The Social Web and Digital Sovereignty: Building Social Advocacy Networks in and for Europe.

In this talk, I will discuss the collaborative efforts that began in 2025 with the aim of establishing an advocacy network for the social web. While the developer community is flourishing with the support of the Social Web Foundation and others, few communicators have raised their voices and made demands addressed to the political sphere, such as the European Union.

As social web engaged people with professional backgrounds in policy work and communication have become involved in social networks in Europe, interest and efforts to strengthen communication and political demands in the European digital policy landscape have grown.

In order to be approachable by interested lawmakers and public organizations, we need advocacy networks. What goals and benefits could be achieved through such networks? They would enable regulatory influence and support, secure public funding, and help advocates to sit on public and non-public panels. This would enable them to raise awareness and advocate for decentralised social networks as a means of achieving digital sovereignty.

One of our important political messages is to emphasize the importance of social networks as a fundamental building block in the pursuit of digital sovereignty in and for Europe. Social networks should also be recognized as a service that must be included in discussions about Eurostacks.

To get those and other messages heard and repeated, we need more people to join these efforts. In my talk, I will discuss the current state of stewardship of the open social web, and the political goals we should aim to achieve in 2026.