An exact (!!!) 2 minute pitch at the EURODIG conference regarding the topic 'Platforms’ Accountability to Strengthen the Digital Public Sphere', on Thursday, June 27.
Here's the text:
"FediVariety is a European collective of digital activists and researchers dedicated to promoting Open Source Software for public and civic institutions with an emphasis on the Fediverse. We studied EU Voice/Video, the EDPS pilot project on the FediVerse.
No regulation alone will safeguard democratic debate.
It all depends on A Collective, Collaborative & Coordinated Effort
What Europe needs is a Social Stack: A sovereign digital infrastructure, built on the values we already share: digital autonomy, decentralisation, diverse ownership, editorial pluralism, and algorithms —Treated as institutions that serve the public interest like broadcasters and libraries do.
The vision on this, is already converging across the Fediverse, Eurosky, and private messaging ecosystems, The technology works. The EDPS pilot on the Fediverse proved it. We at FediVariety; we studied exactly that.
So this is no longer a technical question —It's a political choice.
The math is simple: Redirect even a modest share of public digital spending toward open alternatives, and you sustain local developers, break foreign dependency, and re-circulate the billions Europe generates in social media back into European hands.
No single platform or protocol can match the scale of Big Tech alone. But an ecosystem can: Shared infrastructure, open protocols, small builders empowered to innovate, users free to move.
That's why we look forward to the DC-EDIC as a coordination framework: To sustainably fund the critical open-source infrastructure that a European Social Stack demands.
The tools exist. The political will is what's missing."