EU invests €500M in W, a new platform aimed at X

The new EU social platform project would reportedly operate under European internet rules that require mandatory identity verification for all users.

European Union institutions and allied policymakers are backing a €500 million effort to launch W, a new social media platform as an alternative to Elon Musk’s X. According to its backers, the union should respond to the concerns raised in Brussels about foreign influence and the power of US-based platforms to contort information.

The EU’s regulators and Elon Musk have had several heated discussions over X’s freedom of speech policies. With the US push to “acquire” Greenland at play, some tech leaders in Europe fear the American-based social media network will be used to spread the West’s propaganda.

A Europe-first social network backed by political heavyweights

The plan to build W has been quietly developed with support from an advisory board that includes former ministers and prominent business leaders from Sweden. The initiative is led by former eBay chief privacy officer Anna Zeiter, who told Swiss news outlet Bilanz the W stands for “We.”

The beta version of W is scheduled to go live by February at the latest, but a public rollout would come later on in the year, Zeiter confirmed. A majority of the funding came from Swedish technology investors, including Ingmar Rentzhog, the founder and chief executive of the Stockholm-based climate policy media platform.

Zeiter believes the platform will become a “better version of Twitter,” with an emphasis on respectful interaction and accountability. In line with EU social platform legislation, W will require every user to verify their identity, as Twitter did before Musk bought it in 2022. She explained the need for verification was to eliminate fake accounts and automated bots that amplify propaganda or false information. 

All user data will be hosted within Europe by European companies, placing it squarely under the bloc’s strict data protection framework. The platform will also introduce optional tools to allow users to receive posts from differing viewpoints if they choose. 

“If Politico Brussels posts on W instead of X, we’ve already gained a lot,” says Zeiter, “And with EuroStack we can bring the best tech in the world.”

War between Brussels and Elon Musk’s X

As reported by Cryptopolitan in early December last year, the European Commission fined X €120 million following an investigation into breaches of the EU’s Digital Services Act. Musk responded to the EU on X by accusing commissioners of “deciding the fine first and then making up fake reasons afterwards.”

“The EU Commission should be disbanded in favor of an elected body, and the EU President should be directly elected. The current system is ruled by bureaucracy, not democracy,” the Tesla CEO wrote on X, taking a jab at the union for denying residents their freedom of speech.

On December 23, US Secretary of State Marco Rubio issued an order banning five Europeans from entering the country and accusing them of leading “organized efforts to coerce American platforms to censor, demonetize, and suppress American viewpoints they oppose.” 

Meanwhile, European policymakers have portrayed X as a risk to public order and democratic debate, particularly as the platform has reduced content moderation and restored previously banned accounts. 

Some officials argue that the site’s content and fake information spreads faster than reports from broadcasters and news publications, especially during geopolitical crises.

Zeiter warned that if tensions in Greenland escalated, X could be “flooded” with US-favored disinformation. In a LinkedIn post announcing W’s launch, she stated that:

“We believe there is an urgent need for a new social media platform built, governed, and hosted in Europe. With human verification, free speech, and data privacy at its core.” 

According to a Politico report, a group of 57 lawmakers from Europe has asked the Commission to consider banning X, owing to the surge in non-consensual, AI-generated intimate images.

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