Meta's Twitter Rival Could Be Doomed From Day One

This week, social media giant Meta is poised to launch Threads, a new social networking app that none-too-subtly riffs on Twitter's thread-based post design, while allowing users to utilize their existing Instagram accounts and profiles. Threads could constitute Meta's latest efforts to take on Twitter for the social media throne, if not for a single, decidedly major hitch — the app won't be launching in the European Union, at least not at first.

According to an anonymous individual that spoke with Bloomberg this morning, Meta is purposefully staggering the release of Threads in EU markets out of caution related to the Digital Markets Act, a set of anticompetitive prevention laws that were officially enacted back in September of 2022. This statement has been corroborated by a member of Ireland's Data Protection Commission that Bloomberg spoke to, who said that Meta won't be launching Threads in their territory.

"Meta have informed us that they have no plans to role [sic] out the service in the EU at present," said deputy commissioner Graham Doyle.

Threads is currently slated to release to the public on Thursday morning, with Meta claiming that the app will be available in over 100 countries at launch. However, Meta has not provided a concrete list of which countries are included in that metric. Additionally, as of Wednesday morning, mobile app stores in EU countries like Ireland, Germany, France, and more are not showing a page for the Threads app — as opposed to app stores in the United States that currently have a pre-load page.

In recent years, EU watchdogs have been more vigilant against global tech giants like Meta out of an abundance of concern for data privacy. With the passing of the Digital Markets Act, Meta is one of several major companies that have been set up as semi-official "gatekeepers" to the wider tech industry, giving them greater sway, but also forcing them to submit to more stringent regulation and anti-monopolistic checks.

One of the most relevant concerns for Threads in regards to the DMA is a law that prohibits gatekeeper companies from utilizing any existing user data across different platforms. As Threads is intended to be a companion app to Instagram, utilizing existing profiles previously set up by its users, this regulation could effectively kneecap the app in the entire EU market.

It is not known when, if ever, Threads will be launching in the EU.