Old friends turned foe Elon Musk and Zuckerberg leave no stone unturned when it comes to daggers drawn. The fight between these two mega tycoons is no less than an uphill battle. This is proved by the Twitter Threads lawsuit. Adding a new member to the Fediverse family, when Meta launched Threads, Twitter threatened to sue Meta platforms claiming Threads as a copycat to Twitter.
According to a letter posted by Semafor, Threads is not only limited to copying the infamous Twitter, but Twitter’s lawyer Alex Spiro has also accused Threads, of reportedly developing by hiring former employees of Twitter (who Twitter itself drove away or fired), and using the company’s trade secrets.
Is it enough to support the trade secrets claim or is the Twitter Threads lawsuit, a knee-jerk response in frustration of Musk over the newly launched Threads?
What Is Twitter Threads Lawsuit?
Zuckerburg and Musk leave no chance to put an axe to the grind when it comes to face-off. That’s why when Mark Zuckerberg unveiled the new Threads app which mainly rides on the popularity of Instagram allowing users to follow their current Instagram base. Musk with the ace of spades in his deck of cards threatened to sue Meta platforms with a Twitter Threads lawsuit, where Twitter is threatening to take a legal action against Meta owned by Musk’s former dear friend for creating Twitter’s clone and violating Twitter’s terms and conditions.
For now, no lawsuit has been filed against Meta officially, although a letter by Twitter’s lawyer Alex Spiro is addressed to Meta owner Mark Zuckerberg.
In the letter addressed to Mark Zuckerberg, Twitter has serious concerns about Meta platforms engaging in systematic, willful and unlawful misappropriation of Twitter’s trade secrets and other intellectual property.
Why Is Twitter Suing Threads?
In this battle of ground, both rivals do not seem to back down. Both of them are ready with all their cleavers and choppers to aim at each other. When Zuckerberg released the newest member of the social media family similar to Twitter, Musk came with full force to knock down him with Twitter Threads Lawsuit. But why is Twitter suing threads, just because it is similar to Twitter? Come let’s have a wider perspective on that.
Reason 1: Theft Of Trade and Other Intellectual Property
In its letter addressed to Zuckerberg, Twitter claimed that Meta platforms have engaged in systematic, willful and unlawful misappropriation of Twitter’s trade secrets and other intellectual property. But, based on what, Twitter is accusing Meta? Twitter is claiming that Meta has hired employees who previously worked with Twitter and had and continue to have access to Twitter’s trade secrets and other highly confidential information and use that data to build the copycat Threads which is in violation of both state and federal law.
Reason 2: Hiring Ex-Twitter Employees Deliberately With Specific Intent To Use Twitter Trade Secrets
The next reason for Twitter Threads Lawsuit, which was first reported by Semafor, is the hiring of former Twitter Employees deliberately with the specific intent to create a clone. In the letter, Alex Spiro, Twitter’s lawyer claimed that over the past year, Meta has hired dozens of former Twitter employees (who Twitter itself fired) who continue to have access to Twitter’s confidential information and have improperly retained Twitter’s documents and electronic devices. With this knowledge, Meta deliberately assigned these employees to develop the clone in a matter of months which is in violation of employees’ ongoing obligations to Twitter. However, the one thing that comes to mind is Meta collectively owns three mega social media apps, Facebook, Instagram, and Whatsapp, then why on earth did they deliberately sabotage their reputation by developing a platform by unethical means?
Reason 3: Violation of Twitter’s Terms And Conditions
According to Twitter, Meta has violated Twitter’s terms and conditions. How? Let’s see. As set forth in Twitter’s terms of service, crawling any Twitter services including, but not limited to any Twitter websites, SMS, API’s, email notifications, applications, buttons, ads and even commerce services is permissible only if done accordingly with the provisions of robot.txt file. What is not allowed is the crawling of Twitter’s followers and following data. The robot.txt file specifically disallows this. As claimed by Twitter, Meta allegedly violated these terms and conditions.
Scraping any Twitter services is expressly prohibited for any reason without Twitter’s prior consent. As a result, Twitter reserves all rights to seek both civil remedies or injunctive relief ( a remedy that restrains a party from doing certain acts).
In this battle of nerves happening all long, Meta spokesperson Andy Stone said in a Threads post – “No one on the Threads engineering team is a former Twitter employee — that’s just not a thing,”
Come let’s know what these mega social media tycoons have to say:
Mark Zuckerberg On Threads
Almost after a decade, Mark Zuckerberg posted for the first time moments after Threads launched. Poking an arrow in the quiver, he posted a spider man meme that poked fun at the fact over Threads’ resemblance to Twitter to some extent.
Zuckerberg said, “Our vision is to take the best parts of Instagram and create a new experience for text, ideas and discussing what’s on your mind,” Meta founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg said in an Instagram post after Threads was made available for download. “I think the world needs this kind of friendly community, and I’m grateful to all of you who are part of Threads from day one.”
Elon Musk On Threads
Master Musk, who has been brought to blow by his dear former friend has threatened to take a legal action against Meta for creating a copycat. Taking an aim at newly launched Threads, he commented, “Competition is fine, Cheating is not”
Although Threads has a similar look to Twitter and allows users to like or repost messages, it does not support keyword searches or direct messages.
Conclusion
On one hand, where Twitter is accusing Meta of cheating and theft of intellectual property, Meta’ spokesperson on the other hand is seen denying all the allegations saying they are irrelevant.
Right now it is difficult to say whose ball is in the court. But, experts say that to press a trade secret theft claim, Twitter needs much more concrete shreds of evidence and details than what is in the letter. The mere fact that Meta created a platform somewhat similar to Twitter and hired employees that were previously associated with Twitter is not likely to support the Trade secrets theft claim.
