Joint position paper · November 2026
As long as switching means starting over, challenger apps can't compete with the dominant platforms, however good they are.
Europe's builders of new social apps are asking Brussels for one structural change: let people take their identity, content and network with them, by giving every account a personal data server built to one common standard.
The problem
When you change bank, your direct debits move with you. When you change mobile provider, you keep your number. Moving between social apps should be just as easy, but today the best a European user can get is an incomplete zip file with none of their social connections in a usable form.
The GDPR and the Digital Markets Act already require platforms to hand over people's data, but in formats other services can't easily use, through transfer tools the platforms themselves decide who may use. Neither law requires platforms to hand over people's connections in a form that works elsewhere. So switching costs stay in place, competition stays closed, and people have little real choice.
What leaving looks like today · tested September 2026
LinkedIn Instagram X
Steps to export 9 16 10
Your followers arrive as A CSV of names, every link pointing back to LinkedIn A list of usernames and account IDs A list of numeric IDs, no usernames
Can your followers move with you? No No No
Full results in Appendix A of the paper.
The core ask
Every social media platform should hold its users' data, connections and interactions in a personal data server (PDS) that follows one common standard. People keep using whichever app they choose, and any app they authorise can read and write to the same account.
You can switch apps and keep your friends and all your images and videos. Your Instagram account could be hosted by Meta on a PDS, and a European photo app could show your posts and let you follow the people you already know. If you stop trusting the host, you move the server elsewhere, just as you keep your number when you change mobile provider.
Today
Instagram app
Your account
Posts, follows, likes, messages. Readable only by this app.
ZIP · 16 steps · up to 48 h
New app
Empty account. Your followers stay behind.
With a PDS
Meta's own app
New app
European photo app
Any other app
Built to the standard
Your personal data server anna.k.instagram.com
Hosted by Meta, to the common standard. Apps read and write only what you authorise.
Later, if you stop trusting the host: move the server. Same handle, nothing changes for your followers.
anna.k.eu
What the standard must guarantee
The test: using a new app with your data and connections should be as easy as signing up to an incumbent platform.
Our asks
The Digital Fairness Act, expected as a proposal in Q4 2026, is the structural track: it can establish the right to take your network with you and set rules for every platform. Enforcement of the Digital Markets Act is the near-term track: the Commission can act on obligations that already bind gatekeepers, without new legislation. Neither depends on the other.
Digital Fairness Act
Ask 1
Require social media platforms to hold users' data, connections and interactions in a personal data server that follows one common, enforced standard, with the AT Protocol's PDS as the starting point. For gatekeepers, the DMA could set the standard sooner.
Ask 2
A simple symmetry principle for every platform, gatekeeper or not. Dead data and obstructive export flows should count as an unfair practice.
Ask 3
Add the removal or suppression of links and proofs pointing to a person's other accounts to Annex I of the Unfair Commercial Practices Directive, and bar restrictions on user-requested contact matching, in user and developer terms alike.
Digital Markets Act enforcement
Ask 4
The Commission should set proportionate access criteria for portability tools itself, with input from an independent standards body, rather than leaving gatekeepers to decide who gets in; require granular scopes; and define "effective, continuous and real-time" as live sync of content and connections.
Ask 5
Meta surfaces Threads content directly inside the Instagram feed. The Commission should examine whether that is compatible with Article 6(5), which bars gatekeepers from ranking their own services above third parties.
It already works
The AT Protocol shows this approach works. The Atmosphere, the network of apps built on it, has more than 45 million users, and people use more than a thousand different apps on the protocol every week, all drawing on the same accounts and data. Its PDS is a draft standard within the IETF, and a PDS that can hold ActivityPub accounts is already being explored. Choosing it does not mean choosing between protocols.
The dominant platforms already do a version of this for their own products. The capability exists; what's missing is the obligation to open it to others.
Supporting note: why AT Protocol can stand independently of Bluesky →
45M+
users in the Atmosphere
1,000+
apps already on the AT Protocol
0
followers lost when you switch between AT Protocol apps
The full paper
Joint position paper presented by startups and tech organisations building new, healthy social solutions. Coordinated by the Modal Foundation. Includes illustrative mockups of a PDS in use and a step-by-step test of leaving LinkedIn, Instagram and X.
Endorsing organisations
More logos are being added as organisations confirm. Want yours here? Sign on as an organisation.
Signatories sign in a personal capacity; organisations are listed for identification. New signatures appear once checked by the coordinating team.
Sign on
Builders: if you build social experiences, apps, protocols or infrastructure for people in Europe, sign as a builder. You don't have to be based in Europe, but you need to be building for European users.
Everyone else: the paper was written by builders, and we want everyone who agrees to stand behind it. Civil society, researchers, journalists, companies, public institutions and individuals who believe leaving a platform shouldn't mean losing your network are all welcome.
Builders are listed first, so policymakers can see who is building the alternatives. We check every signature before it appears.
Coordinated by the Modal Foundation (Stichting Modal). See our privacy notice. You can ask us to remove your name at any time. Form not loading? Email hello@dfom.eu.