Competition Authority says Meta’s Threads’ draws on users’ information from Instagram without their confirmation, and as a result Meta’s social media platform will cease operating in Turkey on April 29 for an unknown period.
Threads, Meta’s social media platform, will be shut down from April 29 to comply with a decision by the Turkish Competition Authority, TRK, Meta announced on Monday.
“To comply with an interim order of the Turkish Competition Authority, TRK we will shut down Threads in Turkey from Monday 29 April,” Meta wrote.
The TRK has issued an interim measure against Threads platform prohibiting the sharing of data between Meta’s Threads and Instagram platforms.
However, Meta says it is certain that it does not violate the law in Turkey and it contested the ruling.
“We disagree with the interim order, we believe we are in compliance with all Turkish legal requirements, and we will appeal. The TRK’s interim order leaves us with no choice but to temporarily shut down Threads in Turkey. We will continue to constructively engage with the TRK and hope to bring Threads back to people in Turkey as quickly as possible,” Meta said.
The TRK said Threads uses account owners’ information from Instagram without their confirmation.
“META combines the data of users who create Threads profiles based on their Instagram accounts without providing users with a confirmation option; It was evaluated that it would cause irreparable damage until the investigation was completed,” the TRK wrote on March 18.
“It has been decided to take temporary measures to prevent data merging behaviour that may occur as a result of the data transfer mechanism between Instagram and Threads,” the TRK wrote.
Threads has started to update its users in Turkey that the platform will be shut down on April 29. Users can choose to deactivate their accounts or to delete their accounts. If they deactivate their accounts, their profiles will be available again if Threads returns to Turkey, Meta said.
