Threads Launches in the E.U., Where, Apparently, Many People Live

Jon Porter, The Verge:

Meta’s Twitter competitor, Threads, is now available in the European Union, CEO Mark Zuckerberg has announced. “Today we’re opening Threads to more countries in Europe,” Zuckerberg wrote in a post on Threads. The launch follows the service’s debut in the US and over 100 other countries across the world, including the UK, in July 2023. But until now, Threads hasn’t been available to the 448 million people living in the EU, and the company has even blocked EU-based users from accessing the service via VPN.

To coincide with today’s launch, Meta is giving users in the region the ability to browse Threads without needing a profile. Actually posting or interacting with content will still require an Instagram account, however.

Threads has continued to thrive, grow, and improve, and that should accelerate significantly now that EU citizens can join. There’s a persistent but false narrative that Threads is struggling, which just isn’t true. E.g. from The Guardian today:

Threads launched in July 2023 and quickly amassed more than 100 million users in its first week. The platform has since seen a large drop off in active users, but Zuckerberg in earnings calls has remained steadfast that the platform would eventually reach its goal of 1 billion users.

Like I wrote back in July: “Nobody Uses Threads Anymore, It’s Too Crowded”. While Twitter/X seemingly still has more daily active users, Threads has consistently ranked way way ahead of X in the rankings on both the App Store and Play Store. Those app store rankings don’t measure usage, but they do reflect momentum — Threads is gaining it, and Twitter/X is losing it. And that’s before Threads was available in the EU.

★ Thursday, 14 December 2023