Enterprise
“Competitors is okay, dishonest will not be,” Elon Musk tweeted.
NEW YORK (AP) — Twitter has threatened authorized motion towards Meta over its new text-based app known as Threads, which has drawn tens of tens of millions of customers since launching this week as a rival to Elon Musk’s social media platform.
In a letter Wednesday to Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg, Alex Spiro, an lawyer representing Twitter, accused Meta of unlawfully utilizing Twitter’s commerce secrets and techniques and different mental property by hiring former Twitter workers to create a “copycat” app.
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Threads, Instagram’s ‘Twitter killer,’ has arrived
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Meta appears to be like to focus on Twitter with a rival app known as Threads
The transfer ramps up the tensions between the social media giants after Threads debuted Wednesday, focusing on those that are looking for out options to Twitter amid unpopular adjustments Musk has made to the platform since shopping for it final 12 months for $44 billion.
Meta spokesperson Andy Stone wrote Thursday on Threads: “Nobody on the Threads engineering workforce is a former Twitter worker — that’s simply not a factor.”
Within the letter, which information web site Semafor first reported Thursday, Spiro mentioned Twitter “intends to strictly implement its mental property rights” and famous the corporate’s proper to hunt civil treatments or a courtroom injunction.
He mentioned the letter marked a “formal discover” for Meta to protect paperwork related for a possible dispute between the businesses.
In a reply to a tweet about the potential for authorized motion towards Meta, Musk wrote: “Competitors is okay, dishonest will not be.”
The Related Press reached out to Spiro on Thursday for additional data. Twitter responded to an e mail looking for remark with a crude automated reply, its normal response to journalists.
New Twitter CEO Linda Yaccarino has not publicly commented on the letter however appeared to deal with Threads’ launch.
“We’re typically imitated — however the Twitter group can by no means be duplicated,” Yaccarino tweeted.
Some analysts say Meta’s new providing, billed as a text-based model of the photo-sharing app Instagram, could possibly be a big headache for Twitter — pointing to the thrill surrounding Threads’ launch and spectacular obtain numbers up to now.
However success isn’t assured. Trade watchers level to Meta’s observe report of beginning standalone apps that had been later shut down and notice that Threads remains to be in its early days.
Moreover some glitches and gripes about lacking options, Meta’s new app additionally has raised information privateness issues. Whereas Threads launched in additional than 100 nations, it’s notably unavailable within the European Union, which has strict information privateness guidelines.