Meta Platforms has also made its social media platform Threads available in Europe since Thursday. Whether the platform will become an X-killer in this region, remains to be seen.
Threads was previously launched by Meta in the U.S. as a potential competitor to Elon Musk’s X and founded by Meta to provide an alternative to the latter social media platform.
The social media service leans heavily on another app from Meta Platforms: Instagram. Users need an Instagram account to log in and can then post short messages through Threads. They can also keep track of followed Instagram accounts within their Threads accounts.
European launch
The recent launch in the European Union comes considerably later than its U.S. equivalent, due to concerns about what (personal) data the platform collected and shared with Instagram, for example. For this reason, the app’s handling of data has been adjusted to conform.
The link between Threads and Instagram is now not as strict as before. Users who cancelled their Threads account also closed their Instagram account with it. Now, it will be possible to cancel a Threads account without having to delete the Instagram account.
There may also be functionality that will allow Threads users to delete all their user data from the platform when they leave it.
Success remains to be seen
Whether Threads will succeed in the EU and become a real threat to the still very popular X, remains to be seen. The recent EU launch is expected to generate around 40 million additional Threads users.
Even in the U.S., the uptake of Threads still turned out to be lower than previously indicated by Meta. A month after the launch, 79 percent had already left the social media platform. CEO Mark Zuckerberg now estimates the number of Threads users at just under 100 million end users. However, Meta is still aiming for a total of 1.1 billion end users.
Other X-alternatives are also not doing very well. Platforms like Bluesky or Mastodon still have fewer users than previously apparent from the various uptakes during the chaotic period surrounding X earlier this year.
Also read: Meta to bring ailing Threads to Europe in December
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