Leyen since she suggested that anyone who knows how to change a dns server is a pedophile.
It was during her time as German family minister where a proposed dns block was criticized by experts that it won’t work, since people could just change dns when she stated something similar to that. She was very stubborn to not listen to IT experts.
Only source I could find:

https://netzpolitik.org/2014/fuenf-jahre-nach-zensursula-stellt-die-bundesregierung-fest-loeschen-statt-sperren-funktioniert/

Fünf Jahre nach Zensursula stellt die Bundesregierung fest: Löschen statt Sperren funktioniert!

Fast alle Internet-Inhalte mit „Kinderpornografie“ lassen sich zeitnah und problemlos löschen. Das belegt auch der aktuelle Bericht der Bundesregierung mit Statistiken. Damit geben Bundeskriminalamt und Regierung den Kritikern von Internet-Zensur in allen Punkten recht.

netzpolitik.org

SetouchiExplorer

@_elena Somehow, I'm not surprised... The EU commission likes the corporate world, they just prefer the European one... Open source is for "those leftist hippies", not for respectable right-wing people. Capitalism helps capitalism, always.

@_elena reminds me of the #Luca app that was pitched at the start of #Covid in Germany: The app was marketed heavily by #Smudo, frontman of a famous band here. The company and Smudo seemed very undiscerning to criticism about its closed-source nature (now seems to be #OpenSource). The hole practice seemed shady.

My conclusion then was maybe Smudo / #Fanta4 had good intentions, allowing concerts, helping people. But didn't get OpenSource + were used by a company. Maybe similar w. #VonDerLeyen...

Souverain 🛡️Jun 17

@_elena @EUCommission @aral

PaulaToThePeople 😷Jun 17

Shame on you @EUCommission!

Tanks for your work @_elena & @aral!

Troed Sångberg Jun 17

Seems to be regular old #corruption at @EUCommission

EU institutions need to get better at saying no to corporate lobbyists.

FLOSSbOxIN Jun 18

@troed @_elena @EUCommission @aral
Yes Minister
Yes Prime Minister

ikuturso 🇪🇺Jun 17

@_elena them going closed source isn't that surprising and something Bluesky has chosen to make possible for themselves and others from the beginning via their licensing choices that stand in stark contrast to Mastodon's.

Personally I don't really find Eurosky all that much better because they're only contributing to the overall Bluesky ecosystem anyway and their messaging and how they are set up doesn't really make me very confident about how European they are either.

@EUCommission @aral

@_elena I read your article, pretty nice investigation are you in ! - in fact I keeping reading your posts also the info and adventures from Gina too.

As always politician and big guys trying to use the miss information to achieve their stupid stuffs - It's funny and curious what EU commission statement publishes vs reality !

They think they can hide it by adding # "commented" character or as we noted here by deletion or setting as private an entire project - no cool no good no sovereignty

@_elena @EUCommission @aral

Saito Network Jun 17

@_elena @EUCommission @aral

Well, well, well... Who would have thought?

The good old EU bait and switch 😩

Furbland's Very Value = 71 Account™Jun 17

@_elena @EUCommission @aral wait, it's CLOSED FUCKING SOURCE

Furbland's Very Value = 71 Account™Jun 17

@_elena @EUCommission @aral genuinely losing my shit right now. even fucking BLUESKY is open source

DFX4509B (Joshua Mason)Jun 18

@_elena @aral @EUCommission @GroupNebula563 Bsky could go closed-source if either they wanted to or when they need to find some way to make profit once their VC funding runs out.

ActivityPub meanwhile AFAIK is shielded from that to some degree.

Tanguy ⧓ Herrmann Jun 17

@_elena @EUCommission @aral what a shame.

@_elena @EUCommission @aral This is worrisome. Just like OOXML is not really a good format for the European open office initiative. The lobbyists are probably moving in the background.