2023-12-14 17:49:09
The Threads social network is now available on the European Union (EU). The American digital giant Metaowner of Facebook e Instagramannounced this Thursday the launch of its new platform in the countries of the community bloc, five months after it reached the rest of the world.
Zuckerberg vs. Musk: Can Threads kill Twitter?
This strategic move allows the company to open up to a market with 448 million citizens. “Welcome everyone,” celebrated the co-founder and CEO of Meta, Mark Zuckerbergin a publication.
European users who want to access Threads will be able to create a profile and even link it with an account already active on Instagram, but they will also be able to see the content published on the new social network without needing to register. However, they will only be able to post content and interact with others if they already have an Instagram account.
Delay in Europe
Meta initially launched Threads on July 4. The new one red social landed in more than 100 countries, including USA, but not in the EU. Even access through private VPN networks was blocked. In part, that was due to tracking users and their behavior for advertising purposes, something prohibited by the EU’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR).
This Thursday, the head of Instagram, Adam Mosseri, has attributed the delay to “the complexity of complying with some of the laws that will come into force next year.” By this he refers to the Digital Markets Act (DMA), a new regulation antitrust law that affects technology giants and will come into force in March 2024. If they do not comply, they will face billion-dollar fines.
The tight integration between Threads and Instagram raises questions about a possible breach of that legislation, which prohibits companies from mixing user data from their different services. Meta has lowered these links for the European opening of its ‘app’, but even so the obligation to have an Instagram account to participate in the new social network could violate the measures against self-preference included in the DMA.
Rival the Twitter
Meta has promoted the creation of Threads with the intention of it becoming an alternative to X. The platform formerly known as Twitter is in low hours after the controversial changes adopted in recent months by its owner, the tycoon Elon Musk. Zuckerberg wants to take advantage of the fact that his wounded rival is losing advertisers, users and income to colonize part of that market.
— Mark Zuckerberg (@finkd) July 6, 2023
However, Mosseri assured that Threads would not lean towards “hard news”, but would be a “friendly version” of Twitter where we could discuss light topics such as music or sports.
Growing problems
Threads, Meta’s Twitter, starts up with problems in its downloads
At first, Meta’s offensive aimed for meteoric success. In just five days of existence, Threads managed to surpass 100 million registered users worldwide, a milestone that allowed it to dethrone ChatGPT as the fastest growing application in history.
However, as the weeks passed, that initial acceleration became a mirage. At the end of July, daily active users had fallen by 82% and on August 7, the social network only retained about 576,000, according to data from Sensor Tower. Another analytical firm, Apptopia, points out that the download rate of the ‘app‘ has grown since September at a faster rate than X. In the last three months, Threads has registered 41 million downloads compared to 27 million on the old Twitter.
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