In July 2023, Meta released Threads, a text-based social networking app. However, this app is not yet launched in Europe. This is primarily due to regulatory ambiguity and worries over data protection.

European Union proposed a new law called the Digital Markets Act (DMA), which is expected to get into effect in 2024. This law is to regulate large online platforms to create a fair and competitive digital market. The DMA confined the major tech companies to use data gathered from a different provider to target customers for one of their services. By this compulsion, the key function of Meta, the ability to link Threads accounts to Instagram accounts, may become challenging.

Furthermore, the DMA mandates large digital businesses to acquire user consent before collecting and utilizing certain types of data. This might make it more challenging for Meta to obtain the user location and contact data that it needs to power Threads. Regulations in Europe empower users to control their personal information while making it harder for businesses to gather and use data without their consent.

Meta already has data privacy problems like the data breach scandal with Cambridge Analytica, which costs them $725m (£600m) to settle. Regulators in Europe are now wary of the corporation and its methods for collecting data as a result. Because of this, Meta might wait to introduce Threads in Europe until it is certain that it can abide by the local data privacy rules.

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Threads app achieved the landmark of 100 million registered users in just five days of its launching. This figure now crosses 105 million, when this article was published. Instagram’s head Adam Mosseri post also confirmed this milestone.

According to a tracker site (quiverquant.com), Threads historical user counts after it launched on the 6th of July 2023 is;

In the above stats, the interesting point is that the app is not launched in Europe. Because Thread’s parent company Meta has some legal issues with the EU’s data privacy legislation. However, achieving the users count of 105 million without users from the EU is remarkable. As 23.5% of Twitter’s active monthly users are from the EU. Which counts somewhat between 100.9 million, and Threads are deprived of this.

A real challenge for Meta is to make people stay on Instagram’s Threads. But anyhow to achieve a benchmark of 105 million plus users in such a limited time is no doubt a great achievement. Congratulations to whole Meta Team.