Meta will soon temporarily shut down Threads in Turkey as the country’s competition authority decided that the way Meta shared data between its Instagram and Threads apps could lead to the social media company abusing its position in the market.
In a blog post on Monday, Meta said that it will “temporarily shut down Threads in Türkiye from 29 April” and that other Meta apps or services in other countries would not be impacted.
The Rekabet Kurumu or Turkish Competition Authority (TCA) issued an interim order to stop Meta from sharing data between Instagram and Threads. In order to open a Threads account, users need to make or already have an Instagram account as well.
“We disagree with the interim order, we believe we are in compliance with all Turkish legal requirements, and we will appeal. The TCA’s interim order leaves us with no choice but to temporarily shut down Threads in Türkiye. We will continue to constructively engage with the TCA and hope to bring Threads back to people in Türkiye as quickly as possible,” said Meta in its post.
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Turkey-based Threads users will receive notifications about the decision, and can also choose whether to deactivate or delete their profiles. There is an option to download all their data for safe-keeping.
Turkey’s competition authority said the temporary measure was taken against Meta “on suspicion of abuse of the dominant position by linking Threads and Instagram apps,” per a translation of the notice on the government website.
Threads, which launched in the summer of 2023, also made a delayed entrance in the European Union due to its own data privacy laws.
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