European Users Discover Methods to Access Meta’s Unavailable Threads App
Despite not being officially launched in the European Union, European football teams, media outlets such as Le Monde and Agence France-Presse, and other organizations on the continent have managed to access Meta Platforms Inc.’s new Threads app.
Verified accounts from French media outlets Le Figaro and Liberation posted on the app the same day it was published on Thursday, as did left-wing French lawmaker Francois Ruffin, who deleted the original post. German soccer club RB Leipzig and French side Saint-Etienne also started posting on Threads, along with Real Madrid player Eduardo Camavinga’s verified account.
Threads, which Mark Zuckerberg said had already amassed more than 30 million users since it launched Thursday morning, will not be available in app stores in 27 European Union countries as the company figures out how the bloc’s data-use regulations will affect the app, a person familiar with the matter has said.
However, there are other ways to get access, such as connecting to the US App Store for iPhone users or the Android bundle. Also known as APK, these programs allow Android users to manually download apps that are not available in their Google Play store.
“Our subscribers are all French, joining the app is not complicated,” said Mickaël Frison, who manages social networks for the French magazine Liberation. “It will be a matter of days or weeks before politicians start to join if the conversation is there.”
Representatives of other media groups and football clubs did not respond to requests for comment. Ruffin did not respond to a request for comment. Real Madrid did not immediately respond for Camavinga.
