2.1.2. Enforce Platform Interoperability

Mid-term Measures

To re-open the monopolised social network ecosystem for competition we demand to legally enforce cross-platform-interoperability for communication across different platforms. Telecommunication providers are forced to open their network to smaller players and to interoperate – this is how we can call each other across different providers.  There is no reason why social networks should not be subject to the same policy.

Mandatory cross-platform-interoperability could be achieved by, e.g., standard basic services with end-to-end-encryption to which different services could attach, supporting data portability. In practice, this would mean that you could communicate with people on different platforms without having an account for these platforms or handing them your personal data.

Social media should be seen and regulated as a public utility. This includes substantial public funding for the development of open and decentralised alternatives that embrace:

  • Interoperability
  • Data Portability as described in Article 20 of the GDPR (the right to convert and transfer user data/media to a secure location or to import it to another service)
  • Mandatory anonymised, authenticated and end-to-end encrypted digital communication
  • privacy-preserving identity authentication tools