Meta’s Threads App is Reportedly Launching in Europe in December

Threads, the Twitter/X competitor launched by Meta back in July is set to launch in Europe in December, according to the Wall Street Journal. While users in Europe can currently see Threads posts on the web, they can’t create a Threads account or download the official mobile apps via the App Store and Google Play Store.

Meta has been taking its time to launch Threads in the old continent to ensure that the app respects local regulations for online services. “To comply with those regulations, Meta will give EU users the choice of using Threads purely for consumption without a profile that allows them to make their own posts,” one of the people familiar with the matter told the WSJ.

Back in October, Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg said during the company’s Q3 earning calls that Threads had “just under 100 million monthly active users,” which is quite impressive for an app that just launched 3 months earlier. “I’ve thought for a long time that there should be a billion-person public conversations app that’s a bit more positive, and I think that if we keep at this for a few more years then I think we have a good chance of achieving our vision there,” Zuckerberg said at the time.

It’s really hard not to see Threads as Meta’s attempt to kill Twitter/X, and there are already a lot of similarities between the two apps. Threads recently started testing view counts on posts, something X introduced earlier this year. Moreover, the team also made it possible for people to see Threads posts directly on Facebook and Instagram. Both apps already have billions of users, so this may be a good incentive for disenchanted X users to give Threads a try and grow their reach.

While Meta is working hard to create the best Twitter/X alternative, it doesn’t seem like Elon Musk is going to stop derailing the efforts of X CEO Linda Yaccarino to bring back advertisers on the platform. In an interview at The New York Times’ DealBook Summit yesterday, Musk had a very explicit message for advertisers trying to “blackmail” him: “Go f— yourself.”