WASHINGTON: Following the launch of Threads, thought of by many to be an alternative choice to Twitter, latter’s CEO Elon Musk — in a letter despatched to Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg by Twitter’s lawyer Alex Spiro — has threatened to sue Meta over its new platform.
Meta appears to be like to tackle Elon Musk’s Twitter by leveraging Instagram’s billions of customers and already Threads — which launched on Wednesday — has logged greater than 30 million signups.
In his letter, Spiro accused Meta of hiring former Twitter workers who “had and proceed to have entry to Twitter’s commerce secrets and techniques and different extremely confidential info,” Information web site Semafor first reported.
“Twitter intends to strictly implement its mental property rights, and calls for that Meta take quick steps to cease utilizing any Twitter commerce secrets and techniques or different extremely confidential info,” Spiro wrote within the letter.
A supply with data of the letter confirmed its contents on Thursday. Spiro didn’t reply to a request for remark.
“Nobody on the Threads engineering group is a former Twitter worker — that’s simply not a factor,” Meta spokesperson Andy Stone stated in a Threads put up.
A former senior Twitter worker stated they weren’t conscious of any former staffers engaged on Threads, nor any senior personnel who landed at Meta in any respect.
In the meantime, Twitter proprietor Musk stated, “Competitors is ok, dishonest shouldn’t be,” in response to a tweet citing the information.
Since Musk’s takeover of the social media platform final October, Twitter has acquired competitors from Mastodon and Bluesky amongst others. Threads’ consumer interface, nonetheless, resembles the microblogging platform.
Nonetheless, Threads doesn’t assist key phrase searches or direct messages.
To press a commerce secret theft declare in opposition to Meta, Twitter would want rather more element than what’s within the letter, stated mental property regulation specialists, together with Stanford regulation professor Mark Lemley.
“The mere hiring of former Twitter workers (who Twitter itself laid off or drove away) and the truth that Fb created a considerably comparable website is unlikely to assist a commerce secrets and techniques declare,” he stated.Jeanne Fromer, a professor at New York College, stated firms alleging commerce secret theft should present they made cheap efforts to guard their company secrets and techniques. Instances usually revolve round safe techniques that have been circumvented ultimately.