Rival to Musk's 'X': European-Style Twitter 'W' to Launch Next Month

Reuters Yonhap News

The European-style social media platform 'W', positioned as a rival to Elon Musk's X (formerly Twitter), will launch next month.

According to the French daily Le Parisien on January 26 (local time), Anna Zeiter, an entrepreneur and former executive at eBay, announced at the World Economic Forum (WEF) held in Switzerland on January 19 that a new social networking service (SNS) called 'W' would be launched starting in February. It is scheduled to be released to the general public by the end of the year.

She plans to develop W as an SNS that complies with European regulations to compete with X. In a LinkedIn post, Zeiter pointed out, "Systematic disinformation undermines public trust and weakens democratic decision-making," adding, "Many people recognize this problem, but only a very few are contributing to shaping the future." She further emphasized, "I believe there is an urgent need for a new platform built and operated in Europe," and stated that "human-centered verification, freedom of expression, and data confidentiality must be core values."

In an interview with the Swiss business magazine Bilanz, Zeiter described W as an improved version of Twitter. She explained that the platform's name, W, was inspired by the English word 'we'. It also carries the meaning of providing accurate and contextual information in line with the journalistic '5W' principles: who, what, when, where, and why.

Going forward, W will only allow users who have been verified as real people, in order to exclude fake accounts and AI chatbots. In addition, to prevent information bias where only certain viewpoints are accepted, the platform will ensure that, if users wish, posts expressing differing opinions will be exposed at a certain ratio.

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.