Mark Zuckerberg has just confirmed the launch of Meta’s Threads app across the EU after a much-anticipated and long wait.
The news has plenty of people talking for obvious reasons. And if there’s one person who might not be too happy about the rollout, it’s certainly Elon Musk. After all, it’s a major threat for the X app with some experts going as far as dubbing it the Twitter killing platform.
The competition in the market continues to heat up with X being left in a dire state after a sudden and serious advertising halt from some of its leading investors. This type of news could not have arrived at a more devastating time.
Zuckerberg just rolled out the information through a blog post on Threads where he claims it was a long time coming. Thanks to serious privacy regulations in place that needed to be met before the launch, Meta was struggling in terms of fulfilling them all for the EU.
Now, that’s not the case and Zuckerberg couldn’t be happier.
The rollout of Threads by Meta was seen taking place around the globe in July of this year. This meant all users found in the US and nearly 100 other nations could use it with ease, and the United Kingdom was also a part of the list.
But the debut of Threads by Meta for EU users was on pause and people who were keen on using just that were forced to resort to other means such as VPNs as Meta continued to devise a strategy to abide by the millions of privacy laws on display in that part of the world.
For those who might not be aware, there’s a specific reason why it’s known as the silent killer for Twitter or fierce competition. The app is very similar to X and people have been on the search for innovation in this part of the world. Let’s not forget how the platform has recently made a lot of tweaks that users in the US and beyond have been requesting for so long. And if that does not make it more attractive, then we’re not quite sure what will.
However, it was not an easy road for Meta to get through the stringent EC regulations in terms of the privacy provisions that had to be bypassed. This came side by side with the Digital Markets Act that addressed a long list of serious antitrust problems like sharing data and content through other Meta apps.
Cross-platform sharing has never been welcomed with open arms by the EU as they’ve felt it can result in some serious privacy and security threats. And for Meta to have Facebook, Instagram, Messenger, and WhatsApp under its belt meant some serious changes as Threads was rolled out with close ties to Instagram.
If you had an app on Instagram, you’d get an account on Threads and if you wished to delete the latter, the former had to be deleted too. As expected, there was an outcry for complaints as people did not appreciate that clause. Thankfully, it’s no longer in place - another reason why the number of installations has again started to peak around the globe.
While Meta and its team of executives are yet to determine the exact reason for such a major delay, seeing them stay true to the promise of the launch arriving before the year’s end is certainly getting love from fans and users in this part of the world.
So many new laws are coming into place as early as next year across the EU and this meant Zuckerberg, Mosseri, and others really had to plan the move carefully. No one wants to be hit by more lawsuits and penalizations at the year’s start and that’s why the organization has been very careful with the launch.
Looking at arch-rival X, it continues with its own spiraling trend. The app is not doing too well with the userbase shrinks as we speak. This is certainly not the way any organization would wish to wrap up 2023, not to mention a declined revenue figure of $2.5 billion.
Read next: Elon Musk's X Unveils Anonymous Access in Spaces
The news has plenty of people talking for obvious reasons. And if there’s one person who might not be too happy about the rollout, it’s certainly Elon Musk. After all, it’s a major threat for the X app with some experts going as far as dubbing it the Twitter killing platform.
The competition in the market continues to heat up with X being left in a dire state after a sudden and serious advertising halt from some of its leading investors. This type of news could not have arrived at a more devastating time.
Zuckerberg just rolled out the information through a blog post on Threads where he claims it was a long time coming. Thanks to serious privacy regulations in place that needed to be met before the launch, Meta was struggling in terms of fulfilling them all for the EU.
Now, that’s not the case and Zuckerberg couldn’t be happier.
The rollout of Threads by Meta was seen taking place around the globe in July of this year. This meant all users found in the US and nearly 100 other nations could use it with ease, and the United Kingdom was also a part of the list.
But the debut of Threads by Meta for EU users was on pause and people who were keen on using just that were forced to resort to other means such as VPNs as Meta continued to devise a strategy to abide by the millions of privacy laws on display in that part of the world.
For those who might not be aware, there’s a specific reason why it’s known as the silent killer for Twitter or fierce competition. The app is very similar to X and people have been on the search for innovation in this part of the world. Let’s not forget how the platform has recently made a lot of tweaks that users in the US and beyond have been requesting for so long. And if that does not make it more attractive, then we’re not quite sure what will.
However, it was not an easy road for Meta to get through the stringent EC regulations in terms of the privacy provisions that had to be bypassed. This came side by side with the Digital Markets Act that addressed a long list of serious antitrust problems like sharing data and content through other Meta apps.
Cross-platform sharing has never been welcomed with open arms by the EU as they’ve felt it can result in some serious privacy and security threats. And for Meta to have Facebook, Instagram, Messenger, and WhatsApp under its belt meant some serious changes as Threads was rolled out with close ties to Instagram.
If you had an app on Instagram, you’d get an account on Threads and if you wished to delete the latter, the former had to be deleted too. As expected, there was an outcry for complaints as people did not appreciate that clause. Thankfully, it’s no longer in place - another reason why the number of installations has again started to peak around the globe.
While Meta and its team of executives are yet to determine the exact reason for such a major delay, seeing them stay true to the promise of the launch arriving before the year’s end is certainly getting love from fans and users in this part of the world.
So many new laws are coming into place as early as next year across the EU and this meant Zuckerberg, Mosseri, and others really had to plan the move carefully. No one wants to be hit by more lawsuits and penalizations at the year’s start and that’s why the organization has been very careful with the launch.
Looking at arch-rival X, it continues with its own spiraling trend. The app is not doing too well with the userbase shrinks as we speak. This is certainly not the way any organization would wish to wrap up 2023, not to mention a declined revenue figure of $2.5 billion.
Read next: Elon Musk's X Unveils Anonymous Access in Spaces
