W Social, public institutions and the theater of European digital sovereignty(blog.elenarossini.com)
266 points by nemoniac 46 days ago | 164 comments
tl;dr: The European Commission, ECB, and their presidents have migrated their ATproto accounts from Bluesky to W Social, a Swedish for-profit "European alternative to X" that recently and quietly removed its public GitHub repository, suggesting it has gone closed-source. This contradicts the Commission's own Tech Sovereignty Package emphasizing open source, and ignores Eurosky, a transparent non-profit European ATproto alternative. Critics note W Social's advisory board includes Big Tech figures like Tools for Humanity's privacy chief, raising concerns it's just another surveillance-capitalist startup that happens to be EU-based.
HN Discussion:
  • Eurosky deserves attention while W Social's media hype is suspicious and politically driven
  • W Social resembles a European Truth Social for politicians avoiding rival-owned platforms
  • W Social's for-profit structure and shady practices undermine its credibility
  • ~Public funding dynamics in EU favor opaque projects over user-funded open ones
  • European digital sovereignty is just protectionism dressed up in strategic language