Meta’s Threads is now available in Europe
CNNDec 14, 2023
The Facts
Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg announced on Threads on Thursday that the platform expanded into the European Union on Thursday, passing through the bloc’s vast regulatory hurdles months after launching in July.
Though available in Britain, the US, and a hundred other countries, the app — which Meta hopes will reach the one billion threshold in the next few years — had been blocked in the EU due to the bloc's strict regulations of online platforms.
The Spin
Narrative A
As advertisers continue to flee X due to hate speech and the promotion of fringe conspiracy theories, Threads has now entered one of the world’s largest markets with the infrastructural backing and the robust user base from Meta. While Threads did not immediately supplant X when it first launched, it is now ready to compete on the global stage and serve users fed up with Musk’s antics.
Narrative B
While the anti-free speech establishment continues to pray for the downfall of Musk, his X platform only grows stronger as users are flocking to the digital marketplace of ideas. Threads has already failed to compete with X in any way, shape, or form, despite the media’s backing and access to Meta’s large pool of users. In fact, thanks to its free speech mission, X is outcompeting even Facebook and Instagram.
Nerd narrative
There's a 1% chance that Threads will report more monthly active users than X/Twitter before 2026, according to the Metaculus prediction community.