‘Copycat’ – Twitter threatens Meta with lawsuit over Threads

Twitter, the micro-blogging platform owned by Elon Musk, has sent a letter to Mark Zuckerberg, the founder of Meta, over the “unlawful misappropriation” of its trade secrets.

In the letter, Alex Spiro, Twitter’s lawyer, described Threads as a “copycat” and said that Meta had hired dozens of former Twitter employees who “had and continue to have access to Twitter’s highly confidential information”.

Since launching the text-based app called Threads on Thursday, more than 30 million people have signed up, with Zuckerberg announcing that the app recorded 10 million new entrants in the first seven hours.

Threads comes with features similar to those of Twitter, such as liking, reposting, and deciding who can reply to conversations.

Users can also follow and connect with others who share similar interests, and build a loyal following of their own to share their ideas, opinions, and creativity with the world.

However, the new app, unlike Twitter, does not have an edit button or a direct message (DM) feature. It is however superior in terms of word length – 500 counts; and video length of 5 minutes.

The look and feel of Threads are similar to those of Twitter, James Clayton, BBC technology reporter, noted.

He said the news feed and the reposting were “incredibly familiar”.

“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,” the letter reads.

“Twitter reserves all rights, including, but not limited to, the right to seek both civil remedies and injunctive relief without further notice.”

Responding to Twitter’s allegation, Andy Stone, Meta spokesperson, said “no one on the Threads engineering team is a former Twitter employee – that’s just not a thing”.