Just 18 unverified VIP accounts produce more than half of all W Social content. | W Don't Have Time | Offprint

W Social sells itself as a network of verified humans. Their number one rule is clear and simple: prove who you are, or you don’t post.

But it seems that Ursula von der Leyen and Christine Lagarde along with a host of other VIP accounts, never got that memo. These accounts have no verification record in W Social’s public ledger, yet they post regularly.

And they are not alone. 18 of W Social’s 25 most prolific accounts, including the European Commission have no public verification record. Together, these unverified accounts have published more than 250,000 posts, making up half of all content on the W Social network.

For a platform that makes identity verification its defining selling point, the numbers raise an awkward question: does everyone have to prove who they are, or do some special accounts get waved past the velvet rope?

Before we get to the findings, here’s how W Social's verification process works for ordinary users.

Users must verify their identity through a separate mobile app, W Identity, which scans their passport or national identity card. Each verification is recorded in W Social’s public data and linked back to the user's account.

Missing from this ledger are the high profile VIP accounts documented in our research.

W Social says every account gets verified and that posting requires ID verification. Their public data tells a different story from its FAQ. Almost 80% of approximately 42,000 accounts have no verification record in the public ledger.

Many appear to have registered for the waiting list without then completing verification. The 13 step process is difficult enough to have become a barrier to participation. The W Identity verification app currently holds a 1.4-star rating on Google Play.

Verification can mean publishing personal details, including a full legal name and nationality, in W Social’s public data system. Ordinary users are being asked to clear a substantial hurdle before they can participate, potentially exposing personally identifying information in the process.

Yet, as W Social's public data shows, the lack of a verification has not prevented a large number of accounts from posting. Quite the opposite.

Finding 2: Unverified accounts produce most of W Social’s content

W Social promises a network of verified humans exchanging ideas and having engaging conversations. But it's own data paints a very different picture.

In reality, it is a largely inactive user base alongside a minority of prolific yet unverified publishers. As many as 90% of all accounts have never posted, liked or followed anyone.

Instead, W Social rely on unverified high profile VIP accounts from politics and media to fill the gaps and create a paper-thin facade of authenticity and credibility.

W Social may claim to require ID verification, but its own public data suggests that the bulk of the content circulating on the platform comes from accounts for which that verification cannot be established.

We have spoken with journalists on W Social who reported being fast-tracked in a video call "VIP" process, avoiding the awkward app based passport verification process entirely.

How can it be that a network whose only real rule is that "only verified people post" has a majority of its content coming from unverified accounts?

Finding 3: 18 unverified accounts post more than 50% of all content on W Social

W Social says it is a network for humans and that reducing automated manipulation is a core value and part of their raison d'être.

And yet, of the 25 most active accounts, 18 have no public verification record. Together this tiny group of accounts have published more than 250,000 posts. Approximately 53% of all content ever published on the W Social network.

These are not obscure accounts posting into the void. They include news media organisations like Fakt, Blick, Heise, Business Insider Polska and Forbes Polska, plus political institutions like European Commission and the European Democrats. These accounts have many thousands of followers and their arrival on W Social was used to create buzz for the network.

And yet not one has a public valid verification record.

These accounts pump out posts but do little to engage with the community. They don’t follow other accounts, like or reply to other people’s posts. Compared to verfied users, they broadcast en masse into the W Social feeds, flooding W Social with content without really taking part in the conversation.

The VIP Lounge

W Social demands that ordinary people must prove they are human, potentially publishing their full legal name and nationality in a public ledger. Yet its most prolific accounts have no publicly demonstrable verification record. If the accounts producing most of the content are unverified publishers, much of what users see is not coming from verified humans.

CEO Anna Zeiter told Cybernews in July that verification was like an entry check at a nightclub. But W Social looks less like a club with one rule for everyone than an exclusive venue with a velvet rope for the VIPs.

These accounts lend the network an air of legitimacy and pump out content that makes it look busy. Yet they rarely engage with other users. They broadcast into the timeline without following, liking or replying to the people they are supposedly there to connect with. The result is a network that looks lively from a distance but offers little substance for the community.

W Social may have a separate verification process for public figures and organisations. If so, it should explain what that process is and make the results public. Instead, ordinary users are asked to put their identity on public record without being given the same transparency about the VIP accounts dominating their feeds.

W Social demands that users make their humanity public, but won't show those same users the verification records of its VIPs. It asks ordinary people to trust the system while withholding the evidence that would justify that trust.

If ID verification is the price of admission, why are the VIPs behind the velvet rope exempt from public scrutiny? W Social cannot demand personal disclosure from ordinary users while leaving the status of its most influential accounts unexplained.

If everyone must pass the same checks, prove it. If VIPs get special treatment, say so.

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