Twitter threatens to sue Meta over its new Threads platform
Twitter threatens to sue Meta over concerns about its new Threads platform. This is stated in a letter to Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg from Twitter lawyer Alex Spiro, writes Semafor.
In the letter, the lawyer alleges Meta of hiring dozens of former Twitter employees to create Threads. According to Twitter, many of them still have access to the social network’s trade secrets and other confidential information. Twitter alleges that Meta took advantage of this and instructed these employees to develop a “copycat” app “in violation of both state and federal law.”
“I am writing on behalf of X Corp. as successor to Twitter, Inc. (“Twitter”). Based on recent reports regarding your recently launched Threads app, Twitter has serious concerns that Meta Platforms (“Meta”) has engaged in systematic, willful, and unlawful misappropriation of Twitter’s trade secrets and other intellectual property,” the letter reads.
As a result, Twitter is threatening legal action in the form of “both civil remedies and injunctive relief.” It also “requires Meta to take immediate action to stop using any Twitter trade secrets or other confidential information.”
Instead, Meta denied that it had hired ex-Twitter employees to develop Threads.
“No one on the Threads engineering team is a former Twitter employee — that’s just not a thing,” wrote director of communications Andy Stone in a Threads post.
Elon Musk also reacted to this situation. He wrote that cheating is not a good thing.
“Competition is fine, cheating is not,” said the billionaire.
Instead, users reminded Musk how, after firing Twitter employees, he said that their talent would not be valued.
“I would like to apologize for firing these geniuses. Their immense talent will no doubt be of great use elsewhere,” the users recalled Musk’s previous tweet on Twitter.
We will remind you that the day before Meta officially launched a new social platform Threads, developed by the Instagram team, which will directly compete with Twitter. In a matter of hours, the social network attracted millions of users. But it turned out that the Twitter competitor has an unexpected condition of use – deleting the Threads account will lead to the closure of the associated Instagram profile.