With WSocial, Europe’s Elites Build Their Own X

The platform is supposed to operate under European law, store all data in Europe and remain entirely in the hands of European shareholders. Technical checks, however, have found that at least metadata is also being sent to the US. Experts say several security questions remain unanswered.

Close to EU Regulators

According to Zeiter, the platform worked closely with regulators, including Sweden’s media authority, Sweden’s data protection authority and the European Data Protection Board. Given Europe’s well-known efforts to control social media, the censorship and removal regime under the Digital Services Act (DSA) can be expected to be followed closely. Elon Musk, through X, has resisted that approach.

An official list of backers includes several prominent names. Around W, there is talk of 80 investors, though they have not been named. The startup insists that no official EU money has been involved.

The founders, their backgrounds and the network around WSocial complete the picture. No conspiracy theories are required. Enough well-known players are involved, and several have gathered around W. EuroStack, the Club of Rome and We Don’t Have Time alone show what kind of milieu has gathered around the project, which was presented in Davos at the World Economic Forum.

Why a Commercial Network?

Online activists have asked a fair and interesting question: why are EU politicians and people close to them promoting a commercial product so heavily? In the end, the business models of X and WSocial are not fundamentally different. Both companies have to make money.

Europe already has Eurosky, a network based on the same technology and run by a nonprofit foundation called Modal. The activist Elena Rossini has pointed out that Eurosky builds everything openly, operates transparently and publishes every step of its development plan. WSocial does none of this. Is the Commission’s aim, as Netzpolitik.org asks, to strengthen identification requirements or create use cases for the European Digital Identity (EUDI) Wallet?

The network enjoys strong support from European politicians and the circles around them. António Costa, president of the European Council, is listed as one of the leading EU accounts on W. Christine Lagarde, president of the European Central Bank (ECB), was active on W early on and is also named among its prominent users. Ursula von der Leyen not only joined quickly but also promoted the network in a video.

W’s advisory board includes Philipp Rösler, former German economy minister and Free Democratic Party (FDP) chairman, as well as Sandrine Dixson-Declève, president of the Club of Rome. Another member is the competition economist Cristina Caffarra, who is linked to EuroStack, an organization that campaigns for an independent European digital infrastructure.

Less European Than Advertised

One striking name is Travis LeBlanc, a former US data protection and telecommunications regulator who sits on the advisory board of an organization that so loudly emphasizes European sovereignty. The lawyer Louisa Specht-Riemenschneider, now Germany’s federal commissioner for data protection, also still appears as a board member in several sources.

https://twitter.com/ADuke08812702/status/2068087874252398629

The idea for W, whose name is meant to suggest “we”, reportedly came from Ingmar Rentzhog. WSocial is being marketed as the new Twitter and is said to have cost €500m. Where the money came from and where it has gone remains a matter for speculation.

W’s supposed added value lies in preventing “fake accounts” and excluding “bots” from the network. Users pay for that with their identity. Mandatory identification and identity checks through an uploaded selfie are supposed to ensure that the platform knows who every user is. Users are then meant to be able to operate under a pseudonym.

Shutting out bots is the great promise. After all, bots are a real issue on social media.

The Myth of the Magic Bots

Ever since Donald Trump’s first election victory was blamed on a Macedonian fake-news factory, the urban legend of manipulative bot armies has taken hold. The powers ascribed to these bots border on magic. They supposedly steer public opinion, spread rumors and stir up sentiment against politicians and the media.

If all of that really works, the question remains why bots are always said to be used only by the others.

European academics and data protection officials have also welcomed parts of the approach. Katharina Kleinen-von Königslöw, a communications scholar at the University of Hamburg, has argued that anonymity is important, especially for minorities, who could otherwise quickly become targets of hate campaigns. She has also said that mandatory identification could at least slow down bot farms.

Yet with users required to reveal their real names to the network itself, the most one can speak of is pseudonymity.

Vance May Have Been Right

Thomas Fuchs, Hamburg’s data protection commissioner and former head of the Hamburg-Schleswig-Holstein media authority, has praised European servers, less profiling, no targeting for advertising purposes and greater influence over the algorithm. Fuchs also argues for political influence over social media and supports the idea of European data sovereignty, although that sovereignty does not fully exist.

Since Eurosky is already under way as a noncommercial project promising transparency, European sovereignty and security, the heavy promotion of WSocial by a network of people with political and commercial interests can at least be considered disturbing. Alongside commercial motives, political surveillance and a managed public sphere are clearly part of the picture.

JD Vance framed his speech as a warning. The figures around WSocial still have to prove that they did not treat the US vice president’s warning as an instruction manual.