Twitter Threatens Legal Action Against Meta Over "Copycat" Threads App

In a dramatic turn of events, Twitter has issued a solid warning to Meta Platforms, the parent company of Facebook, threatening legal action over its newly launched Threads app. In a letter addressed to Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg, Twitter's lawyer Alex Spiro accused the social media giant of engaging in "systematic, willful, and unlawful misappropriation of Twitter's trade secrets and other intellectual property."

According to a report by Semafor, Spiro claimed that Meta had hired former Twitter employees who possessed knowledge of Twitter's highly confidential information. These employees were allegedly assigned to develop Threads to use Twitter's trade secrets to expedite the development of Threads. Twitter views this as a violation of state and federal laws and the employees' ongoing obligations to their former employer.

Twitter's letter explicitly demanded that Meta cease using Twitter trade secrets or confidential information. Spiro also warned that Twitter would enforce its intellectual property rights to the fullest extent, reserving the right to seek civil remedies and injunctive relief without further notice. The letter stressed Twitter's determination to prevent any further retention, disclosure, or use of its intellectual property by Meta.

Elon Musk, the owner of Twitter, weighed in on the situation, stating, "Competition is fine, cheating is not," in response to a tweet reporting the news.

Meta's Threads platform has already raked in over 50 million users and aims to challenge Twitter's dominance by leveraging Instagram's extensive user base. Threads is a text-based companion to Instagram, resembling Twitter and other text-based social platforms. However, currently, it lacks features such as keyword searches and direct messages.

This latest clash between Twitter and Meta follows a series of controversial decisions made by Twitter that have alienated users and advertisers. These include Musk's recent move to limit the number of tweets users can read per day. The battle for a new public square has just begun as competition in the social media landscape intensifies.

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