The time has come: Threads officially arrives in Europe and Spain | lifestyle

2023-12-14 13:58:42

Meta’s Twitter competitor, Threads, has officially arrived in the European Union, according to CEO Mark Zuckerberg’s announcement. In a message on the platform itself, the manager made everything quite clear “Today we are opening Threads to more countries in Europe“. This launch follows the introduction of the service in the United States and more than 100 countries, including the United Kingdom, in July 2023.

However, until now, Threads had not been available to the 448 million people living in the EU, and the company had even blocked users based in the European Union from accessing the service via VPN. The reasons have always seemed to be regulatory frameworks.

A long-awaited arrival of Threads to Europe and Spain

Coinciding with today’s launch, Meta allows users in the region to explore Threads without having to have an active profile. However, to post or interact with content, it is necessary have an Instagram account.

Threads

As we have commented before, the company’s delay in launching the service in EU countries has been widely attributed to the recent introduction of the Digital Markets Act, comprehensive legislation designed to curb Big Tech abuses and level the playing field in Europe. Although Meta has not directly mentioned the regulation, Adam Mosseri, head of Instagram, attributed the delay to “the complexities of complying with some of the laws that will go into effect next year“. We must not forget that large technology companies have until March 2024 to comply with their requirements.

It has been speculated that the narrow Threads’ integration with Instagram could lead to problems with EU regulators. When it launched in July 2023, users signed up through their existing Instagram accounts -and they were able to quickly connect with all the Instagram contacts they followed-. This reduced friction and helped the platform quickly amass 100 million users in a matter of days, but it also raised concerns regarding violations of DMA rules.

The deployment is already a reality

Because Threads today is not as closely linked to Instagram as it was at its launch – thanks to the platform adding the ability for users to delete their Threads account without having to also delete their Instagram account, among other things – , in Spain It is now possible to access the service. Of course, the Links between services persist -without going any further, you still need an Instagram account to publish-.

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While Threads has seen a rapid rise, in part thanks to taking advantage of the popularity of Instagram and capitalizing on the chaos on Elon Musk’s platform (formerly Twitter), third-party data suggests that Meta’s platform has had difficulties retaining users after its initial increase. Its launch in the EU in general and in Spain in particular will almost certainly generate an increase in new users. Yes indeed,Has Threads evolved and added enough new features since its launch to compete in its market segment?