Threads is blocked in the EU?

yes, they have to address EU compliance requirements before they can release it there

And to clarify, it's not "blocked", rather it hasn't launched in EU countries (and indeed reported to be due to worries regarding legal compliance, but afaik no official statements on what aspects of (presumably mostly GDPR) law Threads has / might have issues with that FB/Instagram don't, nor whether there's significant work to be done or if it's just that their legal team haven't yet finished deciding that it can launch there.

tells you how good and moral the parent company's intentions and priorities are

Not wanted here...you can keep it. Besides, 30m people can't be wrong.

though it would be interesting to see how many Europeons do eventually sign up, once our inalienabile rights have been paid for, i mean 'guaranteed'.

Just reading is not geoblocked. The original link works fine for me.

oh, indeed! For me it was showing just a Threads logo when I had "enhanced tracking protection" enabled in Firefox. After disabling it, I can read the website fine. Thanks!