#Tag · Bonfire 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 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

Elena Rossini

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.

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Elena Rossini

Elena Rossini ⁂

@_elena@mastodon.social replied · 2 days ago

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

Kind of cool to see Ursula von der Leyen warming up the audience for our W launch tomorrow. 😉 Posted between her G7 meetings on Instagram (today). Perfect timing. | Ingmar Rentzhog

Kind of cool to see Ursula von der Leyen warming up the audience for our W launch tomorrow. 😉 Posted between her G7 meetings on Instagram (today). Perfect timing.