- Twitter vs. Meta: Lawsuit over Threads app
- What is the conflict between Twitter and Meta?
- Meta accused of copying Twitter with Threads app
- Twitter’s allegations against Meta and former employees
- Legal implications of Meta’s app launch and Twitter’s response
Elon Musk’s company accuses them of recruiting laid-off workers to create app
The tension between two prominent tech leaders, Mark Zuckerberg and Elon Musk, seems to be on the rise. Recently, following the implementation of new policies at Twitter, Meta, Zuckerberg’s company, officially announced the launch of Threads, a platform with more than 30 million users in less than 24 hours.
Now, Twitter has threatened to file a lawsuit against Meta, accusing it of recruiting former employees to develop an application that would be a copy of its platform.
In a letter, Twitter’s lawyer, Alex Spiro, made it clear that the company is determined to rigorously protect its intellectual property rights. In the missive, he demands that Meta take immediate steps to stop using any of the social network’s trade secrets or other highly confidential information.
Twitter accuses Meta of poaching laid-off workers to create Threads.
“Twitter reserves all rights, including but not limited to the right to seek both civil remedies and injunctive relief without notice to prevent any further withholding, disclosure or use of its intellectual property by Meta,” the document warns.
Attorney Spiro, accuses Meta of having hired a considerable number of former Twitter employees, who, according to him, still have access to the company’s trade secrets and other highly confidential information.
According to his allegations, Meta allegedly assigned these employees the task of developing the “Threads” application, with the intention of using Twitter’s trade secrets and intellectual property for Meta’s benefit and the advancement of its direct competitor.
Twitter’s defendant contends that this alleged conduct by Meta violates both state and federal laws, as well as the continuing obligations the employees had to them as a company, further exacerbating the conflict between the two companies.
Likewise, Twitter owner Elon Musk has responded to this threat by stating his willingness to take legal action against Meta on the same day that Meta launched Threads.
For its part, Meta has presented the app as a direct competitor to Twitter and while noting that more than 30 million people signed up to the platform during its first day of launch.
It is important to remember that the unexpected launch of Threads occurred at a time when Twitter had implemented new policies which included limiting the viewing of tweets if users were not logged in, as well as restricting the number of tweets a person could view per day.
The decision to implement these restrictions came during the same weekend that the limitation to 10,000 tweets for verified accounts and 1,000 tweets for unverified accounts was announced. On this, Musk decided to reverse the idea and allow independent access on a “temporary” basis.
Chaos at a bad time
These two restrictions on Twitter were a boost for its new competitors. Just as it happened in November 2022, when Elon Musk bought the social network and implemented the first changes, generating an increase of users on Mastodon. During this weekend, the same thing happened with Bluesky.
This application was created by Jack Dorsey, co-founder of Twitter, and presented an increase in users. According to what a spokesperson told CNBC, during the weekend they received 58,000 requests to create accounts, an important number considering that up to that moment they had 50,000 users since April.
The other consequence was the arrival of Threads. Meta’s platform has a similar proposition to Musk’s social network, but has the backing of being linked to Instagram, allowing it to move a much larger user base.