With csocial.eu, I am starting a small observation project around W Social.
I would have liked to call it A Social. That would have worked rather well: alternative, analysis, accountability — maybe even a little asocial. But the domain was already taken. So it became C Social.
And the C stands, quite clearly, for critical.
The reason is simple enough. W Social is entering the stage with big promises: a new social network, more freedom, more independence, closer ties to the community. All of that sounds appealing. But the more ambitious the promise, the more useful it becomes to look at the details.
Trust is not created by slogans. It needs transparency.
A platform that talks about freedom should be able to explain how it works. A project that wants to be an alternative to the big networks should be ready for questions about technology, funding, data, moderation and responsibility.
That is what interests me here. Not the grand narrative, but the mechanics behind it. In the platform world, the most revealing part is often the space between what is promised and what is actually delivered.
Whether W Social becomes a serious new network, another digital balloon, or something somewhere in between remains to be seen.
On C Social, I will be watching it critically
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