Meta Decides to Shut down Threads in Turkey Starting from April 29

Yesterday (April 15, 2024), Meta announced that it has decided to temporarily shut down Threads in Turkey starting from April 29 to comply with an interim order of the Rekabet Kurumu/Turkish Competition Authority (TCA).

Meta also assured that this move will have no impact on the functioning of Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp in the country. Also, Threads will continue to operate in all the other countries as usual.

What Is This Interim Order against Meta?

Last month the TCA issued an interim order against Meta, asking it to stop sharing data between Instagram and Threads. Doing so allowed the company to abuse its dominant market position.

The report said that Meta has already been operating for many years and has a diverse user base. Naturally, it’s the go-to choice for most advertisers which leaves Meta’s competitors with very little business.

This has increased the barrier to enter the industry. So, when Meta combines its services, it in turn increases its market dominance, making it harder for others to compete.

When the first order was issued, Meta tried to fix the problem by sending a notification to its users explaining how they share information among the three platforms.

However, the TCA called it insufficient and non-transparent. Plus, the notification was designed in a way that guided users to approve data sharing. For this, a separate investigation was launched and a fine of 4.8 million lira ($148,000) was imposed.

So, this time around, the company has no choice but to shut down its Threads services until a solution is reached. Meta said, though, that it doesn’t agree with the interim order. The company believes that its business is in compliance with all the Turkish laws.

What Option Do the Users Have?

All the Threads users in Turkey will be notified about the shutting down through an in-app notification before April 29. Then they will have the option to either delete their profile completely or deactivate it for the time being.

People who choose to deactivate their account can download their app data through the ‘Download Your Information’ tool at any time. However, it’s completely fine if you don’t want to download, as once Threads resumes operations in Turkey, all your posts will be visible on the platform again.

Threads & Its Controversies

This isn’t the first time that Threads has landed in hot waters. When it was first launched, there were a lot of concerns about its privacy, so much so that its launch was delayed in the EU.

The EU is quite known for its stringent privacy policies. For example, any time a new app is launched, a mandatory disclosure for the app on iOS has to be submitted.

It turns out that Meta’s disclosure for Threads revealed that it will collect highly sensitive user data such as health and financial records, location, contacts, digital history, and more.

A Brief Timeline of Major Events of Threads

Here’s what has transpired with Meta’s Threads ever since its launch: