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  4. Want an update on the Weekend at Bernie’s clown show that is W Social?

Want an update on the Weekend at Bernie’s clown show that is W Social?

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  • aral@mastodon.ar.al aral@mastodon.ar.al

    Want an update on the Weekend at Bernie’s clown show that is W Social? No? Me neither, but here we are…

    So before we start, let’s recount the whole dystopian raison d’être of these Davosian clowns: to be a EU®opean “alternative to X” that ­– cue the 1984 theme tune – verifies your identity to ensure that only “real people” are on it (real is what your government says it is).

    Now, let’s fast forward to last week, when TikTok set up an account on W Social.

    That’s nice, isn’t it? One surveillance capitalist lending their support to another? Kumbaya and all that. The only problem? (spoiler alert), it wasn’t TikTok. (Shocking, I know.)

    The account, Identity Verified™ by EU X – sorry, W Social, was a spam account and immediately labelled as such by BlueSky moderators. (Don’t you love a “decentralised” system where a post on an EU server, accessed from another EU server, is moderated by our benevolent Big Brother in Trumpland, by the way? I know it just warms the cockles of my heart. So much sovereignty! But I digress…)

    So @_elena calls them out (someone has to while @EUCommission is busy preparing for their honeymoon after expressing their undying devotion to W Social recently on every social platform¹):

    https://mu.social/profile/elenarossini.com/post/3mqob7shxks2t

    Anna Zeiter – W CEO, Stanford’s own, and ex-eBay executive (such sovereignty) – replies with this absolute zinger:

    > “We are just verifying if some [sic] is a human and at least 18 years old. Users are then free to choose their own user name. This (human) user apparently chose the name TikTok.“ (https://mu.social/profile/anna.wsocial.eu/post/3mqoepm7m2k2z)

    Read that as many times as you like until it really sinks in.

    These incompetent clowns (dangerous competent clowns but incompetent clowns nevertheless) make people go through a ridiculous 13-step identity verification stage² and then… umm… you get to choose whatever identity you want.

    🤡🤡🤡

    Don’t get me wrong, I’m glad they’re incompetent. It would be worse if they were competent, given they’re a closed-source venture-capital-funded startup determined to prove your identity.

    > “Yes we have a business model, it’s not a philanthropy, we are not a B corp, we actually want to make money.” – Anna Zeiter³

    But, what I want to know is this: Why has @EUCommission embraced a proprietary, closed-source, corporate ghost town with 14,300 accounts, 90% of which have not posted even once (in other words, with only 1,259 accounts that have ever posted)⁴ when there is a thriving non-corporate fediverse with millions of active people on it.

    Could it have anything to do with identity verification, surveillance, and control?

    And if so, why can’t they even get that right?

    Looking forward to seeing how long @EUCommission can drag the corpse of W Social around before people realise it’s dead.

    Oh, and how does this make the whole “European alternatives” thing look? Not good. Not because there aren’t excellent European alternatives but because the folks at the commission are either too clueless or too corrupt to recognise and support them.

    So, yeah, how’s your Monday going?

    ¹ e.g., https://mastodon.ar.al/@aral/116770333053823108, etc.

    ² https://aseachange.com/@elena/statuses/01KVD55YBYVM3B46ACQTECDMT2

    ³ https://blog.elenarossini.com/the-untold-story-about-w-social-unconventional-beginnings-strategic-pitches-conflicting-signals/ (from the YouTube video that they since deleted. Nice transparency there, clowns.)

    ⁴ Run this script in Node 18+ to reproduce the numbers from their PDS yourself: https://codeberg.org/aral/gists/src/branch/main/wsocial-pds-stats.js Also see https://blog.elenarossini.com/w-social-a-broken-ghost-town/ and https://blog.elenarossini.com/w-social-fictional-metrics-and-the-beauty-of-open-data/

    #WSocial #EU #sovereignty #socialMedia #socialNetworking #mastodon #fediverse #activityPub #ATProto #startups #EUCommission

    androcat@toot.cat Questo utente è esterno a questo forum
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    androcat@toot.cat
    scritto su ultima modifica di
    #4

    @aral @_elena @EUCommission

    Nothing says digital sovereignty like building a EU for-profit surveillance torment nexus.

    aral@mastodon.ar.al _elena@mastodon.social 2 Risposte Ultima Risposta
    0
    • aral@mastodon.ar.al aral@mastodon.ar.al

      Want an update on the Weekend at Bernie’s clown show that is W Social? No? Me neither, but here we are…

      So before we start, let’s recount the whole dystopian raison d’être of these Davosian clowns: to be a EU®opean “alternative to X” that ­– cue the 1984 theme tune – verifies your identity to ensure that only “real people” are on it (real is what your government says it is).

      Now, let’s fast forward to last week, when TikTok set up an account on W Social.

      That’s nice, isn’t it? One surveillance capitalist lending their support to another? Kumbaya and all that. The only problem? (spoiler alert), it wasn’t TikTok. (Shocking, I know.)

      The account, Identity Verified™ by EU X – sorry, W Social, was a spam account and immediately labelled as such by BlueSky moderators. (Don’t you love a “decentralised” system where a post on an EU server, accessed from another EU server, is moderated by our benevolent Big Brother in Trumpland, by the way? I know it just warms the cockles of my heart. So much sovereignty! But I digress…)

      So @_elena calls them out (someone has to while @EUCommission is busy preparing for their honeymoon after expressing their undying devotion to W Social recently on every social platform¹):

      https://mu.social/profile/elenarossini.com/post/3mqob7shxks2t

      Anna Zeiter – W CEO, Stanford’s own, and ex-eBay executive (such sovereignty) – replies with this absolute zinger:

      > “We are just verifying if some [sic] is a human and at least 18 years old. Users are then free to choose their own user name. This (human) user apparently chose the name TikTok.“ (https://mu.social/profile/anna.wsocial.eu/post/3mqoepm7m2k2z)

      Read that as many times as you like until it really sinks in.

      These incompetent clowns (dangerous competent clowns but incompetent clowns nevertheless) make people go through a ridiculous 13-step identity verification stage² and then… umm… you get to choose whatever identity you want.

      🤡🤡🤡

      Don’t get me wrong, I’m glad they’re incompetent. It would be worse if they were competent, given they’re a closed-source venture-capital-funded startup determined to prove your identity.

      > “Yes we have a business model, it’s not a philanthropy, we are not a B corp, we actually want to make money.” – Anna Zeiter³

      But, what I want to know is this: Why has @EUCommission embraced a proprietary, closed-source, corporate ghost town with 14,300 accounts, 90% of which have not posted even once (in other words, with only 1,259 accounts that have ever posted)⁴ when there is a thriving non-corporate fediverse with millions of active people on it.

      Could it have anything to do with identity verification, surveillance, and control?

      And if so, why can’t they even get that right?

      Looking forward to seeing how long @EUCommission can drag the corpse of W Social around before people realise it’s dead.

      Oh, and how does this make the whole “European alternatives” thing look? Not good. Not because there aren’t excellent European alternatives but because the folks at the commission are either too clueless or too corrupt to recognise and support them.

      So, yeah, how’s your Monday going?

      ¹ e.g., https://mastodon.ar.al/@aral/116770333053823108, etc.

      ² https://aseachange.com/@elena/statuses/01KVD55YBYVM3B46ACQTECDMT2

      ³ https://blog.elenarossini.com/the-untold-story-about-w-social-unconventional-beginnings-strategic-pitches-conflicting-signals/ (from the YouTube video that they since deleted. Nice transparency there, clowns.)

      ⁴ Run this script in Node 18+ to reproduce the numbers from their PDS yourself: https://codeberg.org/aral/gists/src/branch/main/wsocial-pds-stats.js Also see https://blog.elenarossini.com/w-social-a-broken-ghost-town/ and https://blog.elenarossini.com/w-social-fictional-metrics-and-the-beauty-of-open-data/

      #WSocial #EU #sovereignty #socialMedia #socialNetworking #mastodon #fediverse #activityPub #ATProto #startups #EUCommission

      thamunsta@mastodon.nervesocket.com Questo utente è esterno a questo forum
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      thamunsta@mastodon.nervesocket.com
      scritto su ultima modifica di
      #5

      @aral that escalated quickly. I figured based on the spam it wouldn't be a stellar platform but I also didn't think it would be this bad

      1 Risposta Ultima Risposta
      0
      • aral@mastodon.ar.al aral@mastodon.ar.al

        Want an update on the Weekend at Bernie’s clown show that is W Social? No? Me neither, but here we are…

        So before we start, let’s recount the whole dystopian raison d’être of these Davosian clowns: to be a EU®opean “alternative to X” that ­– cue the 1984 theme tune – verifies your identity to ensure that only “real people” are on it (real is what your government says it is).

        Now, let’s fast forward to last week, when TikTok set up an account on W Social.

        That’s nice, isn’t it? One surveillance capitalist lending their support to another? Kumbaya and all that. The only problem? (spoiler alert), it wasn’t TikTok. (Shocking, I know.)

        The account, Identity Verified™ by EU X – sorry, W Social, was a spam account and immediately labelled as such by BlueSky moderators. (Don’t you love a “decentralised” system where a post on an EU server, accessed from another EU server, is moderated by our benevolent Big Brother in Trumpland, by the way? I know it just warms the cockles of my heart. So much sovereignty! But I digress…)

        So @_elena calls them out (someone has to while @EUCommission is busy preparing for their honeymoon after expressing their undying devotion to W Social recently on every social platform¹):

        https://mu.social/profile/elenarossini.com/post/3mqob7shxks2t

        Anna Zeiter – W CEO, Stanford’s own, and ex-eBay executive (such sovereignty) – replies with this absolute zinger:

        > “We are just verifying if some [sic] is a human and at least 18 years old. Users are then free to choose their own user name. This (human) user apparently chose the name TikTok.“ (https://mu.social/profile/anna.wsocial.eu/post/3mqoepm7m2k2z)

        Read that as many times as you like until it really sinks in.

        These incompetent clowns (dangerous competent clowns but incompetent clowns nevertheless) make people go through a ridiculous 13-step identity verification stage² and then… umm… you get to choose whatever identity you want.

        🤡🤡🤡

        Don’t get me wrong, I’m glad they’re incompetent. It would be worse if they were competent, given they’re a closed-source venture-capital-funded startup determined to prove your identity.

        > “Yes we have a business model, it’s not a philanthropy, we are not a B corp, we actually want to make money.” – Anna Zeiter³

        But, what I want to know is this: Why has @EUCommission embraced a proprietary, closed-source, corporate ghost town with 14,300 accounts, 90% of which have not posted even once (in other words, with only 1,259 accounts that have ever posted)⁴ when there is a thriving non-corporate fediverse with millions of active people on it.

        Could it have anything to do with identity verification, surveillance, and control?

        And if so, why can’t they even get that right?

        Looking forward to seeing how long @EUCommission can drag the corpse of W Social around before people realise it’s dead.

        Oh, and how does this make the whole “European alternatives” thing look? Not good. Not because there aren’t excellent European alternatives but because the folks at the commission are either too clueless or too corrupt to recognise and support them.

        So, yeah, how’s your Monday going?

        ¹ e.g., https://mastodon.ar.al/@aral/116770333053823108, etc.

        ² https://aseachange.com/@elena/statuses/01KVD55YBYVM3B46ACQTECDMT2

        ³ https://blog.elenarossini.com/the-untold-story-about-w-social-unconventional-beginnings-strategic-pitches-conflicting-signals/ (from the YouTube video that they since deleted. Nice transparency there, clowns.)

        ⁴ Run this script in Node 18+ to reproduce the numbers from their PDS yourself: https://codeberg.org/aral/gists/src/branch/main/wsocial-pds-stats.js Also see https://blog.elenarossini.com/w-social-a-broken-ghost-town/ and https://blog.elenarossini.com/w-social-fictional-metrics-and-the-beauty-of-open-data/

        #WSocial #EU #sovereignty #socialMedia #socialNetworking #mastodon #fediverse #activityPub #ATProto #startups #EUCommission

        koosswart@mastodon.social Questo utente è esterno a questo forum
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        koosswart@mastodon.social
        scritto su ultima modifica di
        #6

        @aral @_elena @EUCommission
        I don't think copying the US is going to give us "sovereignty" anyway.
        I'm doing something totally different which works a lot better.
        EC visited my website a few times in 2014 and 2015.
        No open support unfortunately.

        1 Risposta Ultima Risposta
        0
        • aral@mastodon.ar.al aral@mastodon.ar.al

          Want an update on the Weekend at Bernie’s clown show that is W Social? No? Me neither, but here we are…

          So before we start, let’s recount the whole dystopian raison d’être of these Davosian clowns: to be a EU®opean “alternative to X” that ­– cue the 1984 theme tune – verifies your identity to ensure that only “real people” are on it (real is what your government says it is).

          Now, let’s fast forward to last week, when TikTok set up an account on W Social.

          That’s nice, isn’t it? One surveillance capitalist lending their support to another? Kumbaya and all that. The only problem? (spoiler alert), it wasn’t TikTok. (Shocking, I know.)

          The account, Identity Verified™ by EU X – sorry, W Social, was a spam account and immediately labelled as such by BlueSky moderators. (Don’t you love a “decentralised” system where a post on an EU server, accessed from another EU server, is moderated by our benevolent Big Brother in Trumpland, by the way? I know it just warms the cockles of my heart. So much sovereignty! But I digress…)

          So @_elena calls them out (someone has to while @EUCommission is busy preparing for their honeymoon after expressing their undying devotion to W Social recently on every social platform¹):

          https://mu.social/profile/elenarossini.com/post/3mqob7shxks2t

          Anna Zeiter – W CEO, Stanford’s own, and ex-eBay executive (such sovereignty) – replies with this absolute zinger:

          > “We are just verifying if some [sic] is a human and at least 18 years old. Users are then free to choose their own user name. This (human) user apparently chose the name TikTok.“ (https://mu.social/profile/anna.wsocial.eu/post/3mqoepm7m2k2z)

          Read that as many times as you like until it really sinks in.

          These incompetent clowns (dangerous competent clowns but incompetent clowns nevertheless) make people go through a ridiculous 13-step identity verification stage² and then… umm… you get to choose whatever identity you want.

          🤡🤡🤡

          Don’t get me wrong, I’m glad they’re incompetent. It would be worse if they were competent, given they’re a closed-source venture-capital-funded startup determined to prove your identity.

          > “Yes we have a business model, it’s not a philanthropy, we are not a B corp, we actually want to make money.” – Anna Zeiter³

          But, what I want to know is this: Why has @EUCommission embraced a proprietary, closed-source, corporate ghost town with 14,300 accounts, 90% of which have not posted even once (in other words, with only 1,259 accounts that have ever posted)⁴ when there is a thriving non-corporate fediverse with millions of active people on it.

          Could it have anything to do with identity verification, surveillance, and control?

          And if so, why can’t they even get that right?

          Looking forward to seeing how long @EUCommission can drag the corpse of W Social around before people realise it’s dead.

          Oh, and how does this make the whole “European alternatives” thing look? Not good. Not because there aren’t excellent European alternatives but because the folks at the commission are either too clueless or too corrupt to recognise and support them.

          So, yeah, how’s your Monday going?

          ¹ e.g., https://mastodon.ar.al/@aral/116770333053823108, etc.

          ² https://aseachange.com/@elena/statuses/01KVD55YBYVM3B46ACQTECDMT2

          ³ https://blog.elenarossini.com/the-untold-story-about-w-social-unconventional-beginnings-strategic-pitches-conflicting-signals/ (from the YouTube video that they since deleted. Nice transparency there, clowns.)

          ⁴ Run this script in Node 18+ to reproduce the numbers from their PDS yourself: https://codeberg.org/aral/gists/src/branch/main/wsocial-pds-stats.js Also see https://blog.elenarossini.com/w-social-a-broken-ghost-town/ and https://blog.elenarossini.com/w-social-fictional-metrics-and-the-beauty-of-open-data/

          #WSocial #EU #sovereignty #socialMedia #socialNetworking #mastodon #fediverse #activityPub #ATProto #startups #EUCommission

          aleksei@social.fakeplastictrees.ee Questo utente è esterno a questo forum
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          aleksei@social.fakeplastictrees.ee
          scritto su ultima modifica di
          #7

          @aral @_elena @EUCommission > Why has @EUCommission embraced a <...> ghost town with 14,300 accounts

          It's even better than that because IIRC back then W Social had what, 2k accounts?

          _elena@mastodon.social 1 Risposta Ultima Risposta
          0
          • aral@mastodon.ar.al aral@mastodon.ar.al

            Want an update on the Weekend at Bernie’s clown show that is W Social? No? Me neither, but here we are…

            So before we start, let’s recount the whole dystopian raison d’être of these Davosian clowns: to be a EU®opean “alternative to X” that ­– cue the 1984 theme tune – verifies your identity to ensure that only “real people” are on it (real is what your government says it is).

            Now, let’s fast forward to last week, when TikTok set up an account on W Social.

            That’s nice, isn’t it? One surveillance capitalist lending their support to another? Kumbaya and all that. The only problem? (spoiler alert), it wasn’t TikTok. (Shocking, I know.)

            The account, Identity Verified™ by EU X – sorry, W Social, was a spam account and immediately labelled as such by BlueSky moderators. (Don’t you love a “decentralised” system where a post on an EU server, accessed from another EU server, is moderated by our benevolent Big Brother in Trumpland, by the way? I know it just warms the cockles of my heart. So much sovereignty! But I digress…)

            So @_elena calls them out (someone has to while @EUCommission is busy preparing for their honeymoon after expressing their undying devotion to W Social recently on every social platform¹):

            https://mu.social/profile/elenarossini.com/post/3mqob7shxks2t

            Anna Zeiter – W CEO, Stanford’s own, and ex-eBay executive (such sovereignty) – replies with this absolute zinger:

            > “We are just verifying if some [sic] is a human and at least 18 years old. Users are then free to choose their own user name. This (human) user apparently chose the name TikTok.“ (https://mu.social/profile/anna.wsocial.eu/post/3mqoepm7m2k2z)

            Read that as many times as you like until it really sinks in.

            These incompetent clowns (dangerous competent clowns but incompetent clowns nevertheless) make people go through a ridiculous 13-step identity verification stage² and then… umm… you get to choose whatever identity you want.

            🤡🤡🤡

            Don’t get me wrong, I’m glad they’re incompetent. It would be worse if they were competent, given they’re a closed-source venture-capital-funded startup determined to prove your identity.

            > “Yes we have a business model, it’s not a philanthropy, we are not a B corp, we actually want to make money.” – Anna Zeiter³

            But, what I want to know is this: Why has @EUCommission embraced a proprietary, closed-source, corporate ghost town with 14,300 accounts, 90% of which have not posted even once (in other words, with only 1,259 accounts that have ever posted)⁴ when there is a thriving non-corporate fediverse with millions of active people on it.

            Could it have anything to do with identity verification, surveillance, and control?

            And if so, why can’t they even get that right?

            Looking forward to seeing how long @EUCommission can drag the corpse of W Social around before people realise it’s dead.

            Oh, and how does this make the whole “European alternatives” thing look? Not good. Not because there aren’t excellent European alternatives but because the folks at the commission are either too clueless or too corrupt to recognise and support them.

            So, yeah, how’s your Monday going?

            ¹ e.g., https://mastodon.ar.al/@aral/116770333053823108, etc.

            ² https://aseachange.com/@elena/statuses/01KVD55YBYVM3B46ACQTECDMT2

            ³ https://blog.elenarossini.com/the-untold-story-about-w-social-unconventional-beginnings-strategic-pitches-conflicting-signals/ (from the YouTube video that they since deleted. Nice transparency there, clowns.)

            ⁴ Run this script in Node 18+ to reproduce the numbers from their PDS yourself: https://codeberg.org/aral/gists/src/branch/main/wsocial-pds-stats.js Also see https://blog.elenarossini.com/w-social-a-broken-ghost-town/ and https://blog.elenarossini.com/w-social-fictional-metrics-and-the-beauty-of-open-data/

            #WSocial #EU #sovereignty #socialMedia #socialNetworking #mastodon #fediverse #activityPub #ATProto #startups #EUCommission

            dusk@todon.eu Questo utente è esterno a questo forum
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            dusk@todon.eu
            scritto su ultima modifica di
            #8

            @EUCommission

            @_elena out here making waves and shaking things up!! 👏

            Thx for the post, @aral

            It's giving early-days Elon takeover of

            1 Risposta Ultima Risposta
            0
            • craignicol@glasgow.social craignicol@glasgow.social

              @aral @onepict @_elena @EUCommission any successful European alternatives won't come from the institutions of the EU

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              onepict@chaos.social
              scritto su ultima modifica di
              #9

              @craignicol @aral @_elena

              I'm not even sure w did, they just kissed up to the right politicians at Davos.

              craignicol@glasgow.social 1 Risposta Ultima Risposta
              0
              • aral@mastodon.ar.al aral@mastodon.ar.al

                Want an update on the Weekend at Bernie’s clown show that is W Social? No? Me neither, but here we are…

                So before we start, let’s recount the whole dystopian raison d’être of these Davosian clowns: to be a EU®opean “alternative to X” that ­– cue the 1984 theme tune – verifies your identity to ensure that only “real people” are on it (real is what your government says it is).

                Now, let’s fast forward to last week, when TikTok set up an account on W Social.

                That’s nice, isn’t it? One surveillance capitalist lending their support to another? Kumbaya and all that. The only problem? (spoiler alert), it wasn’t TikTok. (Shocking, I know.)

                The account, Identity Verified™ by EU X – sorry, W Social, was a spam account and immediately labelled as such by BlueSky moderators. (Don’t you love a “decentralised” system where a post on an EU server, accessed from another EU server, is moderated by our benevolent Big Brother in Trumpland, by the way? I know it just warms the cockles of my heart. So much sovereignty! But I digress…)

                So @_elena calls them out (someone has to while @EUCommission is busy preparing for their honeymoon after expressing their undying devotion to W Social recently on every social platform¹):

                https://mu.social/profile/elenarossini.com/post/3mqob7shxks2t

                Anna Zeiter – W CEO, Stanford’s own, and ex-eBay executive (such sovereignty) – replies with this absolute zinger:

                > “We are just verifying if some [sic] is a human and at least 18 years old. Users are then free to choose their own user name. This (human) user apparently chose the name TikTok.“ (https://mu.social/profile/anna.wsocial.eu/post/3mqoepm7m2k2z)

                Read that as many times as you like until it really sinks in.

                These incompetent clowns (dangerous competent clowns but incompetent clowns nevertheless) make people go through a ridiculous 13-step identity verification stage² and then… umm… you get to choose whatever identity you want.

                🤡🤡🤡

                Don’t get me wrong, I’m glad they’re incompetent. It would be worse if they were competent, given they’re a closed-source venture-capital-funded startup determined to prove your identity.

                > “Yes we have a business model, it’s not a philanthropy, we are not a B corp, we actually want to make money.” – Anna Zeiter³

                But, what I want to know is this: Why has @EUCommission embraced a proprietary, closed-source, corporate ghost town with 14,300 accounts, 90% of which have not posted even once (in other words, with only 1,259 accounts that have ever posted)⁴ when there is a thriving non-corporate fediverse with millions of active people on it.

                Could it have anything to do with identity verification, surveillance, and control?

                And if so, why can’t they even get that right?

                Looking forward to seeing how long @EUCommission can drag the corpse of W Social around before people realise it’s dead.

                Oh, and how does this make the whole “European alternatives” thing look? Not good. Not because there aren’t excellent European alternatives but because the folks at the commission are either too clueless or too corrupt to recognise and support them.

                So, yeah, how’s your Monday going?

                ¹ e.g., https://mastodon.ar.al/@aral/116770333053823108, etc.

                ² https://aseachange.com/@elena/statuses/01KVD55YBYVM3B46ACQTECDMT2

                ³ https://blog.elenarossini.com/the-untold-story-about-w-social-unconventional-beginnings-strategic-pitches-conflicting-signals/ (from the YouTube video that they since deleted. Nice transparency there, clowns.)

                ⁴ Run this script in Node 18+ to reproduce the numbers from their PDS yourself: https://codeberg.org/aral/gists/src/branch/main/wsocial-pds-stats.js Also see https://blog.elenarossini.com/w-social-a-broken-ghost-town/ and https://blog.elenarossini.com/w-social-fictional-metrics-and-the-beauty-of-open-data/

                #WSocial #EU #sovereignty #socialMedia #socialNetworking #mastodon #fediverse #activityPub #ATProto #startups #EUCommission

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                scritto su ultima modifica di
                #10
                @aral @_elena @EUCommission @IGG_FAU
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                0
                • aral@mastodon.ar.al aral@mastodon.ar.al

                  Want an update on the Weekend at Bernie’s clown show that is W Social? No? Me neither, but here we are…

                  So before we start, let’s recount the whole dystopian raison d’être of these Davosian clowns: to be a EU®opean “alternative to X” that ­– cue the 1984 theme tune – verifies your identity to ensure that only “real people” are on it (real is what your government says it is).

                  Now, let’s fast forward to last week, when TikTok set up an account on W Social.

                  That’s nice, isn’t it? One surveillance capitalist lending their support to another? Kumbaya and all that. The only problem? (spoiler alert), it wasn’t TikTok. (Shocking, I know.)

                  The account, Identity Verified™ by EU X – sorry, W Social, was a spam account and immediately labelled as such by BlueSky moderators. (Don’t you love a “decentralised” system where a post on an EU server, accessed from another EU server, is moderated by our benevolent Big Brother in Trumpland, by the way? I know it just warms the cockles of my heart. So much sovereignty! But I digress…)

                  So @_elena calls them out (someone has to while @EUCommission is busy preparing for their honeymoon after expressing their undying devotion to W Social recently on every social platform¹):

                  https://mu.social/profile/elenarossini.com/post/3mqob7shxks2t

                  Anna Zeiter – W CEO, Stanford’s own, and ex-eBay executive (such sovereignty) – replies with this absolute zinger:

                  > “We are just verifying if some [sic] is a human and at least 18 years old. Users are then free to choose their own user name. This (human) user apparently chose the name TikTok.“ (https://mu.social/profile/anna.wsocial.eu/post/3mqoepm7m2k2z)

                  Read that as many times as you like until it really sinks in.

                  These incompetent clowns (dangerous competent clowns but incompetent clowns nevertheless) make people go through a ridiculous 13-step identity verification stage² and then… umm… you get to choose whatever identity you want.

                  🤡🤡🤡

                  Don’t get me wrong, I’m glad they’re incompetent. It would be worse if they were competent, given they’re a closed-source venture-capital-funded startup determined to prove your identity.

                  > “Yes we have a business model, it’s not a philanthropy, we are not a B corp, we actually want to make money.” – Anna Zeiter³

                  But, what I want to know is this: Why has @EUCommission embraced a proprietary, closed-source, corporate ghost town with 14,300 accounts, 90% of which have not posted even once (in other words, with only 1,259 accounts that have ever posted)⁴ when there is a thriving non-corporate fediverse with millions of active people on it.

                  Could it have anything to do with identity verification, surveillance, and control?

                  And if so, why can’t they even get that right?

                  Looking forward to seeing how long @EUCommission can drag the corpse of W Social around before people realise it’s dead.

                  Oh, and how does this make the whole “European alternatives” thing look? Not good. Not because there aren’t excellent European alternatives but because the folks at the commission are either too clueless or too corrupt to recognise and support them.

                  So, yeah, how’s your Monday going?

                  ¹ e.g., https://mastodon.ar.al/@aral/116770333053823108, etc.

                  ² https://aseachange.com/@elena/statuses/01KVD55YBYVM3B46ACQTECDMT2

                  ³ https://blog.elenarossini.com/the-untold-story-about-w-social-unconventional-beginnings-strategic-pitches-conflicting-signals/ (from the YouTube video that they since deleted. Nice transparency there, clowns.)

                  ⁴ Run this script in Node 18+ to reproduce the numbers from their PDS yourself: https://codeberg.org/aral/gists/src/branch/main/wsocial-pds-stats.js Also see https://blog.elenarossini.com/w-social-a-broken-ghost-town/ and https://blog.elenarossini.com/w-social-fictional-metrics-and-the-beauty-of-open-data/

                  #WSocial #EU #sovereignty #socialMedia #socialNetworking #mastodon #fediverse #activityPub #ATProto #startups #EUCommission

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                  scritto su ultima modifica di
                  #11

                  @aral @_elena @EUCommission
                  I didn't know the EU was doing this. I've always considered anonymity on social media one of the bigger flaws as it encourages unaccountable behavior.

                  I'm no fan of corporate tracking though.

                  I'm really curious to see how this shakes out. Hopefully better than Facebook.

                  aral@mastodon.ar.al 1 Risposta Ultima Risposta
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                  • kcarr2015@mstdn.social kcarr2015@mstdn.social

                    @aral @_elena @EUCommission
                    I didn't know the EU was doing this. I've always considered anonymity on social media one of the bigger flaws as it encourages unaccountable behavior.

                    I'm no fan of corporate tracking though.

                    I'm really curious to see how this shakes out. Hopefully better than Facebook.

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                    scritto su ultima modifica di
                    #12

                    @kcarr2015 @_elena @EUCommission Anonymity is also what allows people to explore aspects of their identity without being tied down to their state-approved one. It’s also what allows whistleblowers to be whistleblowers.

                    Every dictator and wannabe dictator wants an end to anonymity online. Ideally, your words on social media will be tied to your passport (so we can revoke it if we don’t like what you’re saying to stop you from leaving) and to your home address (so we can drop by and have a few words with you about what you were writing) and to your bank account, etc., so we can show you how bad things can get if your social credit score doesn’t improve.

                    kcarr2015@mstdn.social layan2002@mastodon.social 2 Risposte Ultima Risposta
                    0
                    • androcat@toot.cat androcat@toot.cat

                      @aral @_elena @EUCommission

                      Nothing says digital sovereignty like building a EU for-profit surveillance torment nexus.

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                      #13

                      @androcat @_elena @EUCommission Yeah, right? :)

                      androcat@toot.cat 1 Risposta Ultima Risposta
                      0
                      • aral@mastodon.ar.al aral@mastodon.ar.al

                        @kcarr2015 @_elena @EUCommission Anonymity is also what allows people to explore aspects of their identity without being tied down to their state-approved one. It’s also what allows whistleblowers to be whistleblowers.

                        Every dictator and wannabe dictator wants an end to anonymity online. Ideally, your words on social media will be tied to your passport (so we can revoke it if we don’t like what you’re saying to stop you from leaving) and to your home address (so we can drop by and have a few words with you about what you were writing) and to your bank account, etc., so we can show you how bad things can get if your social credit score doesn’t improve.

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                        scritto su ultima modifica di
                        #14

                        @aral @_elena @EUCommission
                        I mean, if you say something bad enough in public, that get your passport revoked anyway.

                        As for the other stuff, that anonymity is usually gotten by some extra effort in real life, not granted automatically, b/c we only have our own faces. Look, if you have a good reason to do something anonymously and it's not illegal, go through the extra effort.

                        But as far as I can tell, the VAST use case for anonymity right now is to say something inflammatory and then hide.

                        aral@mastodon.ar.al 1 Risposta Ultima Risposta
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                        • kcarr2015@mstdn.social kcarr2015@mstdn.social

                          @aral @_elena @EUCommission
                          I mean, if you say something bad enough in public, that get your passport revoked anyway.

                          As for the other stuff, that anonymity is usually gotten by some extra effort in real life, not granted automatically, b/c we only have our own faces. Look, if you have a good reason to do something anonymously and it's not illegal, go through the extra effort.

                          But as far as I can tell, the VAST use case for anonymity right now is to say something inflammatory and then hide.

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                          scritto su ultima modifica di
                          #15

                          @kcarr2015 @_elena @EUCommission And it takes how many seconds, exactly, to block such a person (either at a moderator level or personally?) We really have to be better at giving up our hard-earned human rights.

                          Just look at what the Nazis were able to do with just paper-based census information in the Netherlands.

                          kcarr2015@mstdn.social npars01@mstdn.social 2 Risposte Ultima Risposta
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                          • aral@mastodon.ar.al aral@mastodon.ar.al

                            @androcat @_elena @EUCommission Yeah, right? :)

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                            #16

                            @aral @_elena @EUCommission

                            We must become self-sufficient in destroying democracy for profit!

                            We must become self-sufficient in pro-Putinist and pro-Genocide conspiracy theories.

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                            • aleksei@social.fakeplastictrees.ee aleksei@social.fakeplastictrees.ee

                              @aral @_elena @EUCommission > Why has @EUCommission embraced a <...> ghost town with 14,300 accounts

                              It's even better than that because IIRC back then W Social had what, 2k accounts?

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                              #17

                              @aleksei @aral the EC moved their PDS to W Social when the latter launched their beta phase (which critics characterized more as an early alpha - really buggy that is). I'm not sure if anyone at the EC did any vetting.

                              What's interesting is that 2 months before, the EC's own scientific service (JRC) recommended to support Eurosky: https://publications.jrc.ec.europa.eu/repository/handle/JRC144603 you know, European, based on ATproto, but also OPEN SOURCE and not requiring a gov ID 🤷‍♀️

                              hackbyte@joinfriendica.de 1 Risposta Ultima Risposta
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                              • androcat@toot.cat androcat@toot.cat

                                @aral @_elena @EUCommission

                                Nothing says digital sovereignty like building a EU for-profit surveillance torment nexus.

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                                #18

                                @androcat dear Androcat, the Louvre called and is asking to frame and hang your toot there. PERFECTION.

                                @aral

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                                  #19

                                  @androcat actually strike that, the Louvre is still posting on ONLY Big Tech platforms - including the fascist cesspool known as X, sigh 😭

                                  @aral

                                  androcat@toot.cat 1 Risposta Ultima Risposta
                                  0
                                  • _elena@mastodon.social _elena@mastodon.social

                                    @androcat actually strike that, the Louvre is still posting on ONLY Big Tech platforms - including the fascist cesspool known as X, sigh 😭

                                    @aral

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                                    #20

                                    @_elena @aral

                                    My suspicious nature ftw 😂

                                    1 Risposta Ultima Risposta
                                    0
                                    • aral@mastodon.ar.al aral@mastodon.ar.al

                                      @kcarr2015 @_elena @EUCommission And it takes how many seconds, exactly, to block such a person (either at a moderator level or personally?) We really have to be better at giving up our hard-earned human rights.

                                      Just look at what the Nazis were able to do with just paper-based census information in the Netherlands.

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                                      scritto su ultima modifica di
                                      #21

                                      @aral @_elena @EUCommission
                                      Blocking and moderation was barely an answer on small scale topical forums, it's become almost pointless when scaled to pan regional social media like this, where actors just create a new disposable accounts when the old one is toxic enough.

                                      The response can't always be "look what the Nazis did." The truth is you aren't anonymous on the internet. If a government actually wants to unmask your identity they will.

                                      I'm more concerned with the interpersonal interactions

                                      oraculix@ieji.de 1 Risposta Ultima Risposta
                                      0
                                      • onepict@chaos.social onepict@chaos.social

                                        @craignicol @aral @_elena

                                        I'm not even sure w did, they just kissed up to the right politicians at Davos.

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                                        scritto su ultima modifica di
                                        #22

                                        @onepict @aral @_elena (whisper, whisper) sovereignty (whisper, whisper) private data

                                        1 Risposta Ultima Risposta
                                        0
                                        • aral@mastodon.ar.al aral@mastodon.ar.al

                                          @kcarr2015 @_elena @EUCommission Anonymity is also what allows people to explore aspects of their identity without being tied down to their state-approved one. It’s also what allows whistleblowers to be whistleblowers.

                                          Every dictator and wannabe dictator wants an end to anonymity online. Ideally, your words on social media will be tied to your passport (so we can revoke it if we don’t like what you’re saying to stop you from leaving) and to your home address (so we can drop by and have a few words with you about what you were writing) and to your bank account, etc., so we can show you how bad things can get if your social credit score doesn’t improve.

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                                          #23

                                          @aral @kcarr2015 @_elena @EUCommission Does this apply to us in Gaza?🤔

                                          aral@mastodon.ar.al 1 Risposta Ultima Risposta
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