alt.hn

5/11/2026 at 7:35:03 PM

W – The European social network for verified humans

 https://wsocial.news/

by layer8

5/12/2026 at 3:57:13 AM

I am just gonna leave it here.

Privacy Policy:

3.2. Identity verification through W Identity. To create a W Social account, you must first verify your identity through W Identity. W Identity operates an independent identity verification service that allows you to verify your identity once and then selectively share verified attributes with third-party applications under your control.

3.3. During the W Identity verification process, you will be asked to provide your phone number, email address, and date of birth, and to verify your identity using an official passport (via photo or NFC scan) and a selfie. This process is governed by W Identity’s own terms of service and privacy notice [...]

From the "W Identity" Play Store page:

Data that may be shared with other companies or organizations:

Personal info: Name, Email address, User IDs, and Other info

Photos and videos: Photos

Location: Approximate location

Messages: Other in-app messages

Device or other IDs

by quiet35

5/12/2026 at 11:36:07 AM

Those social platforms should really have a "import my information from a previous data leak" button.

by lbreakjai

5/12/2026 at 7:22:26 AM

Wow, they’re collecting a bunch of PII instead of using the zero-knowledge proof of humanity thing that the EU ID wallet is supposed to support?

How uneuropean.

by lxgr

5/12/2026 at 9:59:34 AM

This but unsarcastically, much to your dismay I'm sure, as usual.

by perching_aix

5/12/2026 at 10:55:44 PM

The number of websites and services with really bad ai layout and a perverted thirst for emails are skyrocketing lately... This has just a closed, undocumentd inhouse verification service on top. I can't find any useful info about the verififcation app.

by lschueller

5/12/2026 at 10:52:46 AM

Wow. Is that all? And here I though, iris scans, dna sample and the promise of my eventual first born would be in there. What a bargain.

Can't wait to do this and then get to use my "W account" to log into pornhub...

by InterlooperX

5/12/2026 at 5:49:43 PM

Logging into pornhub to require authentication similar to the nuclear briefcase. /s

by petre

5/12/2026 at 1:15:56 PM

Yeah lol no. That's exactly what I don't want in social media.

by wolvoleo

5/12/2026 at 9:34:40 AM

They should just hand all that stuff directly to criminals. Cut out the middle man of when their systems are hacked, saving everyone time and stress.

by andrewstuart

5/12/2026 at 3:11:23 AM

I appreciate the sentiment I guess, but you can't really verify the human-ness of a poster. At best you can validate that at some point(s) they completed a human-is-present check. Doesn't necessarily mean anything about a given post. Moltbook (wow that feels like forever ago) has the inverse problem: you can just larp as a kooky bot. At best maybe you can do something like limit the number of bots to the number of people who are willing to set aside their personal credentials, which is probably way more bots than you can stand.

by recursivecaveat

5/12/2026 at 10:10:52 AM

They could tie the identities to governmental identities in a blind manner.

The pitfalls are as follows:

- the governments can just arbitrarily manufacture identities

- identities (govt and this) can be stolen

- identities can be misused (coercively or consensually, e.g. by passing on access to another person or automation)

Still would beat the current state of affairs, which is piss-all identity attestation, but then they're not actually doing this. They're scanning official documents and go LGTM + pinky promise. Hard skip.

by perching_aix

5/12/2026 at 3:18:40 AM

There's a C-suite of five people and a board of advisors I couldn't be bothered to count before their public beta for an AtProto instance.

That just seems too heavy an operation for my taste. Seems prone to either infighting or raising too much early capital.

by sakjur

5/12/2026 at 5:45:16 AM

Signed up several accounts for the beta. Let's see how much of a photoshop they'll accept as verification.

by tardedmeme

5/12/2026 at 7:04:23 PM

Do share later as a post :)

by Paradigm2020

5/12/2026 at 8:45:29 AM

Boycott.

My social network is IRC, never needed to reveal my ID behind my nickname.

by zoobab

5/12/2026 at 1:17:29 PM

Even here it's not necessary to give even an email address. Greatly appreciated.

by wolvoleo

5/12/2026 at 6:19:41 PM

The website performance is not confidence inspiring

by lgcmo

5/12/2026 at 11:43:43 AM

This website is so laggy I can barely even scroll.

by rie_t

5/12/2026 at 3:50:56 PM

On the day I have deleted all social network accounts bar Mastodon, as I have realised I just don't care anymore. Any one I want in my life, I have the phone number of, any one I can take or leave I don't. Mastodon is more than enough for exploring and finding interesting projects that I otherwise wouldn't have learned about.

by ktallett

5/12/2026 at 8:21:20 AM

please take this, as part tounge in cheek and legitimate comment

what, exactly, has "european" got to do with bieng a "verified human"

maybe I should ask a dog

by metalman

5/12/2026 at 11:10:32 AM

Users can be from anywhere in the world, but they're making a selling point of it being built in Europe, hosted on European infrastructure, and governed by European law. The linked page shows this pretty clearly, I think.

by hoppyhoppy2

5/12/2026 at 11:18:45 AM

Nobody should trust the EU

by dddaria

5/12/2026 at 7:12:21 PM

Unless you're not blind to all things we have because of them

by geek_at