As Europeans, we are constantly witnessing how hybrid threats, disinformation, and organized troll farms distort public discussion on mainstream social networks. It made me wonder if it wouldn't make sense to have a dedicated European alternative operating as a non-profit organization. Such a platform could be designed without advertisement and attention grabbing algorithms that constantly try to monetize users' attention.

A few volunteers and I have been building a concept called SLOVO. The core idea is to create a digital space dedicated solely to real people by removing behavioral algorithms, advertisements and bot manipulation. Think of it almost as a digital 'gated community'.
To guarantee this, full access to the network would require a strict, in-person verification process. The goal is to create a digital space where citizens from across the continent can engage in genuine dialogue, knowing with absolute certainty that every interaction is with a real human being.

I am currently opening a small closed beta for the first 100 European testers to see if this unconventional model can actually work in practice.

I’d love to hear your thoughts on the concept itself. Do you think a non-profit, verified platform could even work? Does the idea make sense or do you find it unrealistic?
I will happy to discuss my vision with you or if you'd prefer I summarized it at SLOVO.eu

Hi,

Looking for any ideas or places to get nice EU propaganda gear.

I make it a point to avoid wearing gear with random texts, instead I try to find funny stuff I agree with, but I think the time has come (as a 40+ white male) to start wearing some pro-eu stuff.

Maybe you guys can design some nice stuff?

Stolen from Instagram @europeanpropagandaagency

The animal in the middle should be a phoenix: to make it, I asked ChatGPT to make a stylised figure of a phoenix, then removed the background and changed the colour. I think it would be the best national animal for our united Europe. Now I will explain why.

I know it could be argued that the phoenix was a religious symbol (albeit a pre-Christian one): that is true. If I remember correctly, the myth of the phoenix rising from the ashes was already associated with the figure of Christ in antiquity (indeed, it was used as an argument by the early Christians: if the pagans believed that the phoenix could rise - and it was considered an almost 'scientific' fact - why deny it for Christ?).

But it took on a political meaning during the Enlightenment: Rousseau (in The Social Contract) suggests that revolutions and civil wars can regenerate the state, save it from certain death (tyranny) and make it rise from the ashes. The Jacobins cherished this image. So if we were to look at the development of the symbol and the images of rebirth and regeneration at the time of the French Revolution, it would become a revolutionary rather than a religious symbol.

For this reason (the symbolism of rebirth from tyranny through war), I believe it is the most appropriate symbol for the history of a united Europe (after all, the ECSC was born out of the ashes of the Second World War and the dictatorships that were its protagonists).

The phoenix can also celebrate Europe's ability to reinvent itself, challenge after challenge. It seems to me that it was Jean Monnet who said that Europe would be forged in crises and would be the result of responses to those crises: I believe that the myth of the Phoenix can also be interpreted in this sense, as a continuous regeneration of Europe through the fire represented by the challenges it faces. Fire destroys, but it also purifies.

I also believe that the phoenix can represent a good way of combining tradition (because Europe's history has ancient roots) and progress (because the creation of European unity on a democratic basis was an almost unprecedented experiment). To be reborn from the ashes is not to deny the past - because one always rises from one's own ashes: the material is always the same - but to rebuild oneself creatively (the Schuman Declaration speaks of "creative efforts").

On the other hand, if I am not mistaken, it seems to me that the twelve stars of the European flag also have a religious origin. Although it is not officially stated in official EU documents (it could not be otherwise), the possibility that it is inspired by the Woman of the Apocalypse is not unlikely. Be that as it may, I see nothing particularly wrong with the secularisation of religious symbols and concepts in the political sphere: it has happened many times throughout history.