What are Europe's alternatives to Instagram, TikTok and X?

Published 7 June 2026 · tech

As criticism of Instagram, TikTok and X grows in the EU, developers have been working on European social media apps. But can they compete? DW

As criticism of Instagram, TikTok and X grows in the EU, developers have been working on European social media apps. But can they compete? DW answers the key questions. Instagram and Facebook from Meta, X (formerly Twitter) from Elon Musk, TikTok from ByteDance — billions of social media users interact with these products every day. These and other tech corporations have become huge and powerful. But in recent years, the European Union has made a considerable effort to limit their influence. DW has the most important questions and answers. Why has Big Tech drawn criticism? Large corporations such as Meta or ByteDance wield enormous market power — up to 3 billion Instagram users and nearly 2 billion TikTok users speak for themselves. Their influence extends beyond market dominance, as the platforms' algorithms help determine which pieces of information reach us in the first place and, to some extent, how we perceive the world through the social media filter. But critics say the platforms aren't doing enough to combat fake news, that they promote polarization, prioritize extreme content in their algorithms and neglect data protection — for example, when it comes to personalized and training of the respective in-house artificial intelligence. Social media bans: What it means for you To view this video please enable JavaScript, and consider upgrading to a web browser that supports HTML5 video In Europe, several countries are debating a social media ban for young people; Australia already introduced one back in December.

For many years, the European Union has clashed with social media platforms over their moderation strategies, including Mark Zuckerberg's Facebook. Many users and customers turned their backs on Twitter, after it was sold to South African multibillionaire Elon Musk and subsequently rebranded as X in 2023. The Chinese TikTok platform has faced allegations of proximity to the Chinese government and the Communist Party, including concerns over censorship. And European security agencies have warned that TikTok, or ByteDance, is storing data to an unknown extent. If so, and for what purpose the geopolitical rival China would be using the data, is not clear. Mastodon (top left) and PeerTube (bottom left) store data in a decentralized manner while X, Instagram, TikTok and YouTube (right column) have faced criticism over insufficient data protection Image: picture alliance / ZUMAPRESS.com Are there European social media alternatives? Alternatives to Instagram, X and TikTok from Europe already exist: the Mastodon platform from Germany is said to be the most well-known. France has launched PeerTube, developed by the nonprofit Framasoft, as an alternative to YouTube, which is provided by Google parent company Alphabet. The BeReal app, likewise from France, saw a brief surge in popularity in 2022. The concept allows users to post an image only once per day, at a varying time, and that image cannot be altered. The aim is to limit addiction potential. Dutch network Eurosky, a a platform for accessing independent social networks, stores data in a decentralized way and in accordance with the EU's General Data Protection Regulation.