#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 @nprofile1q... 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 @nprofile1q...:

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

#FOSS #DigitalSovereignty #BigTech

Dear Fedi friends, I need your help.

If by any chance any of you have saved the video of #WSocial CEO Anna Zeiter's presentation at the Monaco AI conference (uploaded to YouTube on May 21) I would be ETERNALLY grateful.

OG URL: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4bZlgVfRr5A

The 35 minute video included priceless quotes like: "Yes we have a business model, it's not a philanthropy, we are not a B corp, we actually want to make money."

Following the publication of my exposé, the video has been removed from YouTube!

I contain multitudes.

9am:
I hear that the European Commission and Ursula von der Leyen have moved their ATproto accounts to W Social, so I reach out to my sources re: a follow-up exposé on the controversial for-profit network.

10am:
I'm getting ready for a picnic organized by my daughter's pre-school.

I see that my post from earlier today is at the top of Mastodon's Explore feed and so many of you are sharing very strong opinions about it.

Sorry but I'll be offline for the next few hours 😅

Dear Fedi friends,

Apologies for another toot about #WSocial but I am genuinely shaking right now.

The @nprofile1q... and its president Ursula von der Leyen have recently migrated their ATproto (Bluesky) accounts to W Social.

I cannot fathom why they would pick a private enterprise whose leaders didn't even have ATproto accounts 3 months ago... and who are so open to having their users' data mined to train European AI models.

My articles on them:

🔗 : https://blog.elenarossini.com/tag/w-social/

Wow. Just wow.

Good morning Fedi friends!

Today marks the one year anniversary of the release of my video “Introducing the Fediverse: a New Era of Social Media”

🔗: https://aseachange.com/@elena/statuses/01JXCDST00FXKN9KCAQJ1QCMRJ

I’m super grateful towards:

💙 volunteers who translated the subtitles
💚 those who produced foreign-language voice-over narrations
💛 people who showed the video at conferences
🧡 everyone who shared the video
❤️ people who sent in positive feedback

It really takes a village 💜

#TeamFedi #FediLove

I'm pleased to see that my deep dive on #WSocial is still making the rounds. ICYMI:

🔗 : https://blog.elenarossini.com/the-untold-story-about-w-social-unconventional-beginnings-strategic-pitches-conflicting-signals/

The biggest latest development since publication is that its CEO Anna Zeiter was caught misrepresenting their user numbers during a high profile interview with the German TV channel SWR.

On May 28th Zeiter said they've been onboarding about 100-200 new users a day. Except: the whole PDS has 293 users TOTAL according to https://clearsky.app

Their tagline is "Trust your feed"!

Something extraordinary just happened: my 5-year-old recognizes the #Fediverse symbol and just asked me about the bag with its logo on it.

Hearing her say “fediverso” (we speak Italian with each other) was… an indescribable feeling. Pure joy and pride.

Special thanks to @nprofile1q... who gave me the @nprofile1q... bag with the colorful Fediverse symbol as a present a while back 💖

Spotted this sign on the street in Amsterdam, on my way to #PubConf2026.

Disclaimer: I don’t speak Dutch, but I’d like to think it says: “Beware WhatsApp steals your data” 😆

#Meta #BigTech #privacy