In Europe, calls for a European social network are growing louder. Recently, 75 well-known organizations from civil society, churches, trade unions, and open source technology developers (here is a complete list of all participating organizations: https://www.germanwatch.org/de/93066 ) addressed an open letter to the parties negotiating for a government in Germany, calling for a counterweight to the opaque social networks of Big Tech corporations in the US and China.

But other European countries are also increasingly demanding online platforms that are independent of corporations and that comply with European citizens' rights in the digital space.

With the UNA CMS Framework, we have exactly the right technology to fully meet the EU's legal requirements for transparent digital online media and platforms, such as the Digital Service Act, Digital Markets Act, AI Act, and GDPR. Big Tech media corporations, with their advertising-based business model, are clearly struggling here.

So, will new, small online media operators in Europe be able to displace the large social network operators? That depends...

Users are certainly annoyed by the constant irrelevant information in their feeds because the algorithm is constantly trying to improve the statistics for advertisers. However, the connection to the social media platform, based on the hope of finding relevant information about their own interests or about their friends and contacts in the same network, seems to prevail.

It therefore takes considerable persuasion to bring users from the large digital media platforms to a new, unknown platform. But I remember this video by Andrey Yasko from UNA announcing NEO, in which he characterizes various Big Tech networks with a wink and also provides the crucial information on how this can be achieved: The user must immediately understand why it makes sense to participate in a new social network. My theory goes even further. I think that once users understand that it's more meaningful and useful for them personally to participate in a new social media platform, they'll also become a multiplier for that platform, as they'll suddenly, of their own volition, try to bring their friends and contacts onto the same platform. The UNA Framework provides us with all the necessary modules and functions. As social network operators, we have to take care of the unique selling proposition and the added value for our users ourselves.

We have high hopes for the new NEO by UNA. In my opinion, a social network or media platform without an optimized, native app doesn't have a chance, even remotely, of being seen by users as an equivalent replacement for the major social networks.

Back to my headline - will we miss the opportunity?

Well, in the world of large, commercial online media platforms, there's a rule: time is money. If you don't get to market quickly enough with an innovation, you've lost because others will push you out of the market with their innovations. But what if you don't participate in the market at all?

We decided very early on not to participate in the social networking market. Therefore, we operate our social community platform not as a company but as a non-profit association. For this reason, our community platform is naturally completely unattractive to venture capitalists and external investors. On the other hand, by using open source technology and eliminating the need for constant algorithm optimization and the high costs of an expensive advertising engine, we can finance our platform independently through annual membership fees. Another advantage: Our users aren't just customers. As association members, they are co-owners of our social community platform. And we treat them as such. They are actively involved in all decisions – thanks to UNA's Polls module. But our vision for the future goes even further. We want to turn co-owners into co-creators. Design, modules, content, moderation, technology. Thanks to open source and the UNA framework, we can essentially put everything in the hands of our users, co-owners and co-creators. As the association's board, we are then primarily responsible for coordinating and overseeing the projects of our co-creators. Thus, users not only determine what benefits the platform should provide, they even will help implement them.

Our decision, as a non-profit organization operating a social community platform, not to follow the same business model as the major social networks offers us an additional advantage: time is not money.

Essentially, the offer of information in exchange for personal user data and its more or less unrestricted use to maximize profits by large corporations is countered by the offer of direct user participation in a social network that is not profit-oriented and respects users' rights regarding their personal data.

I apologize for the length of my post. But I would be very interested to hear your views on this.

Is there a chance to break the dominance of the major social networks by providing added value for users? What is the situation in your countries regarding personal data protection?