Five months after the rest of the world, Meta (Facebook, Instagram) launched in the EU on Thursday its social network Threads, the direct competitor of X (formerly Twitter), in a version adapted to European laws.
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The American group launched Threads in July but delayed its arrival in the European Union to allow time to study the impact of the continent's regulations, which have already brought it several severe financial sanctions.
“Today we are opening threads for more countries in Europe. Welcome everyone,” wrote CEO Mark Zuckerberg on his Threads account.
With this Instagram-affiliated platform and similar characteristics to X, Meta aims to openly compete with the network purchased by Elon Musk, which is losing ground and advertisers due to the controversial decisions of its new boss.
However, with its 220 million users, it remains one of the most powerful global networks.
But Threads quickly racked up tens of millions of signups around the world this summer. In Europe, Meta wanted to be careful to ensure that it did not violate the European Digital Markets Regulation (DMA), which tightens anti-competitive rules, as well as the Personal Data Regulation (GDPR).
“In order to comply with European regulations,” it therefore offers an additional option reserved for users from the EU, Switzerland, Iceland, Norway and Liechtenstein: you can consult threads without an Instagram account with limited functions, said an Instagram Manager told AFP.
These users without a profile can “browse Threads app content, search for accounts, share content via link copy or platform sharing, and report Threads content.”
“Special EU” versions
However, to have full access to Threads, like the rest of the world, they must have an Instagram account (two billion users).
It is also possible to unlink the Threads account from the Instagram account and thus delete the first without deleting the second, which is impossible elsewhere in the world.
As an additional precaution, this option “has been discussed with the European Commission,” Instagram said
This is the second time that Meta has adapted its products for Europeans to take into account Brussels' constraints.
True, the group has been fined several times for non-compliance with the GDPR: a fine of 390 million euros in January for urging Internet users to accept targeted advertising, then 1.2 billion euros in May for transferring data from Europeans to the USA.
To avoid new fines, Facebook and Instagram launched a paid subscription for versions without targeted advertising at the end of October, only in Europe.
It is not said that this solution is legal: the Austrian organization Noyb has filed a complaint against Meta, accusing it of forcing Europeans to pay in order not to be persecuted.
These European versions show that the digital rules in which the EU specializes, as well as the associated fines, are beginning to change the practices of American corporations.
As Brussels hoped, they do not want to forego a common market with 450 million consumers.
It's just that the creation of “European” versions of products does not live up to the hope of the regulators of the old continent, by example, to create an international “level playing field”, that is, fair rules that spread throughout the world at the global level.