A new social media platform linked to the World Economic Forum and the European Commission is launching in Brussels this Wednesday.<\/p>\n
W Social, which explicitly aims to replace Elon Musk\u2019s X in the European Union, is hosting a public event celebrating the start of its public beta in the Press Club Brussels, located minutes away from the European Parliament, Commission and Council buildings.<\/p>\n
\u201cW, first introduced during the World Economic Forum in Davos earlier this year, will unveil its Public Beta version in Brussels, from the heart of the European Union,\u201d a press release for the event says.<\/p>\n
The new platform will require that all users verify their identity before joining, with its website emphasising compliance with the EU\u2019s censorious Digital Services Act.<\/p>\n
\u201cAt a time when bots, fake accounts, AI-generated manipulation and coordinated disinformation are reshaping public debate online, W aims to offer a new approach to digital public discourse,\u201d it claims.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe platform combines free expression, accountability, privacy and human verification. It is hosted on European infrastructure and governed under European privacy laws considered among the strongest in the world.\u201d<\/p>\n
The platform also claims that a \u201chigh-level guest from the European Commission\u201d will speak at the launch, and that all attendees will be treated to \u201cdrinks and snacks\u201d afterwards.<\/p>\n
Initially announced at the World Economic Forum in Davos, W has explicitly billed itself as a European response to Elon Musk\u2019s X, claiming that it will be looking to \u201cfree\u201d the style of platform from the tech trillionaire\u2019s right-wing politics.<\/p>\n
W is heavily linked to another Brussels-aligned company, \u2018We Don\u2019t Have Time\u2019, a media outlet focused on climate change that is partnered with numerous companies, including Salesforce, Nestl\u00e9 and Unilever.<\/p>\n
It has also been warmly received by the Brussels institutions, with a transparency register for the new company revealing that it met with members of the cabinet of the EU\u2019s VP for tech, Henna Virkkunen.<\/p>\n
Virkkunen has been one of many Commissioners involved in pressuring American tech firms to obey the EU\u2019s censorship rules, explicitly singling out X in January for allegedly hosting \u201cillegal content\u201d.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A new social media platform linked to the World Economic Forum and the European Commission is launching in…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":110498,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[104],"tags":[211,210,714,2610,73,239,13555,13882],"class_list":["post-110497","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-brussels","tag-belgium","tag-brussels","tag-elon-musk","tag-european-commission","tag-european-union","tag-technology","tag-world-economic-forum","tag-x"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@dk\/116767140046298265","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/110497","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=110497"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/110497\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/110498"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=110497"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=110497"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=110497"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}