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Smells Like Green Spirit
Some Scandinavian climate capilatists are trying to sell us yet another adulterated product to rebut X, dubbed W. it's worse than a cow's fart.
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he European digital counter-offensive “against global “disinformation”—with X (formerly Twitter) cast as the ultimate villain—is now upon us. Take that, Elon , you New Putin!
2026 will supposedly see the grand debut of W, or VV no one knows - standing for “We,” “Values,” and “Verified.” Verifed values? Really?
A shiny new social network proudly ticking every box of moral rectitude: mandatory ID + live photo verification for every single user, European-hosted data, strict rules against bots, AI-generated content, and anything deemed “systemic disinformation.”
In theory, the virtuous antidote to American 1st Amendent protected chaos. In practice, that medal of virtue has a very dark flip side. Is this saintly platform really fighting for truth and decency… or is it Europe’s polished madam, running a high-end bordello of controlled speech where johns get free rub thanks to EU subsidies?
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W comes wrapped in the noble packaging of VV: Values, Verified, and supposedly We (the people of Europe). Mandatory identity verification before you can post a single word? It’s sold as the silver bullet against bots, electoral propaganda, and anonymous troll armies. Noble on paper. Catastrophic in reality.
History begs to differ. Anonymity isn’t a bug in information ecosystems; it’s the feature that allows explosive truths to surface. Without source protection and the ability to speak without reprisal, no Watergate, no Panama Papers, no Pandora Papers, no LuxLeaks, no SwissLeaks, no Snowden.
Whistleblowers do not walk into newsrooms with their real names and family photos attached. They leak because they can remain hidden until the story is safe to tell.
Social media has inherited that journalistic function—often replacing or supplementing legacy outlets. Without anonymity on platforms, there are none of those countless citizen-driven scoops.
If the gatekeepers demand your passport and a live selfie just to whisper a suspicion, the next Daniel Esllberg logs off before typing the first word.
And if the inevitable reply is “but pseudonymity will still be allowed,” the game is already lost. A public-facing pseudonym with mandatory backend real-ID linkage offers zero meaningful protection against state or corporate pressure. The chilling effect is instant: whistleblowers, dissidents, investigative amateurs, and ordinary critics simply self-censor or stay silent.
Then comes the moderation promise: strict, human-led content control to promote “positive information” and crush “hate speech.” In Europe, where freedom of expression is already more circumscribed than in the US, who defines the line? Who appoints the “certified human moderators”? No independent, transparent fact-checking system is mentioned—just an opaque team enforcing vaguely “values-driven” rules.
The risk is obvious: today’s “hate speech” may be tomorrow’s inconvenient fact. The platform risks becoming a digital echo chamber where the only tolerated discourse is the one that aligns with Brussels-approved consensus.
The non-monetization pledge (at least initially) sounds virtuous—until you follow the money. No ads means reliance on external investors, philanthropic funds, or—more worryingly—public subsidies and European institutional backing.
Dependency breeds capture. A platform that can’t survive without the goodwill of governments and aligned foundations is unlikely to bite the hand that feeds it.
The “de-polarization” feature—exposing users (who opt in) to opposing viewpoints—could theoretically burst filter bubbles. Or it could serve as a soft instrument of narrative management: nudge users toward “balanced” takes that just happen to reinforce the official storyline while quietly sidelining genuinely disruptive ones. Benevolent pluralism or velvet-gloved thought-direction?
Data privacy gets a reluctant nod: European hosting, GDPR, limited US jurisdiction except in serious criminal cases. Fine—as far as it goes. But privacy alone doesn’t salvage a platform built on compulsory identification and pre-emptive moderation.
Now the real background, the part that should make every European pause: W is a subsidiary of “We Don’t Have Time”, the Swedish climate-activism media outfit founded by Ingmar Rentzhog—the very entrepreneur who propelled Greta Thunberg to global fame (before she publicly cut ties in 2019, accusing the organization of exploiting her name for fundraising).
Unveiled in Davos, fronted by Anna Zeiter (ex-eBay Chief Privacy Officer, now CEO of W), advised by establishment figures including former German Vice-Chancellor Philipp Rösler (a vocal Energiewende advocate) and Club of Rome ambassador Sandrine Dixson-Declève. Smells like green spirit?
This isn’t a neutral tech project born in garages. It’s a top-down initiative from the climate-activist/media/elite nexus, launched in the heart of the World Economic Forum, with ties to the same circles that routinely frame “disinformation” as anything challenging green-transition orthodoxy or institutional narratives.
Days before the splashy reveal, 54 MEPs—mostly Greens/EFA and Renew Europe—penned an open letter to Ursula von der Leyen blasting X as Elon Musk’s personal “one-way broadcast system” and demanding European alternatives. How convinient.
The subtext is clear: if private markets won’t deliver the “right” platform, perhaps public monies (i.e., taxpayers) should step in.
W isn’t a grassroots European rebellion against Silicon Valley alleged overreach. It’s a managed, values-aligned, identity-gated alternative designed by people who sincerely believe unfiltered speech is too dangerous for democracy.
The irony is brutal: in the name of fighting disinformation and foreign influence, Europe risks building the most perfectly domestic, perfectly controllable information silo of all.
Europeans who value real friction, real leaks, real plurality will keep using X and its ilk. The rest can enjoy the sanitized, positive, heavily-moderated serenity of W. Another “sovereign” project that smells more like supervised conformity than genuine independence.
We’ve seen this flick before. The credits usually roll on low adoption, high overhead, and loads of taxpayer money. Pass.
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