EU regulations such as the GDPR or the Digital Services Act (DSA), which will soon come into force, have come into being primarily to show big tech corporations from the USA their limits. After all, these often do not meet European standards, especially when it comes to data protection and competition law. But why are there no social media providers from the EU itself? With “EU Voice” and “EU Video”, two representatives of this favor are now to enter the test phase.
Social media made in Europe
By creating its own social network providers, the EU could tackle the problem at its root. After all, these could be designed from the ground up with our ideas of high data protection in mind. “EU Voice” and “EU Video” should soon make this a reality, according to EU Data Protection Commissioner Wojciech Wiewiórowski.
We want to offer alternative social media platforms that prioritize individuals and their rights to privacy and data protectionWojciech Wiewiórowski
In particular, both providers are intended to serve as a voice for the individual authorities of the European Union. Thus one wants to pass on after the model of Twitter and YouTube messages to the EU citizens. Everything in the sense of a good data protection. Experts in their field are behind the development itself. Thus one explained on the part of the European Union commission that it is the internal directorate general computer science, which stands behind the project.
No profiling and no advertising
On paper, the project reads like every data protectionist’s dream come true. Both EU Voice and EU Video are to be free of advertising and do entirely without profiling. The latter is understood to mean the targeted collection of user data in order to create a customized advertising image. Although the platforms do without these two points, they are still to be launched free of charge. Nevertheless, the two providers cannot dismiss their role models. For example, EU Voice is clearly a system based on the Twitter concept. Short texts or media can be shared with the public here. According to its name, EU Video is more of a video platform a la YouTube in the starting blocks. The test phase is intended to find out how well the EU institutions get along with the two new platforms. If you want to take a look, you can visit the website of EU Voice or EU Video.
