Share This Article
Meta’s new social media, Threads, was just launched, it is not available in Europe. This is due to some regulatory reasons that I tried to tackle in this article which also sheds some light on the political debate between the EU and the US.
In recent days, everyone in the innovation industry has been talking about the launch of the new social media, Threads, Meta’s answer to Twitter that is expected to ignite even more conflict between Mark Zuckerberg and Elon Musk.
We will likely not have an MMA fight between the two billionaires at the Coliseum, but there is no doubt that the conflict between the two is escalating.
European, or rather EU, users cannot fully witness the different phases of the conflict because “Threads” is NOT currently unavailable in the European Union. Meta has not expressed an official position on the issue, but some spokespersons have generically referred to legislation expected to take effect in 2024 that limits so-called data leakage.
Innovation law experts were quick to link the reference to the forthcoming entry into force of obligations under the new Digital Markets Act (DMA), which provides for onerous new obligations on big tech to increase transparency and fairness in a market that, in the view of the European Commission, is dominated by so-called gatekeepers. These companies act as intermediaries and sometimes operate as Internet access points with conduct that could be considered anti-competitive.
These are not only social media but also search engines, online brokerage services, and video-sharing services, and the list is quite long, but the main feature is that these players must have at least 45 million European end-users active monthly and 10 thousand active business users on an annual basis.
But back to why Meta has not yet launched Threads in the European Union. The Digital Markets Act includes among its obligations for gatekeepers (which certainly includes Meta) a prohibition on combining end-user data with data collected as part of the provision of other services, either their own or those of third parties, without consent to the processing of the data by the end users. Consent must be free, informed, specific, and unambiguous.
Here the problem arises. Meta requires users to log in to their Instagram profile to create a profile on Threads. Thus, creating a profile on Instagram is required for creating a Threads profile. In addition, one can import Instagram contacts to Threads. However, most notable is the potential import from Instagram to Threads of the user’s profile preferences. In fact, according to Instagram CEO Adam Mosseri’s statement in the New York Times podcast, The Hard Fork, at the moment, Instagram cannot completely rule out data leakage between the two products without user consent.
The DMA provisions will go into effect in early 2024 with fines of up to 10 percent of their total annual worldwide revenue. In addition, the fine can be increased up to 20% of the annual global turnover in case of recidivism.
Some may think that these fines will always be consistent with the earnings of these big tech companies. But it is also true that Meta has already been fined €1.2 billion for transferring personal data outside the European Economic Area in violation of the GDPR by the Irish Privacy Authority.
The European political environment between the EU and big tech is certainly coming alive because, after this sanction, the European Commission approved -with unforeseen speed and against the position of the European Parliament and the EU privacy guarantors – the adequacy decision on the transfer of personal data to the United States that will now become free if it is to certified entities.
There is no doubt that negotiations are ongoing between EU and U.S. political authorities. Google launched its artificial intelligence system in the EU only last week within two days of the adequacy decision, and there is no doubt that this launch followed discussions with EU authorities.
One has to wonder whether these negotiations between the big techs and the EU authorities will benefit users and the EU economy. There is no doubt that a greater level of transparency about these confrontations is desirable. In the meantime, it is undoubtedly a positive sign that tech giants such as Meta and Google are considering the regulatory limitations provided by the EU framework and not trying to replicate the business model they adopt in the United States globally without any localization.
On a similar topic, you may find the following article interesting “The Digital Market Act is in place and wants to change the Internet“.
