Twitter has reportedly threatened to sue Meta Platforms, the parent company of Facebook, over its newly launched Threads app. According to news website Semafor, Twitter’s lawyer Alex Spiro sent a letter to Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg accusing the company of “systematic, willful and unlawful misappropriation of Twitter’s trade secrets and other intellectual property.”
In the letter, Spiro stated that Twitter intends to enforce its intellectual property rights and demanded that Meta immediately stop using any Twitter trade secrets or highly confidential information. The lawyer also claimed that Meta had hired former Twitter employees who had access to Twitter’s trade secrets and confidential information.
However, a Meta spokesperson, Andy Stone, denied the allegations, stating that none of the employees on the Threads engineering team were former Twitter employees. Stone made this statement in a Threads post, emphasizing that the accusation was unfounded.
A former senior Twitter employee, speaking to Reuters, also expressed unawareness of any former colleagues working on Threads or any senior personnel joining Meta.
Twitter’s prominent owner, Elon Musk, responded to the news by saying, “Competition is fine, cheating is not.” Musk has been overseeing Twitter since his takeover of the platform in October 2022. During his tenure, Twitter has faced competition from platforms like Mastodon and Bluesky. Interestingly, the user interface of Threads bears a resemblance to Twitter, but it lacks certain features such as keyword searches and direct messages.
As of now, Alex Spiro has not provided any comment in response to requests from Reuters.
The legal dispute between Twitter and Meta highlights the intensifying competition among social media platforms. As Meta’s Threads app gains traction with over 30 million sign-ups, Twitter is taking measures to protect its intellectual property and ensure fair competition in the market. It remains to be seen how this situation will develop and whether it will result in a legal battle between the two tech giants.
