ANKARA — Meta announced on Monday that it will temporarily shut down its social media platform Threads in Turkey on April 29 in compliance with an order by Turkey's competition authority.
The parent company of several social media platforms including Facebook and the messaging app WhatsApp added that the temporary closure will not affect other Meta services in Turkey or Threads in other markets.
Threads users in Turkey will be able to deactivate or delete their accounts as well as download their own content during the closure.
The posts and interactions of profiles deactivated during the closure will become visible again if Threads access is restored in the country, the statement said.
It remains unclear when or if the platform will become available again in Turkey.
The announcement follows a ruling by Turkey’s Competition Board last month that Meta violated the country's antitrust laws by abusing its dominant market position by failing to ask users' permission for cross-platform data sharing between Instagram and Threads.
Meta, in turn, argues that both platforms were built on the same backend infrastructure that allowed the company to implement a series of Instagram features that include security measures to be used in Threads.
The board also had fined the company roughly $148,000 per day, ruling that the fine would continue until the company takes additional measures to address violations stemming from the cross-platform data sharing.
