Twitter claims it may file lawsuit against Meta over the launch of the copycat Theads

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Twitter claims it may file a lawsuit against Meta over the launch of the "copycat" Threads


It didn't take long for Twitter to start flexing its legal muscles against Meta for this week's launch of Threads. Twitter has sent a formal legal letter to Meta (via Semafor) demanding that Meta "take immediate steps to stop using any Twitter trade secrets or other highly confidential information."

The letter, sent by Twitter's lawyer Alex Spiro to Meta CEO Mark Zuckerburg, stated in part:

Over the past year, Meta has hired dozens of former Twitter employees. Twitter knows that these employees previously worked at Twitter; that these employees had and continue to have access to Twitter’s trade secrets and other highly confidential information; that these employees owe ongoing obligations to Twitter; and that many of these employees have improperly retained Twitter documents and electronic devices.​

The letter also alleges that Meta hired these former, but unnamed, Twitter employees to help create "in a matter of months, Meta’s copycat “Threads” app". The letter added:

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.​

Semafor contacted Meta for comment, and an unnamed source from the company claims that Twitter's allegations are not true. It claims that none of the people who worked on Threads on its engineering team is a former Twitter employee.

Meta launched Threads less than a day ago, but Zuckerberg stated that over 30 million people have signed up to use the service. He also seemed to admit that Threads lacks some features that are available on Twitter, stating that "we've got a lot of work ahead to build out the app."

The number of registered Threads users does not include anyone in the European Union as Meta decided not to launch the service in that part of the world because of its current online privacy regulations.