Second, companies in this increasingly autocratic and hostile US control every major digital platform that Europeans use to debate and share news, with the exception of TikTok, which is Chinese. Even Europe’s news organisations rely on Google and other US advertising technology companies for online revenue. Trump can humiliate or cripple the oligarchs who control these companies.
Fediverse?
it would be the obvious choice, but for some reason it doesn’t take off. i remember, back when i used mastodon, there was a “MEP assistant” using it. The stuff they posted wasn’t interesting for me, but it was a good thing.
Then it’s important to identify the reason it doesn’t take off. Is it inherent to fediverse (in which case we would indeed need a new platform) or is it external. For example proprietary platforms have marketing and lobbying.
i have no idea how politicians got to proprietary platforms. maybe consultans recommended it.
from work, i know, the company i work at has limited budget for social media and chose three platforms by guesstimated number of users in our country. they use some software that posts on multiple platforms at once.
maybe: The social media company pays the politicians or acquiesces to removal of critical posts?
It’s probably the same for politicians. They are looking for widest reach. It’s not only about posting. To be effective, they need to moderate and engage with comments, which is harder to automate. Also, they might just not know about fediverse platforms (lack of marketing). In that case the solution would be to promote fediverse among users, European business, organizations and politicians.