People have drifted away from Twitter/X since Elon Musk bought it in 2022. An estimated four million have left, with women leaving at a faster rate than men. What began as concerns about moderation policies has widened into unease and horror about data governance, transparency, AI image generation, and the algorithmic impacts on democracy.
This scrutiny has extended to Meta and other platforms. Charities, businesses, and people have reassessed where they want to communicate, journalists have diversified their channels and brands are considering the reputational risks. People are questioning how their data is used and who controls what they see.
This is not a coordinated boycott though. People are drifting to different platforms and struggling to find the people they connected with elsewhere. Many of the alternatives are still US-owned platforms. With the trust eroding in the places where we host our online conversations, the consequences ripple beyond technology.
We have known about this for a long time. Carole Cadwalladr has been hounded for talking about Facebook’s role in Brexit since 2019.
She has talked at TED conferences about the need to address the tech controlling our conversations and ideas. People have watched her talk, read her articles, and yet many still use the same platforms.
We need to reclaim the feed. Develop European platforms where data is hosted in Europe. Beyond that, could there be a more democratised way of communicating online? Away from ads, shareholders and billionaire bosses?
The public square we do not control
From social media to emails, our online conversations are dominated by American platforms. Beyond Twitter/X and Meta, we also have:
TikTok – a video platform owned by Bytedance until recently, when it was acquired by a US joint venture including Oracle. It has over one billion monthly active users, with many under-30s. It is used as a news discovery platform and has driven youth engagement in politics.
Substack – a global publishing platform that has around 50 million users worldwide. They take 10% of the revenue from newsletters. They have recently been called out for hosting newsletters that promote racist ideologies. The platform is owned by US founders and investors with data storage in the USA.
Google – a subsidiary of Alphabet, used by millions for email, data storage, Youtube and Android phones. US-owned and with US data storage. They have added AI features to many of the products, silently searching our emails and files.
LinkedIn – owned by Microsoft in the USA. A professional network used by businesses, government and media, with around 900 million users globally. Their algorithm determines which posts gain traction and who is amplified.
Growing unease
People are waking up to this with concerns about politicised content moderation, algorithms pushing for engagement over accuracy, and the misuse of AI tools for harassment, manipulation and abuse. The European Union is currently investigating Elon Musk’s X over Grok AI explicit deepfakes, with Ofcom also announcing investigations. This led many more charities, brands and users to leave X. Yet we still see our government ministers and media outlets using the platform – perhaps due to no strong alternative being offered?
We rely on digital platforms for many different uses. We mobilise volunteers, donors and campaigns. People use them for marketing, to organise events, to make friends, to challenge decisions and share petitions.
Digital sovereignty is not isolation
Breaking up with Silicon Valley does not mean we abandon those digital connections. It means we have to recognise the power of these platforms and the power of our data. There are emerging new platforms with different governance models and decentralised ownership. There are some looking at creating European Advisory Boards to reflect public interest over shareholder returns. Mastodon did take off for a while, but people found it difficult to connect with users due to the decentralised servers.
Alternatives emerging are:
Monnet – designed to be an Instagram alternative.
Upscrolled – an Australian alternative to TikTok with a Palestinian-Australian founder.
W – which seems to have the most traction so far. Announced at Davos, with European owners and leaders. It has stated the aim is for security, with ID required to sign up. W also hosts its data in Europe and is currently asking people to sign up to the waitlist.
There are also alternative search engines such as Ecosia and Qwant. The focus for all the new platforms is on transparency over user sign-ups, moderation, and governance. There is also concentration on accountability to European standards, with data hosted in Europe. This means investing in European digital innovation.
In France, they are going a step further and ditching Microsoft-owned Teams and US-owned Zoom, citing security concerns. They have announced that all government departments will use their own developed platform by 2027. Will other European countries do the same?
Breaking up with Silicon Valley is about maturity, not isolation. It’s a recognition that our democracy needs something different. It will need our politicians and institutions to back this. Moments like this will shape a different future.
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