Meta Admits Blocking European Union Citizens Accessing Threads With VPN

Meta is cracking down on EU citizens (EU) who use VPN to access Threads. (photo: dock. threads).

JAKARTA - Meta has started cracking down on European Union (EU) citizens who use Virtual Private Networks (VPNs) to access its new social media, Threads.

They, EU citizens who joined Threads recently noticed that they suddenly couldn't upload anything on the social media. Knowing this, it has become public news.

The tech giant later admitted to taking additional action, aimed at EU citizens using VPNs to access Threads.

"Threads is currently unavailable in most countries in Europe and we've taken additional steps to prevent people who are there from accessing it at this time," Meta told TechCrunch quoted Monday, July 17.

VPN  is often used by people to bypass online access restrictions. While Threads is not yet available in the EU, there are exceptions for non-members such as the UK.

Meta hopes to one day bring Threads to more countries in the future, as Europe is an important market for the company.

"Europe continues to be a very important market for Meta and we look forward to having Threads here in the future," said Meta.

Not a few EU users who use VPN complain about this Meta action. However, there are many reasons why the company is not bringing Threads to the EU soon.

This is because these applications track users, collect various personal data, including highly sensitive information such as health data, finances, precise location, browsing history, contacts and search history.

Such a line of regulations will create legal and regulatory challenges for Meta in the EU. Under the country's data protection law aka GDPR, Meta requires a valid legal basis to legally process that personal data for ad targeting.