69Trust
Partially True
🔍 Web Verified
Aral BalkanonMastodon4d ago
“My fear is that W Social is just another for-profit Big Tech startup that happens to be based in the EU. We don’t need that. We don’t need more European surveillance capitalists and people farmers. We need ethical alternatives working for the common good.”
– Yours truly, in @_elena’s excellent expose on W Social.
https://blog.elenarossini.com/w-social-public-institutions-and-the-theater-of-european-digital-sovereignty/
Do read the article to the end, especially noting the bit about the composition of their board of advisors, which includes an ex-Google AI lead and an ex-Paypal Chief [Violate Your] Privacy Officer who now works at Tools for Humanity (Sam Altman’s “Sci-fi dystopia? Hold my beer…” identity farming startup that wants to scan your eyeballs).
#WSocial #EuropeWashing #PrivacyWashing #BigTech #peopleFarming #surveillance #capitalism #EU #ATProto #fediverse
Trust Metrics
80
55
70
50
Accuracy80%
Framing55%
Context70%
Tone50%
Analysis Summary
Aral Balkan shares concerns from an investigative article by Elena Rossini about W Social, a Swedish for-profit platform that European public institutions are adopting despite its proprietary ownership and closed-source transition — contradicting stated goals of digital sovereignty. The article documents that W Social's advisory board includes former Google and PayPal executives, with one now connected to Altman's Tools for Humanity identity company. Balkan's framing as 'surveillance capitalism' and 'people farming' reflects the underlying concern that European institutions are replacing centralized US surveillance with centralized European surveillance, rather than building truly open alternatives.
Claims Analysis (5)
“W Social is a private, for-profit network owned by Swedish entrepreneurs that has quietly gone closed-source”
The linked article by Elena Rossini confirms W Social is privately owned, for-profit, and went closed-source. This is the core factual basis.
“W Social's board of advisors includes an ex-Google AI lead and an ex-Paypal Chief Privacy Officer”
The post references this detail from Rossini's article, which documents the advisory board composition. Verified in the source material, though specific names/current roles require reading the full article.
“An ex-Paypal Chief Privacy Officer now works at Tools for Humanity, Sam Altman's identity farming startup”
The connection between the ex-PayPal executive and Tools for Humanity is asserted but not independently corroborated in web search results, which returned unrelated PayPal stock/financial news. The identity of this specific person and their current role cannot be confirmed from available search results.
“Tools for Humanity is Sam Altman's identity farming startup that wants to scan eyeballs”
Tools for Humanity is indeed associated with Sam Altman and uses iris scanning for identity verification (Worldcoin). 'Identity farming' and 'eyeball scanning' are characterizations reflecting the same technology, though framed skeptically.
“European public institutions recently moved their Bluesky accounts to W Social”
Confirmed in the linked Elena Rossini article as a documented development.
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