Threads is now blocked in Europe 🚫

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While Threads has passed the symbolic 100 million user mark, European users have been in for a nasty surprise: they no longer have access to it.

Meta blocks Threads for European users🚫

On the morning of 14 July, European users woke up to a nasty surprise. When they opened the Threads application, the home feed was still accessible, but the other pages of the application were not. Search loops, while the Activity page and profile page display the error message « Sorry, an error has occurred. Please try again ».

At first, it looked like a simple technical error, but Meta confirmed the blockage to TechCrunch :

Threads is not currently available in most countries in Europe and we’ve taken additional steps to prevent people based there from accessing it at this time.

While there were ways of accessing Threads when it was launched, they are now obsolete. Even using a VPN won’t change anything.

Meta in the sights of the European Union 👀

Meta’s decision to block Threads in Europe is not without significance. In our article presenting the application (which you can read by clicking here), we highlighted the enormous amount of data collected by the application. However, the collection of such vast quantities of data poses legal and regulatory problems for Meta in the European Union. What’s more, a new regulation, the Digital Markets Act, is said to be in the pipeline within the European Union. Given that Meta is regularly in the crosshairs of the European Union, one can imagine that the web giant prefers to anticipate possible sanctions from the European Union if it were to illegally collect its users’ data. However, Meta has no intention of abandoning the old continent just yet.

Europe continues to be an incredibly important market for Meta and we hope to make Threads available here in the future

In the meantime, Threads will have to build user loyalty once the initial buzz has died down, especially as the number of active users has already fallen by 20%.

Source : TechCrunch