Twitter has threatened to sue Meta for launching Threads, which aims to compete with Elon Musk’s social network and has already attracted tens of millions of users despite its recent launch.
In a letter to Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg, attorney Alex Spiro, who represents Twitter, accused the company of exploiting Twitter’s trade secrets and other intellectual property by hiring former Twitter employees to build an app that mimics the network.
The decision further heightened tensions between the two social media conglomerates after Threads went live on Wednesday amid unpopular changes Musk has made to Twitter since he bought the platform last year for $44 billion.
In response to Spiro’s letter, Meta spokesman Andy Stone wrote directly to Threads: “None of the Threads engineers are ex-Twitter employees – that doesn’t happen.”
In a letter published by news site Semafor on Thursday, Spiro assured that Twitter is “strongly committed to safeguarding its intellectual property rights” and stressed the company’s right to seek a solution in civil or judicial action.
He added that the letter is an “official communication” for Meta to keep documents relevant to a potential dispute between the companies.
In response to a tweet about the possibility of legal action against Meta Musk, he tweeted, “Competition is good, scams are not.”
Advertised as a text-based version of Instagram’s photo-sharing app, Meta’s new product, some analysts believe, could cause concern for Twitter, pointing to the hype surrounding its launch and an impressive number of buyers.
But success is not guaranteed. Industry watchers mention Meta’s record for launching standalone apps that later shut down and pointing out that Threads is in its infancy.
Among other issues found, the new Meta app has raised concerns about information privacy. Even though it has been released in over 100 countries, it is not available in the European Union precisely because of the strict privacy rules that exist there.
Zuckerberg announced that Threads has already captured 70 million users: “70 million registrations in Threads as of the end of this morning. Far beyond our expectations,” he wrote on his account on the platform.
Meta, which owns Instagram, Facebook and WhatsApp, made Threads public early at midnight on Wednesday.
His closeness to Instagram has contributed to his strong growth. In any case, observers note that Instagram has two billion users worldwide, and Twitter has 450 million, to emphasize that Threads is still too early to claim victory.
Author: Portuguese
Source: CM Jornal
I’m Dave Martin, and I’m an experienced journalist working in the news industry. As a part of my work, I write for 24 News Reporters, covering mostly sports-related topics. With more than 5 years of experience as a journalist, I have written numerous articles on various topics to provide accurate information to readers.