TikTok getting MAGA spawns new social media services.
UpScrolled is apparently built from scratch as a centralized platform, not based on ActivityPub or ATProto. They explicitly state that current decentralized protocols don't deliver what they need for a video-forward app, whatever that means. It's run by Palestinian-Australian developer Issam Hijazi with support from the Tech for Palestine incubator, launched in June 2025. Positioned as an Instagram and TikTok alternative without shadowbanning, with chronological feeds.
UpScrolled saw a massive surge after TikTok's US ownership restructure in January 2026, when Oracle and other US investors took controlling stake while ByteDance retained only 19.9%. Some users accused TikTok of censoring posts critical of ICE under the new ownership, which drove people to alternatives.
Monnett is also built from scratch, centralized, with no federation. Run by Monnet Social SA based in Luxembourg, founded in 2024 by a team of European technologists and activists. It's their answer to surveillance capitalism, GDPR-compliant, hosted in Germany, with user-controlled algorithm sliders and no psychological profiling. Basically the European sovereignty play.
W is the newest one, announced at Davos just days ago. Another centralized platform built from scratch, run by Anna Zeiter, former eBay chief privacy officer. It's legally a subsidiary of We Don't Have Time, a Swedish climate activist organization backed by IKEA, Volvo, Unilever, WWF, and Salesforce. The advisory board includes former German Vice Chancellor Philipp Rösler and Club of Rome chair Sandrine Dixson-Declève. Requires identity verification with photo and ID to combat bots. European-hosted data only.
The name of W supposedly stands for "We" with two hidden V's for "Values" and "Verified" - and they cheerfully admit that W coming before X in the alphabet is "a welcome coincidence". Beta in February, public launch late 2026. Zeiter said the platform would already count as a success if "political Brussels" posts on W instead of X.
So all three are new walled gardens with different policies and ownership, but none contribute to the Fediverse, ActivityPub or ATProto.
Makes me want to shout, "Hey, look here, we're here!". But nobody listens.
Sources:
https://europeanconservative.com/articles/news-corner/new-european-x-alternative-backed-by-climate-activists
https://www.wionews.com/technology/europeans-plan-to-launch-w-their-own-social-media-platform-to-rival-elon-musk-s-x-1769165110324
https://monnett.social/faq/
https://80.lv/articles/european-politicians-unveil-w-an-upcoming-twitter-x-alternative
https://updates.techforpalestine.org/upscrolled-is-live-the-instagram-alternative-thats-actually-on-your-side/
#SocialMedia #W #UpScrolled #Monnett #Centralized #TikTok
