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Meta Threads lawsuit overview:
- Who: Twitter is threatening Meta and its CEO Mark Zuckerberg with a lawsuit over the release of its Instagram Threads app.
- Why: Twitter claims Meta misappropriated trade secrets and other intellectual property by allegedly using former Twitter employees to create the Threads app.
- Where: Nationwide.
Twitter is threatening to file a lawsuit against Meta over its new text-based conversation app Threads — available through Instagram — arguing Meta committed trade secret theft by allegedly poaching some of its former employees.
Alex Spiro, an outside lawyer for Twitter owner Elon Musk, sent a letter to Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg on July 5, accusing him and the company of misappropriating trade secrets and other intellectual property.
Twitter argues Meta has hired dozens of its former employees over the past year, including those that “had and continue to have access to Twitter’s trade secrets and other highly confidential information.”
Meta is accused of “deliberately” assigning the former Twitter employees to develop Meta’s “copycat” Threads app in only a matter of months, so as to “use Twitter’s trade secrets and other intellectual property in order to accelerate the development of Meta’s competing app.”
Twitter argues Meta is violating ex-Twitter employees’ ‘ongoing obligations’ to their former company
Twitter claims Meta is in violation of both state and federal law, along with violating the former Twitter employees’ “ongoing obligations to Twitter.”
“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,” Spiro wrote.
Musk, in response to reports of the letter, tweeted “Competition is fine, cheating is not,” CNN Business reports.
Meta, meanwhile, reportedly dismissed the letter on its Threads app, with a spokesperson writing “No one on the Threads engineering team is a former Twitter employee — that’s just not a thing.”
Threads is only the latest text-based conversation platform to challenge Twitter since Musk purchased the platform for $44 billion in October 2022, with Mastodon and Bluesky — which are backed by former Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey — also entering the fray, according to CNN Business.
Twitter has reportedly not threatened any other smaller microblogging platform with litigation before Threads.
A consumer filed a class action lawsuit against Twitter in April, arguing the company covertly uses the telephone numbers and email addresses of its users for advertising and marketing purposes.
Do you believe Meta wronged Twitter by releasing its Threads app? Let us know in the comments.
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