There was a time when the internet felt like a promise. A place to discover, to connect, to be heard.
20 years later, we have actually lost trust in social media. We have never been more connected yet more divided.
Last December, four founders were having dinner in Stockholm when a post from Elon Musk calling for the end of the European Union appeared on their screens. Their plan was to launch a European social platform in 2027. That evening, they cut the timeline to six months.
In June, W Social went live in Brussels. Among its first users: the European Commission, the European Parliament, the European Council and the European Central Bank. Ursula von der Leyen. Christine Lagarde.
Which creates a problem founder Anna Zeiter describes herself: every W user verifies with a passport and a face scan. So what does a 20-person startup do when the identity of Europe's most powerful people passes through its systems?
Her answer, at 23:02, is the most interesting design decision in this episode.
Anna is a media lawyer with a PhD in free speech and ten years as data protection officer at eBay. She is also, by her own count, the only woman running a social media platform anywhere.
In this hour, she gets into:
Why 120,000 people joined the waitlist with no marketing spend, and why she refuses to let them all in. The shareholder clause built to stop an American takeover. What happens to your passport photo seconds after you upload it. Her estimate of how much of X is bots, and what that means for anyone buying ads there. The one kind of AI content she will remove, and the kind she defends. The number she checks every hour. It is not user growth.
CHAPTERS
00:00 We lost trust
00:54 Why Europe had no alternative to X
01:40 The Brussels launch
02:25 120,000 signups, zero marketing spend
04:01 The speech that started it, the post that accelerated it
07:01 Announcing W at Davos, before the product existed
09:14 Three things X cannot copy
11:05 The Trend Machine: what Europe is really talking about
14:37 Why she is keeping people out on purpose
18:24 The protocol that lets you leave and take everything
23:02 "Can you imagine me sitting on that database?"
28:21 Getting your followers out of X and LinkedIn
31:40 The clause that blocks an American takeover
33:24 What this actually costs
34:11 The investors she says no to
34:57 The only woman in the room
35:56 What US big tech offered her instead
37:43 15 years of social media: the lessons
38:08 Why captchas are dead
40:52 Selling ads to 100% humans
43:14 Killing the paywall with 50 cent articles
45:12 Hiring from the companies she is challenging
46:17 She paid hackers to break it
49:56 The AI video that could have started a war
54:04 The number she checks every hour
57:30 Why the metaverse failed, and what replaces it
58:55 One thing she asks of Europe
Was she right to ship a beta in six months, or did Europe need a finished product? Tell us in the comments.
Guest: Anna Zeiter, co-founder, W Social | https://wsocial.eu
On W Social: https://wsocial.eu/profile/
On LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/
Host: Philippe Séjalon, CEO, The INGAGE Institute | https://news.ingage.institute/
On W Social: https://wsocial.eu/profile/
On LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/
Newsletter, The World of Risks in the AI Era
Virtual Studio: Patrice Séjalon, CTO, The INGAGE Institute
On W Social: https://wsocial.eu/profile/
On LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/
Your experts know things your market never hears. That is a risk. We fix it: news.ingage.institute
#EuropeanTechSovereignty #WSocial #ATProtocol #DataProtection #Privacy #EuropeanUnion #TechPolicy
