A Netherlands-based initiative is offering European users a homegrown alternative to Big Tech's social media offerings.
A new European social media infrastructure platform officially launched on Thursday, promising users full ownership of their data, to rival the likes of Meta and X.
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The move comes as tensions mount between Brussels and US tech giants that dominate social media. Meta and other social media platforms have come under fire for ostensibly being addictive in their design.
In December, Elon Musk’s X received the largest ever fine by the European Commission for breaching transparency rules.
Meanwhile, the company’s AI chatbot Grok generated non-consensual deep fake nudes, urging some 50 European lawmakers to call on the European Commission to "build European social media now”.
The new Netherlands-based initiative, called Eurosky, is not a social media platform in itself. But it gives users a single digital identity that promises users complete ownership of their data hosted on European servers and in compliance with EU law.
The digital identity allows users to plug into the AT Protocol, which is the framework that underpins services such as social media platforms Bluesky and other apps.
“The social part has been surgically removed by Big Tech. The real opportunity here is to bring the social back into social media,” Sebastian Vogelsang, cofounder of Eurosky and CEO of the Flashes.app an Instagram rival built on Bluesky, said in a media briefing.
The digital identity, or personal data server (PDS), is where your posts, profile, and connections are grouped.
The platform says that as the ecosystem expands, more apps will become available.
"Only in a flourishing ecosystem of social networking innovation can we threaten the dominance of Meta, X, Alphabet and ByteDance," Vogelsang said.
For now, Eurosky still relies partly on Bluesky's core infrastructure, particularly for content moderation.
But Eurosky has said that there is a roadmap toward full independence, which includes building a shared content moderation system that European app developers could license.
Eurosky first made its personal data servers available to pre-registered users in February.
The organisation includes entrepreneurs, technologists and civil society groups, which includes Robin Berjon, a former data strategist for The New York Times.
