Last week's news featured Meta, Zuckerberg's company that was once simply called Facebook. Threads is the name of the social networks that he presented and we will hear about it very often given the recent problems it is encountering. In fact, it was only a matter of time before that for privacy reasons and the transfer of data, was blocked in Europe. Let's see what happens.
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Meta blocks access to Threads in Europe
Access to Threads is currently blocked for European users. And we're not talking about a simple geoblock that can be bypassed with the use of a VPN. No, Meta made things a little more complicated. Despite the global launch, the application is not available within the European Union. In response to complaints from European users that they were unable to access Threads through VPNs, Meta confirmed that it has blocked such attempts.
Okay, it actually seems as if Meta truly decided to ban Europe in Threads, as it's available globally, but not from Europe (even with a VPN). pic.twitter.com/Al64RL674G
— Yury Molodtsov ⚡️ (@y_molodtsov) July 14, 2023
The company said: “Threads is not currently available in most European countries and we have taken additional steps to prevent people located there from accessing it at this time. Europe continues to be an incredibly important market for Meta and we hope to make Threads available here in the future.” No further explanations were given, but we can make some guesses.
The legal and regulatory challenges in Europe
Threads is not a social network like the others. According to Meta's privacy policy and app description page on iOS, the application may collect a wide range of personal data, including highly sensitive information such as health and financial data, precise location, browsing history, contacts and search history.
This approach creates legal and regulatory challenges for Meta in the EU. According to EU data protection law, Meta needs a valid legal basis to process such personal data lawfully for advertising targeting. This area has become increasingly uncertain for the company following a recent ruling by the Court of Justice.
Instagram appears to have blocked EU users from accessing Threads via a VPN
- Matt Navarra (@MattNavarra) July 14, 2023
Profiles and content not loading. Notifications not working.
Is this true @mosseri ? pic.twitter.com/3QcqoKeGuo
Furthermore, the new EU antitrust law, the Digital Markets Act, it also limits how web giants can combine data for advertisements. Meta cited uncertainty about how the DMA will apply to its use of data as the reason for the delay in launching Threads in the EU.
The future of Threads in Europe
Despite these obstacles, Threads got off to a good start, reaching 100 million signups in just a few days. However, it will be interesting to see if the enthusiasm for Meta's new social network manages to keep pace, or if it slowly fades into the background noise of the internet.
Meanwhile, Meta has updated the app' on iOS with support for iOS 17 and reduced the size of the binary file, along with other minor improvements. But we're not hoping for a web or desktop version shortly: as engineer Cameron Roth said, it's not as simple as “turn on a switch".
Through | Tech Crunch
