The European Data Protection Supervisor (EDPS) is determined to create EU’s own social network based on the open-source software of Mastodon. This week, the EDPS announced the launch of the pilot phase of EU Voice, a Mastodon server developed for European organizations and authorities to keep in touch with the population. The authority is also testing EU Video, an alternative to YouTube based on the PeerTube open-source platform.

EU Voice and EU video will join the so-called Fediverse, an ensemble of federated decentralized web services where users can interact with each other regardless of which servers they use to store their accounts on. The Fediverse is a network of free and open alternatives to present-day social networks. For example, the Pixelfed platform is a Fediverse alternative to Instagram, and Funkwhale, to Spotify.

Wojciech Wiewiórowski, EDPS, said, “With the pilot launch of EU Voice and EU Video, we aim to offer alternative social media platforms that prioritize individuals and their rights to privacy and data protection.”

According to Wojciech Wiewiórowski, there will be no advertisement on the platforms, and there will be no profiling of platform users.

At first glance the EDPS incentive looks interesting. However, the European Commission will have to attract at least 1 million users in order to make such platforms as EU Voice or EU Video work efficiently. And although the Mastodon founder Eugen Rochko has stated that tens of thousands of new users have been joining the service in response to Elon Musk’s Twitter acquisition announcement, there are plenty of Twitter admirers who are not planning to leave the social network.

https://www.securitylab.ru/news/531450.php