Elon Musk's Twitter threatens legal action over Threads app, Meta hits back

In a recent development, it has come to light that Twitter is considering legal action against Meta, the parent company of Facebook, over concerns related to its newly launched Threads app. News platform Semafor has obtained a letter sent by Twitter lawyer Alex Spiro to Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg, in which he asserts that Meta utilised Twitter's trade secrets and intellectual property to develop Threads.

According to Spiro, Meta hired a significant number of former Twitter employees, possibly in light of the extensive layoffs that occurred after Elon Musk took control of the company. The letter claims that these ex-Twitter employees still retain access to Twitter's trade secrets and confidential information. Twitter alleges that Meta took advantage of this situation by assigning these employees to develop a "copycat" app, thereby violating both state and federal laws.

"Twitter intends to strictly enforce its intellectual property rights, and demands that Meta take immediate steps to stop using any Twitter trade secrets or other highly confidential information," Spiro wrote in the letter.

In response to these allegations, Twitter is threatening legal action in the form of both civil remedies and injunctive relief. The company demands that Meta immediately cease the use of any Twitter trade secrets or highly confidential information. Furthermore, Twitter explicitly states that Meta is not authorised to crawl or scrape Twitter's data.

Also Read Game, set and AI: Wimbledon 2023 will see AI commentary for the first time in tennis with help of IBM

Meta, however, has responded to Twitter's claims through a post on Threads by Andy Stone, the communications director. Stone refutes Twitter's assertions, stating that none of the engineers on the Threads team have previously worked for Twitter. Meta seems relatively unconcerned about the allegations, possibly due to Twitter's history of making legal threats. In May, Twitter accused Microsoft of abusing its API through integrations with some of its products. Meta owns Instagram as well as Facebook and WhatsApp.

Despite the legal controversy, Meta proceeded with the launch of Threads, initially targeting celebrities and brands as early adopters. Impressively, within less than 24 hours of its launch, Threads has already attracted over 30 million registered users. Meta stock closed up 3 per cent on Wednesday ahead of the launch, outpacing gains by rival tech firms.

Elon Musk, commenting on the situation on Twitter, stated, "Competition is fine, cheating is not." This response only adds fuel to the ongoing rivalry between the two companies.

Also Read

Battle of the billionaires: Elon Musk vs Mark Zuckerberg cage match could make over $1 billion

Google appeals to Supreme Court to quash antitrust directives on Android in India