When Facebook and Twitter emerged in the mid-2000s, people largely saw social media as a force for good.
It promised a more democratic internet, where anyone could reach people across borders and information no longer had to flow down from institutions and media organizations.
And in many ways it delivered.
Two decades later however, the mood has soured.
A handful of platforms now dominate social media, and most make their money from advertising, which means capturing as much of our attention as possible. Algorithms decide what rises to the top of our feeds. Misinformation, clickbait and increasingly polarised political debate fight over what’s left.
Yet we depend on these platforms more than ever. There are now 5.79 billion social media user identities worldwide, and according to Reuters' 2026 Digital Report, 52% of 18–24-year-olds say social media, video networks and AI chatbots are their main source of news.
For that generation, the feed is where the news comes from and where a view of the world takes shape.
So who owns the digital spaces where Europeans now talk to each other and get their information?
That’s the question behind Epsilon.
Thomas Rocafull and Stéphane Dubreuil founded Epsilon in France as a European alternative to the dominant social networks. They describe it as sovereign and responsible. That means it’s built around data sovereignty and transparency, with a feed that no algorithm ranks for you.
Can a European social network compete with platforms used by billions of people? The harder question may be whether you can build one whose business model doesn’t depend on keeping people scrolling.
At Bpifrance’s BIG annual meeting, I spoke to Rocafull about why he thinks the answer is yes.
