Twitter is evaluating the possibility of taking legal action against Meta, the parent company of Facebook, in response to the rapid growth of its competitor app, Threads. Launched to millions of users on Wednesday, Threads has been positioned by Meta executives as a “friendly” alternative to Twitter.
However, Elon Musk, CEO of Twitter, emphasized that while healthy competition is acceptable, cheating is not. In light of this, Meta has denied allegations made in a legal letter claiming that former Twitter employees were involved in the development of Threads.
According to Meta, more than 30 million users have already signed up for Threads, although this figure remains significantly lower than Twitter’s estimated user base of 350 million, as reported by Statista. Notably, Threads achieved in a single day what took Twitter four years to accomplish in terms of user acquisition.
It is important to consider that while Twitter started from scratch, Threads leveraged Meta’s existing user base of two billion monthly users on Instagram.
Technology reporter James Clayton from BBC News observed that Threads closely resembles Twitter in terms of its interface and functionality. The news feed and reposting features in Threads are described as “incredibly familiar.”
However, under US copyright law, ideas are not protected, placing the burden on Twitter to prove that its intellectual property, such as programming code, was unlawfully used.
In 2012, Meta obtained a patent for “communicating a newsfeed,” the system employed by Facebook to display the latest posts. This patent may complicate Twitter’s legal claims against Threads.
Twitter’s attorney, Alex Spiro, sent a letter to Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg, accusing Meta of “systematic, willful, and unlawful misappropriation of Twitter’s trade secrets and other intellectual property” in the development of Threads.
Spiro specifically alleged that Meta had hired several former Twitter employees who had access to Twitter’s trade secrets and confidential information, enabling Meta to create the “copycat” Threads app.
The letter demands that Meta immediately cease using any Twitter trade secrets or confidential information and warns of legal consequences if Meta fails to comply. BBC News has reached out to both Meta and Twitter for comments on the matter.
In response to a tweet referring to the legal letter, Elon Musk commented, “competition is fine, cheating is not.” Meanwhile, Meta spokesperson Andy Stone stated on Threads that none of the app’s engineering team consisted of former Musk’s employees, dismissing the claims made by Twitter’s attorney.
