Twitter threatens to sue Meta over its new Threads platform

Twitter is threatening to file a lawsuit against Meta over its new Threads platform, accusing it of poaching former employees to create a ‘copycat’ app.   

‘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,’ Twitter lawyer Alex Spiro wrote in a letter obtained exclusively by Semafor.  

‘Twitter reserves all rights, including, but not limited to, the right to seek both civil remedies and injunctive relief without further notice to prevent any further retention, disclosure, or use of its intellectual property by Meta.’

The social-media platform owned by Elon Musk threatened legal action the same day Meta went live with Threads. 

Meta creator Mark Zuckerberg painted Threads as a Twitter rival and has seen 30 million people sign-up on the first day. 

The new rival to Twitter, Threads, unveiled their app Wednesday 

Spiro accused Meta of hiring dozens of former Twitter employees who ‘had and continue to have access to Twitter’s trade secrets and other highly confidential information.’

He also claimed Meta assigned those staffers to create ‘Meta’s copycat “Threads”‘ with the intent to use Twitter’s trade secrets and other intellectual property in order to further the development of Twitter’s competitor. 

He alleged the app is in violation of both state and federal law as well as those employees ‘ongoing obligations to Twitter.’

Threads – which is trying to appeal to Twitter users by offering longer posts and accounts linked to their Instagram. The platform is the top trending word on Twitter today.

The decision to create the rival comes after Elon Musk purchased Twitter for $44billion. Since then, Musk spearheaded a series of controversial moves – including cutting staff and limiting the number of messages people can see a day. 

That has caused the value of Twitter to plummet, with Fidelity recently estimating Twitter is worth just one-third of what Musk paid.     

Musk hit out at Meta’s new platform and claimed it spreads ‘false happiness’ like Instagram – which is also owned by Meta. 

Posting on the app, Zuckerberg said: ‘Wow, 30 million sign-ups as of this morning. Feels like the beginning of something special, but we’ve got a lot of work ahead to build out the app.’

The Twitter-lookalike app, which calls retweets ‘reposts’ and tweets ‘threads’, allows users to post up to 500 characters of text and up to five minutes of video as well as pictures.

Threads has been nicknamed ‘Twitter Killer’ online amid animosity between the rival billionaires who agreed recently to take each other on in a cage fight – with the Colosseum in Rome a potential venue.

It came after their war of words online, with Musk repeatedly urging Twitter users to delete their Facebook accounts, calling the social network ‘lame’.

Twitter boss Musk has repeatedly hit out at Facebook, urging users to delete their accounts

Zuckerberg is aiming for 1billion users to sign up to his new Threads app

Chef Gordon Ramsay, pop star Shakira and Mark Hoyle, better known as the YouTuber LadBaby, have already joined Threads and made their presence on the app known. Millions of others had preordered the app after its launch was announced earlier this week.

The new app is the latest move in the rivalry between Zuckerberg and Musk, who bought Twitter in October.

Zuckerberg said this week: ‘I think there should be a public conversations app with 1 billion+ people on it. Twitter has had the opportunity to do this but hasn’t nailed it. Hopefully we will.’

Musk hit back and tweeted: ‘It is infinitely preferable to be attacked by strangers on Twitter than indulge in the false happiness of hide-the-pain Instagram’. 

The new app lets users filter out replies that contain specific words, as well as block other people from mentioning you

Threads is now available to download from both the Apple App Store and the Google Play Store

Zuckerberg’s rival to Twitter received a mixed reaction after its launch.

Social media erupted with memes slamming the Facebook boss’s new app Threads, which went live at midnight in the UK and allows users to post up to 500 characters of text, five minutes of video, and pictures.

Twitter users complained about ‘bugs’ and the ‘lack of basic features’ on Threads, with some sharing amusing GIFs saying that people would be ‘running back to Twitter’ after trying it.

The launch was clearly a first stab at a service as it lacked the bells and whistles of Twitter.

Threads does not have hashtags and keyword search functions, which means users cannot follow real-time events like on Twitter. It does not yet have a direct messaging function and also lacks a desktop version that certain users, such as business organizations, rely on.

Some users including popular tech reviewer Marques Brownlee also posted about the need for a feed that only consists of the people one follows. Users currently have little control over the main feed.

Mark Zuckerberg has tweeted for the first time in 11 years – sharing a Spiderman image aimed at his rival Elon Musk

Elon Musk responded to the new app by claiming Instagram spreads ‘false happiness’

Elon Musk’s $44bn acquisition of Twitter in October 2022 promised the biggest shake up since the company was founded in 2006.

Since then, his erratic management style has prompted both users and advertisers to turn away from the site. 

The former world’s richest man was keen to take on the project after becoming disillusioned by the site’s perceived biases and content moderation policy.

He said he wanted to build a ‘common digital town square’ where all voices could be heard and debated in a healthy way.

Changes to personnel and features, and the release of the “Twitter Files” took the site in a radical new direction within a matter of weeks.

Twitter’s revolution became a bloodbath in the process, cutting staff by 80 percent to hone in on the new direction, and then losing users and advertisers as a lean team struggled to manage disinformation, trolling and impersonation online.

Musk also recently announced limits on the number of Tweets people can see a day. People who paid $8 for a blue-check mark were able to see more, but still limited on a daily count.  

But Twitter users have proclaimed the site ‘dead’ since the controversial owner limited the number of tweets users can view each day.

Musk claimed the restrictions are a temporary measure that were introduced because ‘we were getting data pillaged so much that it was degrading service for normal users’.

However users were quick to point the finger of suspicion at the staffing cuts at the social media network, as well as the apparent non-payment of bills to crucial services – potentially including Google.