How to make Ursula join your socials How did W Social, the new European social network, get the Commission president to join – and effectively endorse – it just months after its launch? W Social’s selling points are its built-in ID verification system and a strict “no bots” policy. According to documents we obtained, its founders pushed the Commission hard in lobby meetings. And just like that, von der Leyen was on board, according to an internal memo. Yet, why W Social made the cut – while more established and comparable European decentralised networks such as Mastodon didn’t – is unclear from the files. Alexander Fanta