Publicly Run Social Media – A Solution for Europe?
TikTok, Instagram and YouTube are not neutral public spaces. Designed to maximise attention and engagement, these platforms play a major role in shaping public opinion in Europe. They amplify misinformation, polarisation and hate speech, while also encouraging patterns of use that harm mental health.
The EU has begun to respond through the Digital Services Act. Yet success up to now is limited.
Could Europe build a public-service social media model, inspired by public broadcasting – social media that protect democratic debate, strengthen Europe’s digital sovereignty and offer a healthier online environment?
This event will explore that question and introduce a European Citizens’ Initiative calling for a European public-service social media infrastructure.
With Lukáš Mikulecký, Co-Leader of the European Citizens’s Initiative “European Public Social Network”.
New! 1:1 Conversations! After our one-hour open discussion, we invite you to stay for another 30 minutes. You’ll be paired up randomly and answer four questions together in a one-on-one conversation.
The idea behind: meet new people from across Europe and exchange ideas in a more personal setting. The breakout rooms will stay open for as long as you like.
I think it would be better to have these public spaces be outside the control of foreign tech companies, but I’m also unsure whether it would be better to have one centralized EU social media network. I think that the Fediverse (such as Mastodon) could be relevant here. How do other people feel about this?
EU citizens initiative: https://citizens-initiative.europa.eu/initiatives/details/2026/000004_en
Awesome! Joining this. Thanks for the share.
It’s on Zoom, here’s the invite https://us06web.zoom.us/j/87415126197
Thank you for posting it. I was waiting in the wrong place. :D
I saw you joined it, what do you think about it so far? They mentioned non transparency of algorithms, and I feel like FOSS would help a lot for that. They also mentioned more regulation, but I’m worried that might lead to regulatory capture, disspropionately affecting smaller communities while big tech remains largely unimpacted.
Also a bit ironic they use gmail lol
I was the American that spoke to and asked about allowing government control. I enjoy taking about this stuff. Though EU doesn’t directly affect me, I think we all need to work on this together.
Also a bit ironic they use gmail lol
and zoom
Definitely hope it’s on Fediverse on some level.
They seemed unfamiliar with the workings of Mastodon, so it doesn’t seem like it. There doesn’t seem to be technical vision behind the proposal yet.
There doesn’t seem to be technical vision behind the proposal yet.
Jesus Christ, you’ve just savagely described the europe in a nutshell 😕
Even though this is a clear illustration of the level of maturity of these developments in European politics, I think it’s positive that the ideas exist outside just (parts of) the tech community
They could add tremendous focal points for debate / discussion, but I would rather have them own only their topics than own the whole social graph. I would not trust any org to own the social graph, so yes Fedi. I would really like govs to secure my digital rights via zero knowledge proofs of things like citizenship, age, etc… Give me a way to reveal only what a particular service needs to know.
Could Europe build a public-service social media model, inspired by public broadcasting
Sure. The government owned broadcasting is working great… not being abused at all. #JustEasternEuropeThings
