Twitter leads call for EU lawmakers to 'think beyond Big Tech' | TechCrunch

In a formalization of an earlier Twitter-led push to try to exert influence over fast-forming European digital regulations, the social media firm has used its Twitter Spaces platform to host the official kick-off of a policy advocacy lobby group that’s being branded the Open Internet Alliance (OIA). Alongside Twitter, video streaming platform Vimeo; Automattic, the company behind WordPress.com, WooCommerce and Tumblr; the Czech and Slovak-focused search engine company, Seznam; and Jodel, a Berlin-based (profile-less) social network, are named as founding members. Twitter said the establishment of this formal lobbying alliance has been some two years in the making. Notably Mozilla — which had joined Twitter, Auttomatic and Vimeo in a earlier call for incoming EU digital regulations to support better user controls to tackle bad speech rather than home in on content censorship — is not being named as a founding member, so appears to be sitting this one out. At the time of writing it’s unclear why Mozilla is missing (we’ve asked). But the Alliance is putting out a wider call for other “middle-layer” internet companies to join the initiative — so the grouping may grow in size. Albeit — very clearly — Big Tech need not apply. Speaking…
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