Twitter has despatched a authorized warning to its competitor Meta, Semafor mentioned on July 6.
Meta — the mum or dad firm of Fb and Instagram — beforehand launched its Threads app. The product has been extensively described as Twitter competitor or “Twitter killer,” one thing that Twitter itself has taken notice of.
Alex Spiro, a lawyer for Twitter, despatched a letter to Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg following the platform’s launch. That letter calls Threads a “copycat” app and says:
“Based mostly on current reviews relating to your not too long ago launched ‘Threads’ app, Twitter has critical issues that Meta … has engaged in systematic, willful, and illegal misappropriation of Twitter’s commerce secrets and techniques and different mental property.”
Spiro additionally contended that Meta intentionally employed quite a few former Twitter staff. These staff, Spiro asserted, utilized commerce secrets and techniques and inside data to advance the event of Threads. These actions would violate each state and federal regulation, in addition to the workers’ ongoing obligations to Twitter, Spiro mentioned.
Spiro’s letter added that Twitter is set to “strictly implement its mental property rights” and demanded that Meta stop utilizing any Twitter-derived commerce secrets and techniques or confidential data. Spiro warned that Twitter reserves the proper to authorized motion, together with each civil treatments and injunctive reduction, to stop additional use of its IP.
Different concerned people have additionally commented on the matter. Elon Musk, CTO and govt chair of Twitter, implicitly supported the authorized menace in a July 6 tweet. He wrote: “competitors is okay, dishonest will not be.”
Meta’s communications director, Andy Stone, denied the claims. He explicitly acknowledged to Semafor that no former Twitter staff are on the Threads staff.
Twitter is experiencing broader troubles
Twitter positioned a price restrict on viewable content material days earlier than Meta’s Threads went reside and said this limit was applied to restrict bot exercise.
The agency didn’t explicitly say it imposed the restrict in anticipation of Threads’ launch. Nonetheless, Spiro’s letter additionally ordered Meta to chorus from scraping or crawling Twitter knowledge, suggesting that the 2 issues are at the least adjoining to at least one one other.
Twitter has skilled quite a few different controversies since Elon Musk acquired the corporate in October 2022. Sure points — particularly much less restrictive content material coverage insurance policies that some argue allow hate speech — have beforehand prompted customers to maneuver to decentralized social media options equivalent to Mastodon.
Some crypto hopefuls consider that backlash towards Twitter may gain advantage Web3 and blockchain-based social networks, equivalent to Peepeth, Lens Protocol, and Damus.
