🚨 New post alert 📝

[Gast]

@_elena

My impression is that their pitch is to build an effectively centralized network that can be regulated easily according to EU politicians' wishes (strong ID requirements, age restrictions, etc.). They will probably try to build something like a 21st-century royal court with politicians surrounded by journalists and celebrities, but I'm not sure you can make a tens of billions doing that.

[_elena@mastodon.social]

My top 3 "favorite" (aka juicy) discoveries about #WSocial, which I discuss on my blog:

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

1) The co-founders picked #ATproto but only started using the network WEEKS after their Davos launch

2) The CEO said "we also want to keep European data in Europe to maybe train European AI models with our data because we also have amazing AI companies in Europe" 🤯

3) W Social user "homersimpson"

If you enjoy the article please boost it

[Gast]

@_elena
Excellent piece of investigative journalism again Elena!
What's also a red flag in my book is this quote from Zeiter:
"And by this we want to create a platform where things like climate, environment can be discussed in a non-cancel culture."
A non-cancel culture is exactly the argument Elon used. Well, we all know how that turned out.

[_elena@mastodon.social]

@hweimer absolutely! and I'm a bit sorry I didn't have time to explore the EuroStack connection in my piece.

I find W's initiative is a naked money and power grab

[_elena@mastodon.social]

@PensioNien thank you Nina! I got so many Elon vibes from them... promises to save the world (remember when Musk said he'd end world hunger?) but then going for a money and power grab

[Gast]

@_elena Nice work. Absolutely something I would boost across other networks if I still had accounts on them!

(also, BeReal is still around?!)

[Gast]

@_elena this is a really good article there. Good journalism. Boosted.

[Gast]

@_elena
Wow superbe recherche !
Donc, en somme... C'est de la merde. Ou werde on pourrait dire.

Je n'ai pas fait 1% de ta recherche. Mais en faisant le sign up, ça m'as beaucoup fâché que j'étais invité à utiliser GOOGLE pour la création du compte... Ils se vendent comme un produit / réseau européen indépendant... Et PAF, Google. J'ai fait un post pour me plaindre à ce sujet et je n'y suis plus jamais allé à nouveau.

[Gast]

@_elena good article! everything around W Social sounds very fishy.

[neil@mastodon.neilzone.co.uk]

@_elena Wow!

[Gast]

@_elena du beau boulot, bravo !

[_elena@mastodon.social]

@soapdog thank you!

[_elena@mastodon.social]

@neil and I could have easily written another 4000 words about it. I made so many interesting discoveries! I can safely claim to be an expert in W Social now

[_elena@mastodon.social]

@sknob merciiiiii ️

[_elena@mastodon.social]

@audricd oui, ils sont très très louches. à eviter à mon avis

[_elena@mastodon.social]

@bbbhltz haha thank you!

and yes, BeReal is still around, but I don't know how active it is...

[Gast]

@_elena
"maybe train European AI models with our data"

Feels like they're giving away the plan like they think we're James Bond tied to a table that we can't possibly escape...

[slothrop@chaos.social]

@_elena Great research and write-up. Thank you!

I miss when we had tech publications that would run this sort of article…

[_elena@mastodon.social]

@xinit haha so true!

[Gast]

@_elena
That MEGA hat in the header image is a lot, too.