Why Meta’s Threads Isn’t Available in the EU (and Probably Won’t Be For Some Time)

Scott Roxborough
·6 min read

Threads, Meta’s new micro-blogging app, launched worldwide this week with the very prominent exception of the countries of the European Union, where strict data protection laws make it unclear when, or if, the Twitter rival app will see the light of day.

Meta is holding back on launching Threads in the EU until it can be sure the app won’t fall foul of European law, as Meta’s other platforms — including Facebook, Instagram and Whatsapp — have in the past.

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“Meta’s failure to launch Threads in the EU is more to do with making a point about European regulation than the business case for launching,” says Niamh Burns of Enders Analysis, a media research group based in London. Burns notes the setup of the new app, which involves bundling Instagram and Threads to create a “captive audience” (users set up Threads using their existing Instagram accounts, and you can’t delete your Threads account without deleting Instagram) “is the kind of thing European regulators hate.”

Mark Zuckerberg is betting consumers, fed up with the chaos and toxicity of Twitter, will flock to his new microblogging app, billed as a “friendly” and “saner” alternative to the Elon Musk-run platform. But his pitch to advertisers is, critics say, more sinister: Threads is designed to track everything about its users, from location and browsing history to health and financial data, to better facilitate targeted advertising.

EU watchdogs won’t like that, given that, in January, they ruled unlawful the legal basis Meta had been using to process its personal data from European Facebook and Instagram users to run targeted ads, slapping Meta with fines of $435 million (€400 million). Meta is appealing that ruling, but it is only one of several legal assaults by the EU on the foundations of its business model.

On July 4, the European Court of Justice, the EU’s supreme court, issued a judgment backing an earlier decision by Germany’s antitrust watchdog, the Federal Cartel Office (FCO), that Meta has to get user consent before gathering data for its targeted, behavioral ads. That ruling also supported the FCO’s claim that antitrust authorities can factor in privacy concerns when determining if a company is exploiting its competitive advantage. Some have said the decision could mean the end, at least in Europe, of Meta’s “surveillance capitalism” business model.

“This week’s ruling strengthens regulators’ hands when it comes to Meta’s core business,” says Burns. “It is significant in terms of enforcement powers, even if it is not yet clear how it will be interpreted to impact Meta’s wider data practices. Meta’s business model could be under threat here.”

Also on American Independence Day, Thierry Breton, the European Commissioner for the Internal Market, revealed in a LinkedIn post that Meta was one of the seven companies (alongside Amazon, Apple, Google parent Alphabet, TikTok owner ByteDance, Microsoft and Samsung) identified as “digital gatekeepers” under the new Digital Markets Act (DMA). The designation means the companies, because of their perceived market dominance, will have to comply with stricter regulations to operate in the EU. Among the new rules: They can not lock users into their digital ecosystem — like Meta currently does with Threads — and share information between the two services.

Breton said Meta and the other global tech giants would have to learn that “with great power comes great responsibility — and impeccable behavior.” Companies the EU designates as gatekeepers will have until early next year to comply with the new regulations or face hefty fines.

“If Meta wanted to play nice with the EU, they would need to launch Threads as a fully standalone service in Europe,” says Burns. “Would this be worth it for Meta? Right now Threads is piggybacking off Instagram, and it wouldn’t take off as quickly if Meta couldn’t exploit that existing audience. [Remember] that Instagram has far more users already than Twitter ever did. Without that advantage, it will be more effort for users to join up, it will take longer to build a network, and it will be harder for the business to tailor recommended content to users without using their existing user data. If Threads can’t capitalize on Instagram’s strength in Europe, they don’t have their secret weapon. Meta would just be relying on refugees from Twitter’s self-destruction.”

Instagram’s European user base is substantial. Meta has disclosed it currently has nearly as many monthy active users (MAUs) on Instagram in the EU, namely 250 million, as Facebook (255 million).

“If Meta can’t take advantage of its quarter of a billion European Instagrammers, it might be a better strategy to hold off until Threads has gained a bit of traction in the U.S. and U.K.,” says Burns. “Then it can launch in the EU when the app has more content and a bigger existing network.”

That, however, assumes that the EU would further tighten regulations to make life harder for Meta. Just last month, EU regulators fined Meta a record €1.2 billion ($1.3 billion) for its “repetitive and continuous” violation of European law connected to its transfer of European users’ data to the U.S. The ruling is part of a long-running legal battle over where Facebook stores its data and whether European users’ data can be accessed by U.S. intelligence agencies. The court order is specific to Facebook but could in theory be applied to other Meta services, including Threads, if they don’t adequately protect Europeans’ personal information. As currently designed, Threads’ data scrapping business model precludes this kind of privacy. Meta has appealed the decision.

This long list of legal rulings and regulations point to the fact — correctly highlighted by Meta’s president of global affairs Nick Clegg in a response to last month’s $1.3 billion fine — that, when it comes to data protection, Europe and the U.S. have “a fundamental conflict of law.”

Meta’s approach of gobbling up everything and selling to advertisers works just fine in America (and in the U.K. and most of the rest of the world) but not in the EU where, if anything, regulators are looking to make it harder for big platforms to gather and share user data. Given that pan-Atlantic gap, and the regulatory threat Meta is facing with the Digital Markets Act, the future of Threads in Europe is small potatoes. Meta complaining about “regulatory uncertainty” slowing the launch of its new app is just “low-level point-scoring,” notes Burns. “The regulatory threat is way bigger than Threads.”

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