Twitter has issued a legal threat to Meta Platforms, the parent company of Facebook, regarding its new Threads platform. In a letter sent to Mark Zuckerberg, CEO of Facebook, Alex Spiro, Twitter’s lawyer, accused Meta of hiring former Twitter employees who still have access to Twitter’s classified information. Semafor, a news website, first reported on this issue. Spiro’s letter stated that Twitter will be enforcing its intellectual property rights and demanded that Meta take immediate action to cease the use of any Twitter trade secrets or confidential information. The contents of the letter were confirmed by a Reuters source on Thursday, although Spiro did not comment when requested.
Meta’s spokesperson, Andy Stone, denied the claims made by Twitter, stating that no one on the Threads engineering team is a former Twitter employee. Additionally, a former senior Twitter employee interviewed by Reuters claimed that they were unaware of any former staff members working on Threads or any senior personnel joining Meta at all.
Elon Musk, the owner of Twitter, responded to the news of the legal threat by stating, “Competition is fine, cheating is not.” Meta’s portfolio includes both Instagram and Facebook, and Twitter has faced competition from platforms like Mastodon and Bluesky since Musk’s takeover in October.
Threads, Meta’s new platform, has gained over 30 million sign-ups since its launch and aims to rival Twitter with its extensive user base from Instagram. However, Threads currently lacks features such as keyword searches and direct messages, despite having a user interface that resembles Twitter.
To pursue a trade secret theft claim against Meta, Twitter would require more substantial evidence than what was provided in the letter. Intellectual property law experts, including Mark Lemley, a professor at Stanford Law, have noted that simply hiring former Twitter employees and creating a similar site like Facebook’s would not support a trade secrets claim. Jeanne Fromer, a professor at New York University, also highlighted the importance of companies demonstrating reasonable efforts to protect their corporate secrets in trade secret theft cases.
This legal threat from Twitter comes after a series of controversial decisions that have led to the dissatisfaction of users and advertisers. One of these decisions includes Musk’s recent move to limit the number of tweets users can read per day.
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Omprakash Tiwary is a business writer who delves into the intricacies of the corporate world. With a focus on finance and economic landscape. He offers readers valuable insights into market trends, entrepreneurship, and economic developments.
