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 threadstreetcoderJun 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.

Show threadKichaeJun 17

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.

Show threadstreetcoder

@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.

Jun 17 at 6:03pmWeb
Show threadKichaeJun 17

streetcoder

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.

Show threadstreetcoderJun 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
Show threadstreetcoderJun 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?