Twitter threatens to sue Meta over 'copycat' Threads platform, claims app was created by poaching fired employees
SAN FRANCISCO, CALIFORNIA: Twitter warns it could sue Meta over its new Threads App which gained more than 2 million downloads in just two hours of its launch. In a letter to Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg published by Semafor on Thursday, July 6, an attorney for Twitter stated that the online social media company owned by Elon Musk "has serious concerns that Meta Platforms (Meta) has engaged in systematic, willful and unlawful misappropriation of Twitter’s trade secrets and other intellectual property."
"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," lawyer Alex Spiro stated in the letter.
Zuckerberg aims to build a 'public conversations app with 1bn+ people'
Threads, a text-based conversation app was launched by Meta on Wednesday, July 6 with the intention of competing with Twitter. The Twitter copycat has received positive attention as it has garnered 30 million sign-ups within 24 hours of its launch. Accounts created on the app are linked to Instagram profiles making it seamless for users to sign-up which has given the platform a built-in user base. Zuckerberg has stated that Meta attempts to take a shot to build a "public conversations app with 1bn+ people" through Threads, a chance that the tweet app had but "hasn't nailed," according to Daily Mail.
In the warning letter, Twitter claims Meta has poached dozens of their ex-workers in 2022, some of whom " had and continue to have access to Twitter’s trade secrets and other highly confidential information" and many of the former employees have "improperly" kept Twitter electronic devices or documents.
"With that knowledge, Meta deliberately assigned these employees to develop, in a matter of months, Meta’s copycat ‘Threads’ app with the specific intent that they use Twitter’s trade secrets and other intellectual property in order to accelerate the development of Meta’s competing app, in violation of both state and federal law as well as those employees’ ongoing obligations to Twitter," read the letter.
Meta states no former employees of Twitter are on the Threads team
In response to the cease-and-desist letter, Andy Stone, Meta’s communications director posted on Threads that there are no engineers on their team who previously worked at Twitter. It remains unclear in terms of evidence whether former Twitter employees currently working at Meta still have access to intellectual property or trade secrets of Twitter. The tweet app responded with an automated email of a poop emoji to a request for comment.
Following the issue, Musk tweeted addressing Twitter threatening Meta and wrote, "Competition is fine, cheating is not."
