Twitter threatens to sue Meta over Threads
Tensions between rival tech CEOs Mark Zuckerberg and Elon Musk look to be escalating with Twitter threatening to sue Meta over Threads, its own microblogging platform.
The Associated Press reports that Twitter, through its attorney Alex Spiro, has sent a letter addressed to Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg accusing the company of hiring former Twitter employees and “unlawfully” using Twitter's intellectual property and other trade secrets.
According to Reuters, Spiro alleges in the letter that the former Twitter employees in Threads' employ “had and continue to have access to Twitter's trade secrets and other highly confidential information.”
Spiro also wrote that "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."
Meanwhile the Associated Press quotes Meta spokesperson Andy Stone as saying that there are no former Twitter employees currently working on Threads. In a statement, Stone wrote that “no one on the Threads engineering team is a former Twitter employee -- that's just not a thing.”
Threads was launched in 100 countries yesterday, with 5 million people signing up for the app in the first five hours, according to Mark Zuckerberg.
Some of these sign-ups include celebrities like Shakira and Gordon Ramsay, as well as brands like HBO, NPR, and Netflix. GMA Network has also set up its own Threads account, @gmanetwork, that people can follow for more updates, latest news, and exclusive content.
While Meta denies allegations made by Twitter, Threads does look like Twitter, with some naming changes. Tweets are now called threads and retweets are now reposts. Unlike Twitter, posts on Threads can be 500 characters long compared to the 280 for Twitter. Five-minute videos can be posted on the app and posts can be shared on other apps as well. Users can also mute, hide, block, and report posts.
The launch of Threads comes after Elon Musk has faced continuous pushback on the changes he has implemented on Twitter, such as the imposition of an initial 600 post limit to the amount of tweets users can view in a day. The limit was eventually increased to 1,000 tweets a day for non-verified users and 10,000 for verified users.
The launch of Threads is just the latest headache for emerald mine heir Elon Musk. Since acquiring Twitter for $44 billion, Musk broke the record for “largest loss of personal fortune in history,” losing as much as $182 billion since November 2021.
AS TWITTER AND THREADS LOOK TO BE GEARING UP FOR A LEGAL BATTLE, LOOK BACK AT SOME OF THE TWEETS THAT MATTERED IN THE GALLERY BELOW.
