Elena Rossini 🌈Jun 17

#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
Show threadElena 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

Show threadSantiago ☀️🏝️Jun 17
@_elena she must be getting a cut or something, right?
Show threadRadomír ŽemličkaJun 17
@sanzky @_elena Definitely seems like it.
Show threadL'égrégore André ꕭꕬJun 17

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

Helps quell dissent against authoritarianism.

Show threadikuturso 🇪🇺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

Show threadhiphopheaven
@ikuturso @Mabande @Razemix @sanzky @_elena why would you expect evil people like her to be clueless
Jun 17 at 1:17pmMastodon for Android