On July 6 Alex Spiro, a Twitter’s lawyer sent a note to the Facebook parent’s CEO Mark Zuckerberg in which he threatened to sue Meta platforms after they launched a new app ‘Threads’.
The Elon Musk owned company twitter is constantly accusing Meta of poaching former Twitter employees to create new platform. As the new app ‘Thread’ hit the market it has reached nearly 2 million subscribers in just couple of hours. Thread is a text-based messaging platform similiar to Twitter has made a tremendous entry.
Soon after the launch of Meta- owned Thread, Alex Spiro sent a letter to Mark Zuckerberg accusing the social media giant of engaging in an illegal misappropriation of Twitter’s trade secrets and other important assets.
Alex Spiro wrote in a letter 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,”
In addition ,it was also mentioned that, “Twitter reserves all rights, including, but not limited to, the right to seek both civil remedies and injunctive relief without further notice to prevent any further retention, disclosure, or use of its intellectual property by Meta.”
In response, Meta spokesperson wrote,””No one on the Threads engineering team is a former Twitter employee — that’s just not a thing,”
https://www.threads.net/t/CuXeGudAEXr/
An ex twitter employee informed the news channel that according to our knowledge none of the former employee is working on Threads, nor any senior personnel who joined Meta at all.
In contrast, Twitter’s owner Elon Musk said “competition is fine, cheating is not”
NEWS: Twitter is threatening to sue Meta over "systematic, willful and unlawful misappropriation" of Twitter's trade secrets and IP, as well as scraping of Twitter's data, in a cease-and-desist letter sent yesterday to Zuckerberg by Elon's lawyer Alex Spiro. pic.twitter.com/enWhnlYcAt
— T(w)itter Daily News (@TitterDaily) July 6, 2023
Since Musk has taken Twitter, its competitors Mastodon and Bluesky has created a strong competition against twitter. Meta-owned Thread resembles the Micro-blogging platform alot. Thread does not support direct message or keyword searches.
According to the law expert Mark Lemley, a Stanford law professor states that Twitter needs much more information that what is provided in the letter in order to successfully charge a claim against Meta for trade secret theft.
“The mere hiring of former Twitter employees (who Twitter itself laid off or drove away) and the fact that Facebook created a somewhat similar site is unlikely to support a trade secrets claim.”
Moreover, Spiro started showing his anger on hiring former Twitter employees who “had and continue to have access to Twitter’s trade secret” and other company’s secret information.
The letter states that the former employees were then assigned to create a copycat app using twitter’s “trade secrets and other intellectual property in order to accelerate the development of Meta’s competing app ,in violation of both state and federal law as well as those employees’ ongoing obligations to Twitter”.
Since Elon Musk has taken the charge of Twitter last year, a number of Twitter rivals including Mastodon have gained popularity including Threads. However, the latest advancement showcases that Thread is the most notable rival,given Twitter’s quick action against the app.
In addition, Twitter’s CEO Linda Yaccarino presented her views stating that “Twitter is often imitated, but the Twitter community can never be duplicated”
On Twitter, everyone's voice matters.
Whether you’re here to watch history unfold, discover REAL-TIME information all over the world, share your opinions, or learn about others — on Twitter YOU can be real.
YOU built the Twitter community. 🙏👏 And that's irreplaceable. This…
— Linda Yaccarino (@lindayacc) July 6, 2023
On the other hand, Mark Zuckerberg tweeted for the first time yesterday after the launch of Thread. He tweeted the Spider man meme that the Meta CEO posted made fun of Twitter.
— Mark Zuckerberg (@finkd) July 6, 2023
At the initial phase Thread is only accessible via iOS and Android in 100 countries. To access Thread users first need to authenticate using their own Instagram account information. The app will further ask for username, photo, follower, and name
Read more:
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