We are already making social media safer - now it is time to give us safety!

Dear President von der Leyen,

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Henna Virkkunnen,

Executive Vice-President for Technological Sovereignty, Security, and Democracy and

Teresa Ribera,

Executive Vice-President for a Clean, Just and Competitive Transition

You've said that social media platforms treat our children's attention as a commodity. We are writing to you as the European developers giving them solutions to claim it back.

Our apps, one sec, Myranda, UseLess, ScrollGuard, SocialHope, Antigram and Tournesol.org, sit on top of Instagram, TikTok, YouTube and Facebook to give control back to users: less scrolling, fewer unwanted nudges, less distraction, a safer experience for adults and children alike - billions of social media delays every day. On average, users cut their screen time in half with our help.

The safety interventions we provide aren’t guesswork. We build on research from leading academic institutions in Europe and abroad, so our tools are grounded in evidence. Moreover, they provide valuable data for research on the impacts of social media features on user safety. Our goal is to understand how these platforms affect attention, wellbeing and young people in particular to then give users agency to adjust them. We function as a protective layer built in between platforms and users with a firm commitment to providing protections from the most harmful features.

But we build all of this on borrowed ground. We provide safety to our users, yet we have none of our own. The platforms we depend on can cut us off whenever and for whatever reason they choose. We have seen this happen before.

Dependence is not a business model and this should worry you more than it worries us. We have seen in Australia that a social media delay does not work without safe alternatives for young people to move to. Currently, such alternatives or interventions like ours exist at the incumbent platform’s mercy. The companies you are regulating hold a veto over the solution we are already providing and you are counting on.

We have seen before how powerful interoperable access to major platforms is: both in terms of its potential for growth and the dangers of dependence. In 2007, Mark Zuckerberg opened Facebook to outside developers and declared an end to the era of closed platforms. For a few years the door stayed open, and a generation of companies grew out of it. One became a European champion: when Spotify integrated with Facebook in 2011, its reach carried it into the American market and to mass scale. When in 2014, Facebook decided openness no longer served it and revoked access, Spotify was already big enough to survive, but most other apps were not – take Viddy and SocialCam the early video sharing pioneers for example. Both apps allowed users to film quick reactions with their phones, much like TikTok and Instagram today. Both had millions of users and brought functionalities to Facebook that we now consider integral to social media. But both failed because they were dependent on someone else’s platform and because someone changed their mind. Now, few remember they ever existed.

That is exactly where Europe’s safety-tech developers stand today. One decision in a boardroom where we don't have a seat at the table, and the work disappears. You have the power to change that and provide safety to European social media users and European developers alike.

The Digital Markets Act was drafted with foresight, as it already requires some designated Gatekeepers to open their operating systems to third-party developers, free of charge and on equal terms. We are talking about Article 6(7), which is the basis on which we built our applications. But online social networks remain closed off as they simply are not covered yet. Bring them in, apply Article 6(7)’s model to social networks so openness stops being something these companies can switch off. It becomes a right no boardroom decision can take away.

When you stand up at the State of the European Union address, give us the legal ground to keep building and ensure Europe gets both the safer social media you are fighting for and the industry to sustain it.

Safety for users is only guaranteed through safety for builders.

Signed,

David Grüning, Social Media Researcher, Max-Planck Institute for Human Development/Cambridge University/Stanford University & Science Director, one sec & Myranda

Frederik Riedel, Founder, one sec

Zina Efchary, Co-Founder, Myranda

Jasper Doeninghaus, Co-Founder, Myranda

Marc Fehlhaber, Co-Founder, UseLess

Damian Groß, Co-Founder, UseLess

David Köthnig, Co-Founder, UseLess

Adrian Hacar, Founder, ScrollGuard

Lucas Knapp, Founder, SocialHope

Jonte Walter, Founder, SocialHope

Ayman Ydelo, Developer, Antigram

Lê Nguyên Hoang, Co-Founder, Tournesol.org

Jean-Lou Fourquet, President, Tournesol.org

Étienne Koeppel, Director, Tournesol.org

Dr. David Grüning, Frederik Riedel, Zina Efchary, Jasper Doeninghaus, Marc Fehlhaber, Damian Groß, David Köthnig, Adrian Hacar, Lucas Knapp, Jonte Walter, Jonte Walter, Lê Nguyên Hoang, Jean-Lou Fourquet, Étienne Koeppel
September 9, 2026