Twitter threatens Meta with lawsuit over rival app Threads

Controversial microblogging platform, Twitter, has threatened to drag its competitor, Meta, to court over the latter's newly-launched rival app, Threads.

On Wednesday, July 5, 2023, Meta, the parent company of Facebook and Instagram, rolled out Threads, a text-based Twitter-like platform. 

Thread's entrance into the social media space was greeted with instant frenzied acceptance as the app quickly gained over 10 million users in less than 24 hours after going live. 

Owing to its resemblance to Twitter as well as its direct link to Instagram, many users have tipped Threads to knock the bird app off its perch - or, at least, give it a good run for its money. 

Twitter threatens Meta with lawsuit

Just hours after Threads made its debut, a lawyer for Twitter, Alex Spiro, dispatched a letter to Meta CEO, Mark Zuckerberg, accusing the company of poaching former employees to create a ‘copycat’ application.

In the letter sighted by Semafor, Twitter accused the social media giant of engaging 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," Spiro wrote in the letter.

He added, "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."

Spiro alleged that Meta hired dozens of former Twitter staffers who "had and continue to have access to Twitter's trade secrets and other highly confidential information."

He also claimed that Meta assigned those employees to develop "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."

Since the platform was acquired in 2022 by billionaire, Elon Musk, Twitter has undergone some radical changes that have corroded user-experience on the platform.