Write to us | European Union
Send us your enquiry about the EU using this online form. You can write in any official EU language, or Ukrainian or Russian.
https://european-union.europa.eu/contact-eu/write-us_en

Dear Sir or Madam,

As an EU citizen and regular user of your websites, I am writing to ask the European Union to review and change the default “share this page” options on official EU web pages hosted on europa.eu domain and subdomains.

Currently, many EU pages prominently offer sharing via large, centralised platforms such as X (formerly Twitter), Facebook and LinkedIn. This practice has several negative consequences:

  1. 1.

    It gives preferential brand visibility and de facto promotion to a small group of dominant, mostly non‑European platforms.

  2. 2.

    It reinforces surveillance‑capitalism business models that conflict with the Union’s own ambitions in the fields of fundamental rights, data protection and digital sovereignty.

  3. 3.

    It sidelines open, interoperable and decentralised alternatives that are more aligned with EU values and policies.

The EU should not pre-select a few dominant commercial platforms as the default route for sharing public information when a platform-neutral technical standard already exists.

I respectfully request that the EU:

  1. 1.

    Remove “share via X / Facebook / LinkedIn” links from official EU websites.

  2. 2.

    Provide neutral, privacy‑respecting sharing options such as:

  • “Share via e‑mail” (using a simple mailto: link)

  • Use the Web Share API as the primary sharing mechanism. This would allow users to choose their own preferred sharing destination through their device or browser’s native share sheet, instead of the EU pre-selecting and promoting a handful of private platforms. The Web Share API is specifically designed to let websites share links and other content to user-selected targets

  • “Copy link” (so people can share in the tools and networks of their choice).

  1. 3.

    Explicitly support open and decentralised protocols and services, for example by:

Ensure that any social‑network‑specific links are implemented in a way that does not load third‑party trackers or scripts by default (no embedded widgets, pixels or iframes), in line with EU data‑protection and cookie rules.

This change would be a concrete, highly visible way for the EU to:

  1. 1.

    Demonstrate technological neutrality and avoid favouring specific commercial providers.

  2. 2.

    Encourage the use of open, federated and European‑friendly ecosystems such as ATProto, Mastodon and the wider Fediverse.

  3. 3.

    Better align its own web presence with the principles expressed in legislation such as the GDPR and the DMA, as well as with broader policy discussions on interoperability, platform power and digital rights.

I would be grateful if you could forward this request to the relevant services responsible for the EU web publishing guidelines and social‑media policy, and inform me whether any changes are planned in this direction.

Thank you in advance for your attention to this matter.

Kind regards,

screenshot of a europa.eu contact page, showing social media sharing options, a 'Thanks for your feedback!' message, and the EU logo.