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will require identification and photo validation
With all the privacy issues in the past few years, it’s “dead on arrival” as they say.
Yup. It will fail spectacularly.
Too bad cuz it could have legit beaten Xitter.
If distributing child pornography can’t get people off Xitter, nothing will.
It will probably fail silently, if it doesn’t pick up enough momentum. * Sad failed platform noises *
W formerly known as useless garbage nobody asked for.
Any for-profit company will have to comply with this, unfortunately.
But none of them ever asked me for a photo or ID.
Are you in the EU?
Uh, Mastodon exists?
I’m assuming they want to compete with X/Twitter.
… so you don’t think Mastodon is a worthy competitor?
How about Bluesky?
I like Mastodon but it can’t compete with X. The lack of discoverability is non-starter for many. Its greatest benefits are also its biggest barriers to mainstream appeal.
Bluesky says it’s decentralized, but at the end of the day it’s an American company.
They just aren’t the right tools for this particular job. What this “W social” wants to be is “European Twitter”.
Then it sounds more like they want to be the European next Bluesky.
The lack of discoverability is non-starter for many.
The Fediverse significantly lacks behind on the Content Discoverability technology.
I guess this is because there was a loud public outcry in the last 20 years that whoever makes your feed (this is called an “recommendation algorithm” or abbreviated “the algorithm”) has a lot of political power to decide what you see and what you don’t see, and that’s frowned upon. Because everybody that has power over what you see and what you don’t see is bad. That is why nobody wanted to provide an recommendation algorithm for the fediverse, because they would expose themselves to wild accusations. There should be an open-source recommendation algorithm, though; I’m sure of it.
what in particular do you mean by lack of discoverability?
like, i want to see posts from communities that i already subscribed to, but because there’s more than 1000 communities on the fediverse and i’m only subscribed to a small countable subset of them, i inevitably lose out on a lot of content. (The “all” feed sucks unfortunately). So how to solve this?
the “lack of discoverability” is the only reason we’re talking about this problem in the first place. algorithms have utterly fucked the world and if no one stops them we’re beyond fucked so the fact that someone thinks it’s bad and is unwilling to try using a platform you need to curate your own content on (like reddit before it went to shit) is just people willingly stepping into the lions mouth.
If they built out a Mastodon network with government support, then it would.
will require identification and photo validation
Straight from the book “How to kill your app before launch”, page 1.
data privacy at its core
Looks like they haven’t seen the obvious conflict with requiring id + photo, unless they plan on manually review every application.
After reading the article, it sounds like they’re just making yet another xitter clone with the hopes that govt figures will use it. Govts could just spin their own mastodon or similars for a similar effect.
Yup. Nothing and I say nothing makes a service less secure for privacy than requiring your ID and photo. That data will get leaked. It always does.
Most of EU countries has some sort of electronic identification system (in Italy SPID and CIE). You can simply ask to validate against it when creating an account and then you are good. You are verified and there is no dato to be leaked aside the data you decide to put into the system.
Considering the amount of bots and trolls everywhere I can see a certain appeal on an app that requires an id verification to be honest.
But if they’re doing it half-assed as most services (send photo of passport, take a selfie), it won’t be a challenge for AI to generate random IDs and a matching avatar for photo/video verification. The only way this could work is if they’d verify your ID by reading the NFC chip inside the passport or ID card.
True. I’d be up for that, but honestly more for a real social network for friends and family, like Facebook once was, than for a debate forum like Twitter. That demand could maybe endure that it would remain a friends only network…
There needs to be high-quality discussion about how to make sure that users of social media platforms are humans instead of bots, but it needs to be a discussion happening in the open and not behind closed doors.
Right now, the approach is to not talk about it and assume that verification can only happen via photo. It could also be done in different ways, such as using a QR code that you get at a supermarket; or by only allowing 1 user account per physical device (which would make bot accounts expensive). There’s lots of possible ways and none of them are discussed.
to ensure that its users are […] who they claim to be
I dont’t want that either. Maybe for verified accounts this makes sense, but not for the average shitposter.
They figured it out. They damn well know they are going to spy on everyone with this.
After reading the article, it sounds like they’re just making yet another xitter clone with the hopes that govt figures will use it.
Nothing puts me off more than advocating for a new product or set of technology without reasonably comparing it to already-existing technology. They should dedicate a section of their homepage to an explanation what’s the difference between their system and Mastodon.
Spyware disguised as a “social media platform”, hard pass.
I hate X, but good luck with this:
The new platform, W, will require identification and photo validation to ensure that its users are both humans and who they claim to be,
Europeans will absolutely not fight back on it and will comply willingly with zero hesitation, unfortunately
Lol, what? Nobody will use this.
deleted by creator
cough cough Mastodon.
deleted by creator
https://ec.social-network.europa.eu/@EUCommission
It has over 3k posts and 145k followers. Mastodon posts don’t federate to lemmy unless they tag a lemmy community
I stand corrected. Thank you.
If you don’t delete your comment next time, others can see what stands corrected ;-)
Clicking the original link shows 0 subscribers and 0 posts on a two year old community.
The shit some people will go to to avoid an open platform.
Isn’t this just some random company trying to cash in a little from controversy surrounding Xitter?
There is no future in social media unless it’s decentralized. Gonna assume this is dead on arrival.
You didn’t read the text? It says decentralized.
I have little faith that means what you think it means.
They named themselves W but those draconian ID requirements are an L
I am staying on mastodon for the micro blogging, not interested in centralized shit. Also, recommander systems are a plague.
I know Europe might seem like a country of you’re illiterate, but um it isn’t. W is a Swedish company with a dumb idea at the core of its app
Oh sorry, I forgot Sweden is in Africa. Or that referring to an app as European implies that Europe is a country. Luckily there are still people like you to educate us all /s
Anna Zeiter, CEO of W, has told Bilanz.ch that W stands for “We.” Meanwhile, the first of the Vs that make up W stands for “Values,” and the second for “Verified.”
“The fact that W comes before X in the alphabet is certainly also a welcome coincidence,” Zeiter said.
Was curious if the”W” had a deeper meaning to it. Turns out it’s actually two V’s that form a “W”
you mean it doesn’t stand for Wumbo?
Stupid name, vv, or vave would’ve been better. Besides, it’s not like they’ll register v.v as a domain, or even www.w.vv
Digital Voyeurist Values Verified
Governments making this stuff instead of the people? Really bad idea.
Oh because people did such a good job the first time?
Anything people make, no mater how good, can and has been purchased to be turned to shit and controlled by those that purchase it. In that world, which is the one we live in now, a government made and publicly used social media service is just about the only way to create a resilient and uncorruptable form of social media. Especially compared to current alternatives that are already getting corrupted.
I’m not saying what they’ll make is perfect. But it’s far better than any other option we currently have. Knee jerk reacting to assuming it’s bad is very much the same crux billionaires used in the US to weaken the government that would otherwise regulate them.
A government is literally the best suited to creating this tech due to its public utility. Same with electricity, water, Emergency services, roads and more. Everyone uses them, so our taxes should go to making those things better.
This is a step in the right direction.
it’s far better than any other option we currently have.
We have the Fediverse. Brother, you’re literally on it right now.
Well said. I am certainly here for a reason :)
This isn’t actually a government doing it. It’s just some VC backed company that went to Davos to announce it.
Fair point. But I think you’re burying the promising parts of this article:
W’s data will be hosted decentrally in Europe by European companies, and the platform will adhere to strict EU data protection laws.
“We believe there is an urgent need for a new social media platform built, governed and hosted in Europe. With human verification, free speech and data privacy at its core,” she wrote.
In her LinkedIn post announcing the launch of W, Zeiter emphasized that systemic disinformation is eroding public trust and weakening democratic decision-making.
I’ve never heard an Elon say that.
And her background is solid compared to tech bros:
She earned her PhD in law at the University of Hamburg and later studied at Stanford University.
W will be legally the subsidiary of “We Don’t Have Time,” a media platform for climate action, but the team is scattered across Europe, with offices in Berlin and Paris planned, Bilanz reports.
And the whole platform is legally under a company dedicated towards climate action.
Lot of wins in this article make me think it’s far from the typical VC billionaire babysitting service.
Anything people make, no mater how good, can and has been purchased to be turned to shit and controlled by those that purchase it.
GPL would like to have a word with you.
Free software can’t be “purchased,” so it can’t be turned to shit 👍 Good point.
To clarify mine where needed: the purchasing of what people make is what eventually turns it to shit. (Not just that it’s made, apologies if that was confusing.)
So I completely agree GPL is fantastic and the way forward for us a civilization.
Seriously appreciate this point as a great example of what DOES work well for both creators and community.
