In relation to Meta's quickly expanding rival Threads app, Twitter is considering legal action.
 |
| threads app |
Threads, Twitter alternative
The company behind Threads, which was introduced to millions of people on Wednesday, has positioned it as a "friendly" substitute for Twitter.
Elon Musk of Twitter claimed that "competition is fine, cheating is not," but Meta refuted this accusation in a legal letter, denying that any ex-Twitter employees were involved in the creation of Threads.
According to Meta, more than 30 million users have downloaded the new app.
According to Statista, that is less than a tenth of Twitter's projected 350 million users.
According to a 2013 SEC filing, Twitter needed four years to reach the same number of users that Threads did in a single day, even though Twitter had to start from scratch and Threads was able to draw from Instagram's two billion monthly users already in place.
According to James Clayton, a technology correspondent for BBC News, Threads has a look and feel that is comparable to Twitter's. The news stream and the reposting, according to him, were "incredibly familiar."
Although US copyright law does not protect ideas, Twitter would need to show that its own intellectual property, such as programming code, was stolen in order to prevail in court.
And in 2012, Meta received a patent for "communicating a newsfeed"—the technology that powers Facebook's algorithm for displaying the most recent posts.
blaming Meta for "systematic, deliberate, and illegal theft of Twitter's
Twitter lawyer Alex Spiro wrote to Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg on Wednesday, charging Meta of "systematic, wilful, and unlawful misappropriation of Twitter's trade secrets and other intellectual property" in order to establish Threads, as originally reported by the news source Semafor.
More specifically, Mr. Spiro said that Meta had hired a large number of ex-Twitter workers who "had and continue to have access to Twitter's trade secrets and other highly confidential information" and who ultimately assisted Meta in creating what he called the "copycat" Threads program.
Twitter demands that Meta take immediate action to stop exploiting any Twitter trade secrets or other highly private information and states that it will vigorously enforce its intellectual property rights.
Twitter declares that it "reserves all rights, including but not limited to the right to seek injunctive relief as well as civil remedies at any time."
No one on the Threads engineering team is a former Twitter employee
In response to a tweet that included the legal letter, Mr. Musk responded that "competition is fine, cheating is not."
"No one on the Threads engineering team is a former Twitter employee - that's just not a thing," wrote Meta spokesperson Andy Stone in a thread.
Threads might provide a "brand-safe environment"
For current Instagram marketers who "feel they can allocate some budget and see what happens," said Sarah Kunst, managing director at venture capital firm Cleo Capital, Threads might provide a "brand-safe environment".
She continued by saying that although the app's 30 million users may have been the consequence of an initial surge, the number of users would probably continue to rise steadily.
They've made it incredibly simple to cross-post to other platforms like Instagram, so she predicted that growth will continue.
Both Mr. Musk and Mr. Zuckerberg have recognized their rivalry over Threads, a connected but independent program that integrates with Instagram.
Zuckerberg broke his Twitter silence after more than 11 years to share a viral meme of two virtually identical Spider-Man figurines pointing at each other in a standoff as it launched in 100 countries.
It wasn't long before Elon Musk said: "It is infinitely preferable to be attacked by strangers on Twitter, than indulge in the false happiness of hide-the-pain Instagram." This was while the word "Threads" was trending globally on his site.
Mita and Twitter reduce the number of its employees
In a post on Thursday, Twitter CEO Linda Yaccarino asserted that despite the platform being "often imitated," it "can never be duplicated."
Both Meta and Twitter have made big employee reductions this year; Meta said in April that it will eliminate about 10,000 jobs.
Following Mr. Musk's takeover in October, Twitter laid off as many as 80% of its 7,500 employees in waves of layoffs.