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“European public voices choosing W” —But are they?

More accounts that are being used to sell W Social when they aren’t even really there

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あ@aiueo.ooo
Oct 16, 20265 min read

irst, a disclaimer: No one is paying me. I just find it really alarming to have a company that has such misleading messaging in our midst, because I really want the AT Protocol at large to succeed.

Also, sorry if I make any mistakes because while my browser is in GMT, I’m actually in GMT+9 and really need to go to bed.

Additional disclaimer, roughly a day later: I noticed a typo in one title. All names and titles were copy-and-pasted from the website; insert “(sic)” as necessary.

The post above led me to check the accounts on the page:

What I found

All information as of when I checked on October 16, 2026. All dates are GMT. I searched for the person or organization’s name on Bluesky, with some additions I happened to know of for media organizations.

Summary

  • 2 people who might not have any kind of an ATProto account at all (unless they’re pseudonymous)
  • 1 person who doesn’t have a W Social account and isn’t exactly active on ATProto in general
  • 9 people who do have W Social accounts but have never or almost never posted
  • 1 organization that’s not on W Social (but technically they were for less than half a day) but are active on Bluesky
  • 1 person and 1 organization that are on W Social but have never posted, and are active on Bluesky
  • 7 people and 12 organizations that can be said to be active on W Social, 2 of which also have very active accounts on Bluesky

People who might not have an account at all?

I couldn’t find an account when I searched for their names. It’s possible that they have pseudonymous accounts that just didn’t come up in the search. It’s also possible that there are people who are scheduled to create accounts on W Social, but that’s not what the website conveys.

  • Philipp Rösler (Former German Vice Chancellor and Minister for Economics and Technology)
  • Elizabeth Denham (Former UK Information Commissioner)

People who don’t have accounts on W Social and aren’t active on ATProto in general

That I could find, anyway. It would be pretty funny if she has a pseudonymous alt account on W Social.

  • María Fernanda Espinosa (Former President, United Nations General Assembly)
    1. @mfespinosaec.bsky.social is on Bluesky’s fibercap.us-west.host.bsky.network PDS (source). 4 posts and several reposts, the last one from 10 months ago

People who do have an account on W Social but have never or almost never posted

I realize “almost never” is subjective. Let’s say 5 posts or less, with leeway given if there’s activity within the past month. (These accounts could be said to be active in that they haven’t deactivated their accounts, but that is the weakest possible definition of “active.”)

  • Kata Tüttő (President, European Committee of the Regions)
    1. @president.cor.europa.eu was newly created on W Social on June 12, 2026 (source). 1 post, posted on June 17, and that’s it
  • Dana Spinant (Director-General for Communication, European Commission)
    1. @danaspinant.wsocial.eu*2 migrated from Bluesky to W Social on June 17, 2026 (source). 1 post posted on June 17
    2. There’s also @danaspinant.eurosky.social with nothing at all (no posts, no followers/following, no avatar, no display name, no nothing), created on June 18, 2026 (source)
  • Louisa Specht-Riemenschneider (German Federal Data Protection Commissioner)
    1. @louisa.wsocial.eu was newly created on W Social on April 10, 2026 (source). 0 posts
  • Thomas Süssli (Former Swiss Chief of Armed Forces)
    1. @thommy.wsocial.eu was newly created on W Social on April 9, 2026. 3 posts, the last one from April 19
  • Sandrine Dixson-Declève (Honorary President of Club of Rome)
    1. @sddecleve.bsky.social is on Bluesky’s stinkhorn.us-west.host.bsky.network PDS (source). 15 posts. The last repost is a post from 8 months ago
    2. @user.wsocial.eu was newly created on W Social on May 4, 2026 (source). 3 posts. The last repost is a post from 2 months ago
  • Christophe Leclercq (Co-Founder Europe MédiaLab / EuroActiv)
    1. @christopheleclercq.wsocial.eu was newly created on W Social on April 21, 2026 (source). 5 posts, all from May 2026
    2. There’s also @leclercq.wsocial.eu with 0 posts, created on W Social on June 18, 2026 (source), that’s mutuals with @christopheleclercq.wsocial.eu*3
  • Pär Nuder (Former Swedish Minister for Finance)
    1. @parnuder.wsocial.eu was newly created on W Social on April 17, 2026 (source). 58 followers/19 following/0 posts
    2. There’s also @villadabo.bsky.social, with a default avatar and 105 followers/490 following/0 posts, although again, I don’t know whether this is the same person or not
  • Kristina Persson (Former Swedish Minister for Strategic Development and Nordic Cooperation)
    1. @kristinapersson.wsocial.eu was newly created on W Social on April 20, 2026 (source). 2 posts (1 post and 1 reply), both from April 2026
  • Marc Placzek (Former Chief Privacy Officer PayPal, Chief Privacy Officer Tools for Humanity)
    1. @marcpl.wsocial.eu was newly created on W Social on April 17, 2026 (source). 5 posts (3 posts and 2 replies); the first three are from April and the last two are from September, so he just barely didn’t make the cut for “active” here

Organizations that don’t have accounts on W Social but are active elsewhere on ATProto

  • Der Spiegel
    1. Interestingly, @spiegel.de migrated from Bluesky to W Social on June 17, 2026, but migrated back to Bluesky within the same day (source).*4 90.8K posts

People who do have accounts on W Social but are far more active elsewhere on ATProto

Organizations that do have accounts on W Social but are far more active elsewhere on ATProto

  • Agence France-Presse – They have multiple accounts on Bluesky, but just to pick up the ones that are on W Social:
    1. @afp.com is on Bluesky’s enoki.us-east.host.bsky.network PDS (source). 16.3K posts
    2. @afpfr.wsocial.eu was newly created on W Social on June 16, 2026 (source). 0 posts
    3. @en.afp.com is on Bluesky’s lionsmane.us-east.host.bsky.network PDS (source). 22.9K posts
    4. @afp.wsocial.eu was newly created on W Social on June 16, 2026 (source). 0 posts
    5. All of their other accounts are on Bluesky

People who can indeed be said to be active(-ish) on W Social

I’m being very generous in some cases.

Organizations that can indeed be said to be active(-ish) on W Social

I thought I should check because they also do this on their other promotional website:

Those technically aren’t lies because they don’t specifically say that the accounts are on W Social and W Social users can see them, but it’s incredibly misleading. I’ve seen multiple people understandably assuming that @london.gov.uk is on W Social, including this article on taz.de that has since been corrected. To this day, @london.gov.uk, @beate.neos.eu, and @teresaribera.ec.europa.eu are all on Bluesky.

  1. This initially said October 17. Again, my browser is in GMT but physically I’m in GMT+9, so it was October 17 here and 16 there. Sorry about the mix-up ↩
  2. The handle was invalid when I was trying to check the account (and also for several others). I believe this is a known bug on W Social and it happens all the time, but it’s been a known bug since at least June 2026 iirc and it’s a marvel that they haven’t fixed it yet ↩
  3. I don’t know whether this is another exception to the one-account-per-person rule or whether it’s just someone else with the same name (or—gasp—an inauthentic account on W Social) ↩
  4. I’m very curious about what happened here ↩
  5. What happened to the one account per person rule? ↩
  6. I didn’t know Audrey Tang is European ↩

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