Twitter has threatened to sue Meta over the development and launch of their new Instagram-connected platform, Threads, and Meta has responded.
Since purchasing the company in October 2022, Elon Musk has made quite a few changes to Twitter that have left many looking for a new social media platform.
Mastodon, Hive, Bluesky, and more have attempted to rise to the occasion, but Meta has finally stepped up to the plate with their Instagram-connected platform, Threads.
On July 6, 2023, Twitter sent a letter to Meta threatening legal action over the new platform, accusing them of hiring ex-Twitter employees to “steal trade secrets.”
Twitter claims Meta used trade secrets to develop Threads
According to a document acquired by Semafor’s Max Tani, Twitter’s lawyer Alex Spiro sent Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg a letter with claims that Meta hired ex-Twitter employees and deliberately put them on the team developing Threads.
In doing this, Spiro claims that Meta is taking part in “systematic, willful, and unlawful misappropriation of Twitter’s trade secrets and other intellectual property.”
According to Semafor’s source at Meta, the accusations just aren’t true. “No one on the Threads engineering team is a former Twitter employee — that’s just not a thing,” they said.
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There’s no doubt that Zuckerberg sees the similarities between the two platforms, however, as he made it apparent in his first post on Twitter since 2012.
— Mark Zuckerberg (@finkd) July 6, 2023
Elon replied to a tweet about the lawsuit shortly after news broke. He said: “Competition is fine, Cheating is not.”
Competition is fine, cheating is not
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) July 6, 2023
Twitter’s CEO Linda Yaccarino made a statement about the launch of Threads on July 6, less than a day after the app launched.
“YOU built the Twitter community. And that’s irreplaceable. This is your public square. We’re often imitated — but the Twitter community can never be duplicated,” she said.
It’s unknown whether or not Threads will be a “Twitter Killer” as many are calling it. But following Musk’s recent announcement that tweets will be rate-limited for users and Tweetdeck is going behind the Twitter Blue paywall, many are ready for a new platform.