Convener: Manfred Zielinski (@manfredzielinski@mastodon.nl)

Participants who chose to record their names here:

• Melanie Bartos (@melaniebartos@chaos.social)
• Jesse Karmani (@jesseplusplus@mastodon.social)
• narF (@narF@mstdn.ca)
• samvie (@Samvie@chaos.social)
• Joan Pla (@joanpla@mastodon.social)

Notes

European DMA - Digital Markets Act - law is already in place

want to create a more fair marketplace

have identified gatekeepers - Apple, Google, Microsoft, Meta, ByteDance, Booking.com

• x.com NOT a gatekeeper, considered too small

implemented a couple of rules:

• app stores - allow outside app stores
• chat services need to be interoperable

Most companies are starting to become compliant, big fines if they are not

• Apple, Meta have been fined already for not complying

2026 - will evaluate if these rules should also be applicable to social media services

• would require interoperability of social platforms

VERY relevant to the fediverse - good for us if they are required to interoperate with the fediverse

1. Need to evaluate the law and find that the markets are not fair
2. Then evaluate which standards would be required by the interoperability law

Small companies that are trying to offer competing products can submit an appeal to show it’s not competitive

If you have a project, join the Social Web CG to help move the spec forward so that it’s a good thing to point to as a standard

• https://www.w3.org/community/socialcg/ - sign up for the mailing list
• https://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/public-swicg/ - archive of posts
• https://www.w3.org/groups/cg/socialcg/calendar/#export - calendar of meetings

Press kit - want to have something available next year when this decision rolls around for journalists to look at

Conferences:

• https://ngi.eu/ngi-forum25/
• https://freedomnotfear.org/ 26–29 September in Brussels

Organizations to get connected with:

• https://edri.org/

-> get connected: #FediForumEurope

Lets have a FediForumEurope asap, to get connected in all EU member states and beyond

“Will Europe Sacrifice the Digital Services Act in Negotiations with Trump?” https://algosoc.org/results/will-europe-sacrifice-the-digital-services-act-in-negotiations-with-trump

Another good argument when approaching policymakers: crisis communication

• it’s a problem to communicate during an emergency only via Facebook or X

More good terms: sovereignty and autonomy - resonates with right-wing gov’ts

@andbaur@chaos.social: Researcher from Universities of Amsterdam and Tübingen on Sovereign Cloud Projects

“Microsoft gets twitchy over talk of Europe’s tech independence” https://www.theregister.com/2025/04/30/microsoft_getting_nervous_about_europes/

Discussion about EU Sovereign techfund by OpenForumEurope: https://openforumeurope.org/investing-in-open-source-sustainability-and-security-ofes-proposal-for-an-eu-sovereign-tech-fund/

The german sovereign tech fund: https://www.sovereign.tech/