A flurry of new schemes to launch Europe-based social networks faces a steep, rocky road to seduce users away from US and Asian giants in the sector.
Founders nevertheless see opportunity in the disillusionment and distrust of major platforms that have spiked alongside transatlantic tensions under US President Donald Trump’s second presidency.
“We think the timing is perfect, in a context where relations between Europe and the US are still deteriorating,” said Gregoire Vigroux, cofounder of Croatia-based network eYou.
Photo: Reuters
“It’s time for Europe to equip itself with its own social networks,” he added.
Opening to users on Tuesday, eYou is one of a number of efforts on the old continent, including W — a would-be competitor to X, announced in January — or Eurosky, a platform for accessing independent social networks launched last month.
Bulle (French for “bubble”) also launched in January promising a “healthy social network” while Monnett — a hybrid of TikTok and Instagram — is set for full release in July.
“The rejection targeting the [US] platforms is still stronger today” than in the past, said Romain Badouard, a researcher at France’s Inria computing institute specializing in social networks.
He said that a “conservative turn in Silicon Valley” had proved unpopular with European users seeing the likes of X owner Elon Musk or Meta (Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp) CEO Mark Zuckerberg cozying up to Trump.
At W, “the idea is to bring back what was once Twitter in the good old days,” founder Anna Zeiter said.
Some interest is apparent among investors and users in the new crop of networks.
In a second fundraising round, eYou garnered 300,000 euros (US$353,545) in late last year, while Monnett claims more than 65,000 users on the beta version of its app.
However, such figures would be rounding errors to the giants of the sector, who count in hundreds of millions of users and billions in revenue.
The dominance of incumbent players has left little space for challenge beyond niche offerings such as Mastodon or BeReal.
“The world of social networks is an enormous graveyard,” eYou’s Vigroux said, adding that “99 percent of European social networks launched in the last 10 years have fallen flat.”
Badouard pointed to the so-called “network effect” that powered the snowballing of major platforms’ user numbers as a factor now shielding them from competition.
For users on Instagram and TikTok, “all the people they know and the accounts they follow” are on the existing networks.
However, the “technological maturity” of the latest wave of challengers could still count in their favor, he said.
“They’re answering to a lot of the expectations users have,” Badouard said.
There is a familiar litany of criticisms leveled at the big players, including sorting users into “filter bubbles,” unevenly-enforced moderation and addictive design.
European would-be competitors see those as openings to vaunt their own virtues.
W promises to keep all but verified human users from posting, while eYou says it would “promote users sharing content considered trustworthy.”
“It’s really important for us that it’s not an algorithm that determine what’s on your screen, but yourself,” said Christos Floros of Monnett, which is aiming to hit 1 million users this year.
Such commitments could steepen the path to profitability for the new arrivals, in a market where financial success is still largely determined by raking in advertising sales.
W would have “no crazy hyper-targeted advertising,” Zeiter said.
“Right now, we are all trying out different business models and different approaches,” she said. “Maybe in one or two years we see what’s most successful, and then we can team up.”
SPEAKING OUT: After Siranudh Scott’s allegations surfaced, celebrities and public figures took to social media to share their own experiences of sexual misconduct and abuse A high-profile alleged sexual abuse case within a wealthy Thai beer brewing family has prompted a wave of painful accounts from survivors of unconnected abuse in the conservative nation. Siranudh Scott, a member of the billionaire Thai family that founded the ubiquitous Singha beer brand, posted an emotional video this month accusing his elder brother Sunit of repeatedly abusing him when he was a teenager. Sunit, who is in his 30s, later denied the allegations in a video posted online, but Singha parent Boonrawd dismissed him from his executive role with the company on Tuesday last week. “I felt I needed to speak
SEEKING ORDER: Rodrigo Paz said that ‘anyone who wants to destroy the nation will have to deal with this president and the full force of the constitution’ Bolivian President Rodrigo Paz on Wednesday said that the nation was at a “breaking point” after nearly a month of protests that have caused shortages of food, fuel and medicine. Paz, who took office six months ago amid the worst economic crisis there in four decades, is battling a groundswell of fury over his policies. The political capital, La Paz, has been besieged by low-income workers and members of the indigenous majority calling for his resignation. “The country needs order and is reaching breaking point,” the 58-year-old said at a public event in La Paz, renewing his appeal for dialogue. On Tuesday, the Bolivian
COMMUNITY CONFLICT: Concerns about disease spread from corpses has run up against friends and families’ desire to bury their dead as infection spreads in the area Angry residents of a town at the epicenter of the Ebola outbreak in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DR Congo) attacked and burned a tent that was part of a health center where people are being treated for the virus, the staff there said Saturday. It was the second such attack in the region in a week. No one was hurt in the attack, according to reports but as patients ran out to escape the fire, 18 people with suspected Ebola infections fled the facility and are unaccounted for, a hospital director said. Angry residents arrived at the clinic in the
Forecasters in Europe yesterday warned of exceptional heat as record temperatures driven by a “heat dome” push temperatures well above seasonal norms across the continent. The surge follows a record-breaking Monday, with France logging its hottest day in the month of May on record, its weather agency said, and the UK also posting unprecedented highs. A so-called “heat dome” of warm air from northern Africa trapped under a high-pressure system over western Europe is behind the high temperatures not usually seen until high summer. Restrictions on outdoor work were imposed in parts of Italy, beaches in southwest France filled earlier than usual and
RSS