The Bilanz article that cybernews refers to is quite insightful. Here is a Deepl translation:
W Social wants to compete with Twitter
A new social network aims to make Europe more independent. In the leading role: Anna Zeiter from Zurich.
Marc Kowalsky, Bilanz, 19 January 2026
For eleven and a half years, she was a key figure at eBay, responsible for all non-American business and, as Chief Privacy Officer, also responsible for data protection worldwide at the internet auction house. Now Anna Zeiter (46), a resident of Zurich, is taking a career step that could have geopolitical consequences: Zeiter is to build a European response to X, formerly Twitter. This is another step in the efforts to free Europe, at least to some extent, from its technological dependence on the US. Because if the conflict over Greenland escalates, Elon Musk will flood X with US propaganda. The new network is called W Social. ‘The W stands for “We” and the big questions in investigative journalism: Who, how, what, when, where and why?’ says Zeiter. And in English, the first V that makes up the W stands for Values, the second for Verified. The fact that W comes before X in the alphabet is certainly also welcome.
Zeiter describes the new network as a ‘better version of Twitter’: ‘Positive, respectful communication should be encouraged.’ Users must identify themselves as human beings. This prevents fake accounts and excludes bots that serve as multipliers of false reports or propaganda. W Social also wants to address the filter bubble problem: if desired, a certain number of posts for each user can come specifically from a different opinion bubble. All data is hosted decentrally in Europe by European companies. And, of course, W Social is subject to strict EU data protection laws. The beta version is scheduled to go live in February at the latest, and W plans to open up to the general public at the end of the year.
Right from the start, W has had prominent supporters: its advisory board includes former German Vice-Chancellor and Swiss citizen Philipp Rösler, Sandrine Dixson-Declève, Chair of the Club of Rome, Cristina Caffara, Chair of EuroStack, the association of the 300 most important tech CEOs, and two former Swedish ministers. ‘If the political establishment in Brussels posts on W instead of X, we will have already achieved a great deal,’ says Zeiter. ‘And with EuroStack, we will bring the tech world on board.’ The initial funding comes mainly from Swedish tech investors, including Ingmar Rentzhog, CEO and founder of ‘We don't have Time,’ a climate policy media and activism platform based in Stockholm. W plans to conduct a larger financing round later this year.
W will legally be a subsidiary of ‘We don't have Time’ and thus also based in Sweden, but the team is spread across Europe: Chief Commercial Officer Johan Sundstrand, a successful serial entrepreneur, is based in London, the tech team is in Ukraine, and offices in Berlin and Paris are planned. Zeiter herself will remain in Zurich. After all, the German-born entrepreneur has already passed the Swiss naturalisation test. Now she is just waiting for the green light from the federal authorities.
Mastodon is often mentioned as an alternative, but it has its own problems. In my opinion, the biggest one is that there is no way to sort your feed like you can on Lemmy. A chronological timeline will always lead to quantity being prioritized over quality. That's why newer users in particular only see boring stuff. If you bring this up, you're guaranteed to get some Madison fan saying that Mastodon doesn't want to be like Twitter, and especially doesn't want to have an algorithmic feed. But then it's not and cannot be an alternative.