Why has Threads, Meta’s answer to Twitter, not launched in the EU?

Meta’s fresh new app, Threads, which is expected to become the number one rival of a struggling Twitter under Elon Musk’s leadership, is finally here. If by “here,” you mean pretty much anywhere outside the European Union, that is.

Threads, a text-based conversation app that’s currently linked to Instagram, debuted on the existing social media platform late on Wednesday, attracting over 10 million users in the first few hours of operating in the US and the UK.

But residents of the EU have been excluded from the collective hype, as Meta works out how to have the new app comply with the bloc’s regulatory standards.

Threads isn’t yet running in the EU - and it might never run, as the bloc has stricter privacy rules than most other countries, and it has given Meta a few headaches to cope with in recent years.

It’s not the EU that blocked the launch of the app, rather it’s Meta who’s being preemptively careful.

Sources close to Meta said that the company isn’t offering the app in the union’s member states because it’s not sure about the requirements set out by the Digital Markets Act, the EU’s new competition rules governing how large online platforms use their market power.

The European Commission is currently discussing the regulations with companies like Meta and is expected to offer more guidance in September.

But even then, it’s unclear whether Threads would respect the EU’s strict privacy requirements. The app has been described as a “privacy nightmare” by tech journalists because, despite being a standalone app, it imports personal data from Instagram.

On its US version, Threads users are informed that it will collect a wide range of their data including health and financial information, browsing histories, location,