How to create an account on #WSocial in 13 easy steps:
1️⃣ choose a username
2️⃣ choose a password
3️⃣ choose your interests
4️⃣ download the #WIdentity app to your phone (two options: Apple AppStore or Google Play Store)
5️⃣ scan a QR code
6️⃣ create a PIN code
optional: enable biometrics; re-enter PIN
7️⃣ choose whether you simply want to verify that you're human or if you also want to verify your name
8️⃣ choose the verification method (automatic photo review, request a manual review or scan your passport chip)
9️⃣ scan your passport's picture page
1️⃣0️⃣ scan your passport's chip
1️⃣1️⃣ take a selfie
1️⃣2️⃣ scan a QR code to link the W Identity to your W Social account
1️⃣3️⃣ enter your PIN code
Congratulations, you're verified*!
(* for two years)
Demonstration in all its simple glory here:
📺: inv.nadeko.net/Vcq4MiabpEQ
Please save this toot as reference if you ever hear somebody say that IT'S TOO COMPLICATED TO JOIN THE FEDIVERSE BECAUSE YOU NEED TO PICK A SERVER 🤡
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Δρομογράφος, 2something, Cyb3rrunn3r, Moritz Schade, ∷ccccel△♪ and Alexandra like this.
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Ozzelot, Hella, Agnieszka R. Turczyńska, Pen, lobingera, Susan Calvin, Roquette, txerren 🇵🇸, ralf tauscher, Δρομογράφος, Aslak Raanes, David Prieto (valerian32), Johannes Palola, Tim Ward ⭐🇪🇺🔶 #FBPE, Petra van Cronenburg, Elena Rossini on GoToSocial ⁂, Mathias Micheel, McWabbit 🇺🇦🍋🌻🍉, Human after all, elala@nrw.social, Michał "rysiek" Woźniak · 🇺🇦, ☑️ Cath, Elias Probst, bananamangodog, Tuchowski, Rob van Kan🔻, ONE🛡︎, Wurzelmann, Nina Pescatore, Paco Hope, António Manuel Dias, Shannon Prickett, tigerpunk, Dr. Sobek, Yakyu Night Owl, epso 🦀 mist nino en mera, Mad Alex, Speckdäne, Grégory Gutierez 🌻🎸🐧, bituur esztreym, Aemarielle aux pinceaux dorés, Larger, Targy ⁂, Franz Graf, Vicomte Folmer af Helvede, Misha, Spookybot, Disisdeguey🍉🔻PalestineAction🇵🇸, Trendy Toots, Su_G, Naiara, Vinnie (any), Maltita, Marta Threadbare, Jacobo Da Riva Muñoz, Erebus, Friendly Neighborhood Chuck!, rationalgarde, Koos van den Hout, Adriano, Cyb3rrunn3r, FoolishOwl, Lazarou Monkey Terror 🚀💙🌈, MJ Ray, Kjetil M. Gloppedal 🇸🇯 🚴🏻♂️, Koen Hufkens, PhD, Salva, Tóth Gábor Baltazár, Erotic Mythology 🌈, Lenz Grimmer, Ville 'cos' R, Cainmark Does Not Comply 🚲, Ashenwave✨Commissions Open!, La Gaia and 122 other people reshared this.
ralf tauscher
in reply to Elena Rossini on GoToSocial ⁂ • • •Petra van Cronenburg
in reply to Elena Rossini on GoToSocial ⁂ • • •Elena Rossini on GoToSocial ⁂
in reply to Petra van Cronenburg • • •Petra van Cronenburg
in reply to Elena Rossini on GoToSocial ⁂ • • •But I would also leave the Fediverse if they would install personality checks destroying privacy.
Elena Rossini on GoToSocial ⁂
in reply to Petra van Cronenburg • • •I think people who self-host may be safe, but this is definitely an existential threat... the possibility of mandatory age verification for all social media platforms across Europe.
And guess who's lobbying for age verification and has everything to gain from it?
Evil f***ing Meta
discuss.privacyguides.net/t/a-…
A Reddit user traced $2 billion in nonprofit grants and lobbying records across 45 states to figure out who's behind the age verification bills. The answer involves a company that profits from your data writing laws that collect more of it
Privacy Guides Communityreshared this
Su_G and Herman 🇪🇺🇺🇦🇾🇪🍋 reshared this.
Petra van Cronenburg
in reply to Elena Rossini on GoToSocial ⁂ • • •you certainly know this by @adfichter infosec.exchange/@adfichter/11…
Adfichter
2026-06-18 11:32:37
you certainly know this by @adfichter infosec.exchange/@adfichter/11…
Adfichter
2026-06-18 11:32:37
Herman 🇪🇺🇺🇦🇾🇪🍋
in reply to Elena Rossini on GoToSocial ⁂ • • •Petra van Cronenburg
in reply to Herman 🇪🇺🇺🇦🇾🇪🍋 • • •@elena
Herman 🇪🇺🇺🇦🇾🇪🍋
in reply to Petra van Cronenburg • • •Petra van Cronenburg
in reply to Herman 🇪🇺🇺🇦🇾🇪🍋 • • •Herman 🇪🇺🇺🇦🇾🇪🍋
in reply to Petra van Cronenburg • • •Mathias Micheel
in reply to Elena Rossini on GoToSocial ⁂ • • •Petra van Cronenburg
in reply to Mathias Micheel • • •you can contact her directly without any social media platform 🤫
@elena
Mathias Micheel
in reply to Petra van Cronenburg • • •Hyde 📷 🖋
in reply to Elena Rossini on GoToSocial ⁂ • • •I'm sorry I disagree a bit.
You probably saw @aral 's toot where you were mentioned.
I would rather not use any social media than giving my passport to someone I don't know anything about.
Or ask them to send you their passport to see how that goes...
mastodon.ar.al/@aral/116770333…
Aral Balkan
I'm sorry I disagree a bit.
You probably saw @aral 's toot where you were mentioned.
I would rather not use any social media than giving my passport to someone I don't know anything about.
Or ask them to send you their passport to see how that goes...
mastodon.ar.al/@aral/116770333…
Aral Balkan
2026-06-18 09:11:20
Herman 🇪🇺🇺🇦🇾🇪🍋 reshared this.
Elena Rossini on GoToSocial ⁂
in reply to Hyde 📷 🖋 • • •oooh I was being sarcastic. Maybe you missed my articles about W Social.
I don't want to waste your time, but I have a 3-part blog series that takes 40 minutes to read and exposes their shady ways: blog.elenarossini.com/tag/w-so…
@aral
W Social - Elena Rossini
Elena Rossini2something likes this.
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Petra van Cronenburg, Deborah Preuss, pcc, Dr. Seltsam 🌎🎶🌳, Koen Hufkens, PhD, Herman 🇪🇺🇺🇦🇾🇪🍋, Support GrapheneOS 667, Christo. London, England. and chef 😎 reshared this.
Hyde 📷 🖋
in reply to Elena Rossini on GoToSocial ⁂ • • •Oh indeed I missed that part 🤦♂️
Sorry for the noise ! I'll check them out 😅
@aral
Elena Rossini on GoToSocial ⁂
in reply to Hyde 📷 🖋 • • •Petra van Cronenburg
in reply to Hyde 📷 🖋 • • •I just get vibes of "imagine a scifi plot where you get all biometric data of Nazis". #sarcasmAlarm
@elena
Mark Gjøl
in reply to Elena Rossini on GoToSocial ⁂ • • •jelte
in reply to Mark Gjøl • • •Mark Gjøl
in reply to jelte • • •jelte
in reply to Mark Gjøl • • •Mark Gjøl
in reply to jelte • • •Eleder Únelegeb
in reply to Elena Rossini on GoToSocial ⁂ • • •Mim1956🟥🍀🌹 🍉🍋
in reply to Elena Rossini on GoToSocial ⁂ • • •Kurio🌷🐝
in reply to Elena Rossini on GoToSocial ⁂ • • •Elena Rossini on GoToSocial ⁂
in reply to Kurio🌷🐝 • • •Sar
in reply to Elena Rossini on GoToSocial ⁂ • • •JFC that's a shit show. How the hell can someone:
Choose and sign up to an email provider.
Sign up for a W social account per that 13 step list.
Yet still say signing up for a Mastodon account is too hard.
Incredible.
Also, well done on all the work investigating W Social, it's much appreciated!
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Cainmark Does Not Comply 🚲 and Herman 🇪🇺🇺🇦🇾🇪🍋 reshared this.
Elena Rossini on GoToSocial ⁂
in reply to Sar • • •Cainmark Does Not Comply 🚲 reshared this.
Net Gremlin 🚴🏻 🐧 🇩🇪 🇪🇺
in reply to Elena Rossini on GoToSocial ⁂ • • •Elena Rossini on GoToSocial ⁂
in reply to Net Gremlin 🚴🏻 🐧 🇩🇪 🇪🇺 • • •true that! 😂😂😂😂😂😂😂
canleaf08✅ 加拿大葉子 🏳️🌈⚧️🇪🇺🍁
in reply to Elena Rossini on GoToSocial ⁂ • • •JP Mens
in reply to Elena Rossini on GoToSocial ⁂ • • •toot saved as screenshot, ready to show people. 😀
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Hyblon
in reply to Elena Rossini on GoToSocial ⁂ • • •reshared this
Christo. London, England. reshared this.
Leeloo
in reply to Elena Rossini on GoToSocial ⁂ • • •-1 work to earn money for a passport
-2 get a job
-3 fix the economy so there are jobs available
Acid Plushy
in reply to Elena Rossini on GoToSocial ⁂ • • •Gert V 🇵🇸
in reply to Elena Rossini on GoToSocial ⁂ • • •Gert V 🇵🇸
in reply to Gert V 🇵🇸 • • •The European Commission was accused of promoting the for-profit,
Sweden-based social media platform W Social after announcing its
decision to join the network.
euractiv.com/news/commission-a…
Commission accused of promoting European social media platform | Euractiv
Anupriya Datta (Euractiv)reshared this
Herman 🇪🇺🇺🇦🇾🇪🍋 reshared this.
Delta Sierra
in reply to Elena Rossini on GoToSocial ⁂ • • •Reminds me of the "new emergency services number" bit from IT Crowd ( youtu.be/HWc3WY3fuZU?t=20 )
In what world would this be considered simple??
The IT Crowd - Series 1 - Episode 2: New emergency number
The IT Crowd (YouTube)Laria
in reply to Delta Sierra • • •Delta Sierra
in reply to Laria • • •huntingdon
in reply to Elena Rossini on GoToSocial ⁂ • • •W Social's head, Dr. Anna Zeiter, is a German privacy lawyer, now based in Switzerland, who has a string of academic degrees.
Her prior work as chief privacy officer for eBay suggests that her perspective on consumer privacy is rather like that of a labor lawyer who represents employers, not labor.
W Social's undisclosed funding and the extensive data users must submit to join seem to be in direct conflict with its stated aim: to be a privacy-focused alternative to Xitter.
Herman 🇪🇺🇺🇦🇾🇪🍋 reshared this.
T3rc
in reply to huntingdon • • •@oldredsubby It’s exactly like #x, just based in the #eu.
Not something you should sign up to.
Hopefully, it’ll die and we never hear of it again.
After all, we have #mastodon
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David
in reply to Elena Rossini on GoToSocial ⁂ • • •Leif Samuelsson
in reply to Elena Rossini on GoToSocial ⁂ • • •I hereby vow to block anybody using a bridge from #WSocial.
Edit: changed "bridge to" to "bridge from" for clarity.
Lutz
in reply to Leif Samuelsson • • •Leif Samuelsson
in reply to Lutz • • •The bridge will appear as a Fedi server instance, so it should be obvious in the name. You can block individual users or the whole server.
I already do it for #Bluesky.
Noortje Van Leeuwen
in reply to Elena Rossini on GoToSocial ⁂ • • •sooo...
What you're saying is....these are...13 reasons why (not to join)
Babys in a thundercloud 🏳⚧️
in reply to Elena Rossini on GoToSocial ⁂ • • •tasket
in reply to Elena Rossini on GoToSocial ⁂ • • •ARGVMI~1.PIF
in reply to Elena Rossini on GoToSocial ⁂ • • •Does the EC intend to force the Fediverse to do this as well?
Because I'm fairly sure all the infrastructure for all this costs far more than most if not all Fedi admins can afford…
Elena Rossini on GoToSocial ⁂
in reply to ARGVMI~1.PIF • • •reshared this
ARGVMI~1.PIF, Kevin Russell and Disisdeguey🍉🔻PalestineAction🇵🇸 reshared this.
ARGVMI~1.PIF
in reply to Elena Rossini on GoToSocial ⁂ • • •If it's any consolation, Patrick Breyer's report on Chat Control <patrick-breyer.de/en/posts/cha…> says services that are neither paid nor funded by advertising are out of scope. That excludes the Fediverse (aside from Threads and Truth Social), Linux, Tor, and most other free-and-open-source things.
Whether this will remain true in future negotiations, I don't know, but Dr Breyer has been quiet <digitalcourage.social/@echo_pb…> and he probably would've sounded the alarm if the exemption was in danger.
Chat Control: The EU's CSAM scanner proposal
Patrick BreyerARGVMI~1.PIF
in reply to ARGVMI~1.PIF • • •Elena Rossini on GoToSocial ⁂
in reply to ARGVMI~1.PIF • • •ARGVMI~1.PIF
in reply to Elena Rossini on GoToSocial ⁂ • • •MarjorieR
in reply to Elena Rossini on GoToSocial ⁂ • • •just for info - I have no intention whatsoever of signing up to #WSocial - what is involved if you simply want to verify that you're human, rather than verify your name?
Obviously my handle on my Mastodon instance is entirely fictional and I'm very happy to keep it that way.
Herman 🇪🇺🇺🇦🇾🇪🍋
in reply to Elena Rossini on GoToSocial ⁂ • • •thedoctor
in reply to Elena Rossini on GoToSocial ⁂ • • •How on earth was this whole thing conceptualized?!
Some European person: Guys, Twitter, or whatever it's called these days, kinda sucks now, couldn't we make our own thing over here, but without the US involved in the technology?
Everyone: nod agreement
Some random dude: I've got the solution!
Everyone: Do tell!
Random dude: What if, bear with me here, we do the same thing this BlueSky thing does, but worse? Like, reinventing the wheel but actually making it square!
Everyone: Brilliant!
One lonely voice: Um guys? We have a ready-made solution already, it's called the Fediverse and it...
Everyone: proceed to ignore everything else and set about building square wheels
Guillotine Jones, Flâneur
in reply to Elena Rossini on GoToSocial ⁂ • • •Joining the monstrosity that is WSocial really IS too complicated.
I'll happily stick with the Fediverse.
Elena Rossini on GoToSocial ⁂
in reply to Guillotine Jones, Flâneur • • •Synnef 🤍💙💛
in reply to Elena Rossini on GoToSocial ⁂ • • •the fact that the verification is temporary is criminal, "yeah we want all your data and it better always be the most up to date version"
i guess a suitcase full of cash sounds a lot better than actually adhering to your digital sovereignty plans
it's so Big Tech-independent in fact that the identity app is only available on US-based, data-hungry app stores
DeltaWye 🔜 AnthroCon
in reply to Synnef 🤍💙💛 • • •A A Wharton
in reply to Elena Rossini on GoToSocial ⁂ • • •Dźwiedziu
in reply to Elena Rossini on GoToSocial ⁂ • • •At which step your handler weighs in to say that you look cute in your profile picture?
I mean, for this amount effort one deserves a kind word.
@blogdiva
Nonya Bidniss
in reply to Elena Rossini on GoToSocial ⁂ • • •Richard de Waard
in reply to Elena Rossini on GoToSocial ⁂ • • •ARGVMI~1.PIF
in reply to Richard de Waard • • •And privacy-preserving.
@elena
Toni Aittoniemi
in reply to Elena Rossini on GoToSocial ⁂ • • •Ben
in reply to Elena Rossini on GoToSocial ⁂ • • •Elena Rossini on GoToSocial ⁂
in reply to Ben • • •Danish Akhtar
in reply to Elena Rossini on GoToSocial ⁂ • • •Elena Rossini on GoToSocial ⁂
in reply to Danish Akhtar • • •Human after all
in reply to Elena Rossini on GoToSocial ⁂ • • •Did VDL follow these 13 steps.
No.
wraptile
in reply to Elena Rossini on GoToSocial ⁂ • • •tbh a barrier on entry is almost always good these days.
Just take a look at a shithole that is Threads - all you had to do is install the app and connect with already existing Instagram account and it's a cesspool of rage bait and scams.
So I think this is the wrong issue to focus on. If anything we should make mastodon registration harder. If you can't afford 10 minutes to create an account then you can't afford to socialize online either 🫣
ARGVMI~1.PIF
in reply to wraptile • • •Nobody is going to spend 10 minutes creating an account on a site nobody ever heard of. They might do that for X, but they won't do that for us. So that's a great way to destroy the Fediverse.
I've never been on Threads, but if what you say is true and it's full of rage bait and scams, then that's what the algorithm there must be promoting. Fedi doesn't have that problem and neither did the 1990s Internet. Why? No algorithm. No behavioral analysis. That's why.
@elena
Kevin Russell
in reply to Elena Rossini on GoToSocial ⁂ • • •Mark Harris
in reply to Elena Rossini on GoToSocial ⁂ • • •@elena
DFX4509B (Joshua Mason)
in reply to Elena Rossini on GoToSocial ⁂ • •Shane Rogers
in reply to Elena Rossini on GoToSocial ⁂ • • •Mensch, Marina
in reply to Elena Rossini on GoToSocial ⁂ • • •wakest ⁂
in reply to Elena Rossini on GoToSocial ⁂ • • •Victoria
in reply to Elena Rossini on GoToSocial ⁂ • • •KaiXin
in reply to Elena Rossini on GoToSocial ⁂ • • •widentity.eu/ is marked 'NOT SECURE' on #Firefox 😂
#WSocial #WIdentity
W Identity
widentity.euElena Rossini on GoToSocial ⁂
in reply to KaiXin • • •