Twitter Threatens To Sue Meta As 50m Join ‘Copycat’ App Threads On Its First Day
7 Jul 2023
Twitter are on the counter offensive threatening to sue Meta over the launch of its new copycat app Threads.
Pitched as a “friendly” rival to Twitter by Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg,
Making his first twitter post in over a decade he shared a Spider-Man meme in what appeared to be a nod to Threads’ similarities with Twitter.
Clearly the joke was not appreciated at Twitter with CEO Linda Yaccarino saying though Twitter is “often imitated”, its community can “never be duplicated”.
Twitter lawyer Alex Spiro, said in a letter to Meta that the company “has serious concerns that Meta Platforms (Meta) has engaged in systematic, willful and unlawful misappropriation of Twitter’s trade secrets and other intellectual property”.
“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.”
Twitter owner Elon Musk also tweeted on Thursday, “Competition is fine, cheating is not.”
Threads, which was released Wednesday evening has seen a reported 50 million users sign up on its first full day.
Zuckerberg said in a post on the new platform that he hoped to see the Threads community grow to over one billion members.
Threads becomes the latest in a growing list of platforms such as Bluesky and Spill and Mastodon, looking to end Twitter’s hegemony over the microblogging space.