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Europe pushes open social stack to replace foreign platforms

Hacker News •
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A coalition of European tech firms and civic groups released the European Social Stack, an open declaration to replace dominant foreign platforms with home‑grown, decentralized alternatives. The manifesto cites the Fediverse—projects like Mastodon, Peer Tube and Mobilizon—as core building blocks, alongside the Atmosphere suite and private‑messaging protocols. Signatories argue that shifting to these open standards will keep billions of social‑media revenue inside the EU.

Eight guiding principles anchor the effort, from digital autonomy and decentralized governance to open‑source development and diverse business models. By allowing community, cooperative, VC‑backed or municipal ownership, the stack supports ad‑supported, subscription or public‑funding revenue streams. The declaration also calls for EU funding of distributed identity, content‑moderation tools compliant with the DSA, and a Eurobridge linking Fediverse nodes to Atmosphere services.

The signatories list include Felix Ableitner, the Lemmy team, and representatives from Ghost.org, SOVERIA and HOIST IT. They pledge joint development of cross‑protocol features such as Matrix‑based direct messaging and shared moderation APIs. If adopted, significantly the stack would give European users a federated alternative that rivals trillion‑dollar incumbents while preserving local language diversity and regulatory compliance.