Used by thousands of Europeans despite its official unavailability, Threads has not been accessible in the European Union since July 14. The most amazing thing is that a VPN does not allow bypassing the ban.
Strategically speaking, Meta’s decision to completely block Threads in Europe feels like self-destruction. The Twitter competitor, which has just passed 100 million users, has become so popular that thousands of people have cheated to install it in Europe. Even if Meta decided not to officially launch it in Europe before the entry into force of the DSA, Mark Zuckerberg’s group had everything to gain by letting “early adopters” federate local communities before the official launch.
However, since July 14, Threads has been completely blocked in Europe. We are not talking about geo-blocking based on an IP address, but something much more radical. A VPN does not change anything: any account created in Europe is inaccessible. Meta has confirmed to be behind the move, which could destroy all the hype around Threads within days.
It is not possible to go back to Threads at this time
Even physically traveling to the United States, it is not certain that Threads will work again. Meta completely deactivated accounts created from a European Instagram account, presumably only to reactivate them later. The only way to get back to Threads is to put on a VPN, create a new USA-stamped Instagram account, and craft a new Threads account. It will work everywhere.
Threads would start dropping
Even more astonishingly, this house clamping comes at a time when the engagement on Threads would be down, after a record start. CNBC reports that the number of daily active users dropped by 20% from launch to July 11-12, while users would now spend an average of just 10 minutes a day in the app, down from 20 before.
For Threads, which has just rolled out its first update and promises several major new features, the main challenge for the next month is to keep its users, to gradually divert them from Twitter. By excluding the European Union so firmly, without giving it any visibility on an official launch, Meta is sending the wrong messages. It’s a shame, Threads was off to a great start.
Subscribe for free to Artificials, our AI newsletter, designed by AIs, verified by Numerama!