Europe needs its own social media platforms to safeguard sovereignty

Original Article ↗ Hacker News Discussion ↗

Existing alternatives & usability

  • Several argue Europe already has suitable tools: Mastodon, Lemmy, Pixelfed, PeerTube, etc., often run on EU servers.
  • Disagreement over usability: some say Mastodon’s instance model is confusing “for non-nerds” and harms adoption; others insist you can treat it like any single-site platform and that complexity is overblown.
  • Bluesky is cited as feeling busier and easier to use, but critics note it is centralized, for‑profit, and likely to repeat Twitter’s trajectory.

Is social media necessary or harmful?

  • One camp claims “nobody needs social media” and sees it as a toxic, commercialized gossip machine that should be allowed to die.
  • Others counter that humans need scalable ways to organize, discover ideas, and coordinate, and that social networks now fill needs once served by forums, mailing lists, and newspapers.
  • Some report that quitting mainstream platforms reduced toxicity but also increased social isolation.

Sovereignty, privacy, and what users care about

  • Many agree digital sovereignty and privacy are important in theory, but see most users prioritizing convenience, network effects, and “shininess” over abstract freedoms.
  • Examples like TikTok migration are used to argue people don’t actually change behavior for privacy or sovereignty alone.
  • Some suggest focusing on organizations (governments, companies, leagues, media) as early adopters rather than hoping for mass user idealism.

EU regulation, barriers, and tech ecosystem

  • Commenters split on whether EU regulation (GDPR, DMA, online safety laws) protects citizens or mainly entrenches incumbents by making compliance too expensive for startups.
  • Fragmentation (languages, markets, capital) is blamed by some for the lack of EU-scale platforms; others say Europe manages coordination fine in other industries (aircraft, autos).
  • There’s frustration that EU excels at regulation (including of AI) but not at building large consumer platforms, with brain drain to the US noted.

Centralization, business models & decentralization

  • Many see the core problem as ad-driven, engagement-maximizing models that incentivize manipulation and polarization.
  • Publicly funded or low-cost subscription models are floated as better aligned with citizens, but concerns about government control and censorship remain.
  • Decentralized, FOSS, E2EE systems are widely endorsed in principle, yet acknowledged to be weaker on UX, discovery, and speed of growth.

Censorship, speech norms & identity schemes

  • Proposals emerge for EU-based, ID-verified networks where everyone uses their legal identity to curb bots, foreign trolling, and hate campaigns.
  • Pushback is strong: critics cite European speech restrictions and fear such systems would chill dissent, harm vulnerable groups, and codify “one person, one voice” without broad participation.
  • Broader concern: calls to “counter disinformation” are seen by some as euphemisms for enforcing a particular ideological line.

What Europe should actually do

  • Suggested actions range from:
    • governments and major institutions moving to Fediverse instances (with cross-posting to legacy platforms),
    • EU-funded, ad‑free social networks modeled on public broadcasters,
    • or focusing on decentralized infrastructure rather than new centralized “EU Facebooks.”
  • Others argue nothing will work unless EU offerings are simply better products; sovereignty alone won’t pull users off US or Chinese platforms.