Twitter threatens Meta with lawsuit over Threads launch

Twitter has threatened to sue Meta Platforms over the launch of Threads. Reuters reports, citing a letter from lawyer Alex Spiro, who represents the social network.

He alleged that the corporation was using Twitter’s intellectual property in the new product. In particular, Spiro noted that last year Meta hired dozens of former employees who “had and continue to have access to Twitter’s trade secrets.”

“Twitter intends to strictly enforce its rights to its intellectual property and requires that Meta immediately take steps to cease using any information that constitutes Twitter’s trade secrets, or other confidential information,” the letter says.

Meta spokesperson Andy Stone said that “no member of the Threads engineering team is a former Twitter employee.”

The social network’s owner Elon Musk also commented on the news:

“Competition is good, and cheating is not.”

Consulted Reuters experts noted that bringing such a suit would require far more detail than what is contained in the letter.

“Hiring simply former Twitter employees (whom Twitter itself fired or forced out) and the fact that Facebook created a somewhat similar site are unlikely to substantiate the claim of [theft] of trade secrets,” said one of the agency’s sources.

Details of Meta’s preparation for launching Threads became known on July 4. Two days later, the app appeared in the App Store.

This occurred against the backdrop of Musk’s decision to impose limits on tweet views. According to the businessman, the measure is ‘temporary’ and related to the ‘extreme level’ of data parsing and manipulation of the system. However, he did not specify when the restrictions would be lifted.

In March, Meta announced the creation of a decentralized social network under the working title P92. It remains unclear whether Threads is a continuation of that initiative.