Instagram Threads, the upcoming Twitter competitor from Meta, will not be launched in the European Union due to privacy concerns, according to Ireland’s Data Protection Commission (DPC).
The development was reported by the Irish Independent, which said the watchdog has been in contact with the social media giant about the new product and confirmed the release won’t extend to the E.U. “at this point.”
Threads is Meta’s answer to Twitter that’s set for launch on July 6, 2023. It’s billed as a “text-based conversation app” that allows Instagram users to “discuss everything from the topics you care about today to what’ll be trending tomorrow.”
The “App Privacy” section on the App Store indicates that the application is expected to collect a wide range of user data, including Health and Fitness, Purchases, Financial Info, Location, Contact Info, Contacts, User Content, Search History, Browsing History, Identifiers, Usage Data, Sensitive Info, and Diagnostics.
It’s believed that while the DPC has not actively blocked Threads from being launched, Meta is taking a cautious approach to bring the service to the region, which has stringent privacy protections. It’s worth noting that Google postponed the launch of its artificial intelligence chatbot Bard in the E.U. for similar reasons.
The development coincides with a series of policy changes at Twitter, which began blocking unregistered users from being able to use the site on the web and enforced temporary rate limits for logged-in users to restrict the number of posts they can see per day.
Source: https://thehackernews.com/
