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Can others confirm that W users are locked into W? That would be quite unacceptable, to put it mildly.

As much as I dislike W Social, I can confirm that this is NOT the case. There is nothing preventing outward migrations. I did it myself just now with a test account to verify. Thread:

I created a brand new test account and opted not to verify. For what it's worth, on the intro flow W does sort-of advertise the fact that they are part of the Atmosphere, though in a way that non-technical users probably won't understand.

I was able to bypass the ID requirement by logging in ONCE with a VPN from Sweden. After this I was not prompted to verify my age again even when logging in without a VPN.

Correction: I think this must have been due to caching / a cookie. When I tried signing in again just now I was prompted to verify my age again. I can still bypass it by using the VPN though.

Interesting — this would indicate that you can do it iff you haven't verified your ID (and so not onboarded onto the app) but (based on other reports) once you're verified you're locked in.

I wanted to test changing my handle to my own domain. W have removed this option from their Bsky clone. By logging in with bsky.app I was able to change to my own domain with no issues.

Next I wanted to try migrating away from W Social. I used @pds.dad's PDS MOOver, entered my login details etc, and clicked the button. W's PDS emailed me a confirmation code, I entered it on PDS MOOver, and the migration was complete. It was exactly like migrating from any other PDS.