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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.

The account was created but W would not let me use the app without verifying my age as it is "required by law in my region". In fact the app is logged in in the background, this screen is a modal on top of it.

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.

So you're saying I have to verify and try again 🫥

Okay, so I can confirm: it works perfectly with a verified account too. Just follow the instructions on pdsmoover.com, no special steps, except note that you *cannot* keep your existing `.wsocial.eu` handle, they will delete it instantly (maybe the case for all providers?)

If it’s not too much to ask, a blog post on your experiences migrating away from W would be very shareable in future when folks have questions. 🙌 very grateful for your testing today.

I am unsure if migrating would loose "verified human" status in the long term – interested if anyone has tried it – but they did not remove me from the list in the short time I was on a different PDS, and my W account @caesar.wsocial.eu still has that status after migrating back.

Migrating back also worked fine, with the note (as before) that the account password is lost and has to be reset from their login page after migrating. Other than that, no issues at all, it's a simple standard migration both ways.