The Europeans will have to wait a little longer. Meta has chosen not (yet) to make its Threads social network available to Internet users in the European Union. A decision linked to Brussels regulations, said a source familiar with the matter. Mark Zuckerberg’s newborn, launched this Thursday, July 6, presents itself as a potential competitor for Twitter, which is experiencing turbulence marked by policy changes.
While now seems like a good time to launch Threads, it’s not for everyone. Meta preferred to wait before offering it to residents of the European Union while it clarified the consequences of the new Digital Markets Regulation (DMA), which came into force in early May, according to the source. The DMA aims to impose specific rules on essential Internet companies, in particular Meta, to avoid anti-competitive practices. If the group from Menlo Park (California) has every intention of launching Threads on the Old Continent, the date is not yet defined, assured the source close to the file. Asked by AFP, Meta did not respond immediately.
What does this platform look like? In fact, the presentation of this new application appears close to that of Elon Musk: it contains a general thread containing messages that you can like or comment on. “Meta, like other tech giants, has a habit of copying features from competing platforms and implementing them into its own services,” the US daily explains. Wall Street Journal, taken back by International mail.
Threads is not starting from scratch since it is largely connected to Instagram. Concretely, it is possible to link your Threads account to your Instagram account to keep your username and import your subscription lists. Its boss, Adam Mosseri, regretted that the deployment of Threads in Europe was postponed, explaining that if Meta had had to wait for approval from Brussels, the global launch could not have been done for many months. “I was worried to see our window close, because the timing is important,” he explained to the specialized site. Platformer.
Note that its intertwining with Instagram could be of interest to regulators. The social network Meta could be criticized once again for its dominant position while the authorities in Europe “wish to prevent large platforms like Facebook or Instagram from crushing their competitors”, report our colleagues from World.
Health, purchases… Lots of data collected
In addition, the presentation of Threads on the application stores in the United States indicates that personal data of users related, among other things, to contacts and geolocation will be collected and used for advertising purposes. In its US format, the platform warns users that it will collect a wide variety of data from users, including health, financial information, browsing histories, location, purchases, contacts, research and sensitive information.
“In the EU, Meta has been blocked from launching advertising services on Whatsapp that use data from Facebook or Instagram. The tech giant is allowed to mix the two data streams in the US, where laws on confidentiality are weaker,” says the Irish daily, The Independent.
A spokesperson for the Irish Data Protection Commission (DPC), France’s equivalent of Cnil, said the regulator Irish Privacy, which is responsible for Meta’s oversight in Europe, had been in touch about the new service and that it would not be rolled out in the EU “at this stage”. However, it is confirmed that the DPC did not actively block the service. Instead, the tech giant has yet to prepare Threads for a European launch outside of the UK, which is not fully governed by European data protection rules (GDPR) or the rules. EU Privacy Policy.
The group co-founded by Mark Zuckerberg has suffered several setbacks in recent months in the European Union on the legal and regulatory grounds. The Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) ruled on Tuesday, July 4, that Meta had harmed the interests and rights of users of its services by collecting, without authorization, personal data for the purpose of targeted advertising. At the end of May, the Irish Data Protection Commission imposed a record fine of 1.2 billion euros on Facebook’s parent company for violating the GDPR, via Facebook.
While waiting for its arrival in Europe, Threads had already reached the mark of ten million registrations created in seven hours, according to a post by Mark Zuckerberg on his official account. On his thread there are already many accounts of institutional actors, in particular Netflix or that of the specialized information site The Hollywood Reporter. It remains to be seen whether its success will be enough to bring the blue bird back into its cage.