After already launching in more than 100 countries, including the U.S. and U.K., Meta Platforms Inc.-owned Threads has just become available to the 448 million citizens of the European Union, potentially adding to the woes of its struggling competitor, X Corp.

Threads has only been in existence for around six months, but soon after its launch, Chief Executive Officer Mark Zuckerberg seemed rather pleased with the public’s reaction to what was dubbed as an alternative to X, formerly Twitter.

The problem was cracking the EU, which, with its sweeping regulatory framework, the Digital Markets Act, or DMA, made access to those millions of Europeans all the more difficult. In July this year, Instagram head Adam Mosseri told The Verge that with X facing “volatility” and “unpredictability” under its new owner Elon Musk, it was an ideal time to launch a competitor. Mosseri admitted that Meta still had to get around the “complexities” of DMA compliance.

It’s not certain what Meta has done, but it has done something to meet the demands of the EU. The so-called “Twitter killer” app is now in business, poised to gobble up some of those millions of social media users. What’s more, Meta announced today that it’s making accessing Threads a little bit easier.

“People in the EU can choose to create a Threads profile that is connected to their Instagram account – which means they get the same experience as everyone else around the world – or use Threads without a profile,” Meta explained in a blog post. The last part will mean users can’t interact with people on Threads, but they will be able to browse content, search for accounts, and share content via link copying or platform sharing.

Zuckerberg remains confident that Threads will succeed, despite the fact that after its promising start, it did see a reduction in user numbers. “I’m highly confident we’re going to be able to pour enough gasoline on this to help it grow,” Zuckerberg had said. While it’s reported that X user numbers fell 13% after Musk took over, not to mention experienced a hit to its revenue, Threads will no doubt struggle to entice users away from X, even with a slew of new features.

The remaining X users may stay on X because they like X, and despite the criticism, many believe that after the Twitter Files controversy, X may get more government attention. It will be interesting to see how this battle for social media users shapes up in 2024.

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