Press Release Wednesday 19 November 2025

EU entrepreneurs launch social media infrastructure to liberate Europe from US tech monopolies

Eurosky Live leads the charge in building a sovereign future for European social media


Berlin, Germany (19 November 2025) – Today a group of European entrepreneurs and technologists host Eurosky Live, a conference showcasing a public interest social media ecosystem built and governed in Europe.

The conference, held a day after France and Germany’s summit on European Digital Sovereignty, will bring together technologists, policymakers, investors, and business leaders on a mission to build European public interest alternatives to the dominant US social media giants. 

Concerns have been growing since President Trump’s inauguration in January about the outsized power that a small number of US companies hold over Europe’s technology stack, from cloud to social media.

The conference sees Eurosky launch its first tranche of infrastructure on the AT Protocol — an open-source framework upon which the Bluesky social media app is also built. 

Sebastian Vogelsang, Eurosky Co-Lead and founder of the Flashes app said

“Eurosky was born from a group of scrappy European technologists who wanted to move beyond just talking about the problems, to building real solutions for European people. 

Eurosky Live is a rallying cry to all those ready to leave behind the old paradigm of social media that keeps us trapped in addictive, harmful and anti-democratic echo-chambers. If you’re serious about European sovereignty - join us.”

Available to conference attendees as a pilot, Eurosky’s social media infrastructure ensures your account, your posts and your data can be stored in Europe, moderated by a European-built content moderation system and running on European-owned cloud infrastructure. This means:

  • Protecting Europeans from foreign governments threatening the ‘kill switch’: European data storage and control
    Eurosky is carefully designed to keep users' posts, accounts and data stored on European soil and protected by European laws. This means that foreign governments can’t press the ‘kill switch’ to deplatform any one individual or organisation.

  • Built in Europe, making it easy for start ups: A shared content moderation system
    One that bakes in European regulatory standards whilst reducing the cost of managing complex moderation obligations for European startups, making it cheaper and faster to launch.

In support of the initiative, Alexandra Geese, Member of the European Parliament, Greens/EFA, said

“Alongside the political talks on digital sovereignty in Berlin, European entrepreneurs are already two steps ahead and showcasing real European solutions to US tech monopolies. 

Eurosky is building the infrastructure to enable a new generation of social media apps - decentralised, customisable and owned in Europe. When it comes to protecting Europe’s sovereignty, there are few more important projects.”


The conference will also headline emerging European platforms, such as Berlin-based Flashes, a photo-sharing app alternative to Instagram, and Sill, an alternative to Google News. Startups like Tangled, a code collaboration alternative to Github, demonstrate that the advantages of the 40-million-strong AT Protocol user base extends well-beyond social media. 

Sherif Elsayed-Ali, Eurosky Co-Lead and Senior Fellow of the Future of Tech Institute said:

“Around 25 billion euros a year are funnelled to Big Tech through social media advertising revenue and another 25 billion through search ads. These old monopolies are fueling new monopolies - in cloud and AI - draining present and future economic value from European businesses and economies. 

We all know we need to disentangle ourselves from this risky dependency on US tech. We need balanced, healthy markets, where European companies can thrive and compete globally. With political interference encroaching into all areas of tech, it has never been more important to take action.”

The full Eurosky infrastructure stack will be available widely to the public in early 2026, updates will be shared on the Eurosky website. Eurosky is an initiative that will be housed under a new non-profit, The Modal Foundation, based in the Netherlands and launching later this year.

[End]

Contact

For media enquiries, please contact media@eurosky.social.

Notes

  1. FAQ on Eurosky is here.