Twitter threatens to sue Meta for the launch of its Threads app

Twitter has threatened to sue Meta for the launch of its new social media app Threads, according to reports.

Semafor - which obtained the letter - reports that the blue bird bought by Elon Musk for $44 billion last year has threatened Mark Zuckerberg's Meta with legal action.

According to the outlet, Twitter lawyer Alex Spiro recently sent Zuckerberg a letter claiming Twitter had 'serious concerns' over the potential 'systematic, wilful and unlawful misappropriation' of its trade secrets and intellectual property.

The letter says that Meta has in the past year hired 'dozens of former Twitter employees' who have 'ongoing obligations' to the social media site but are claimed to have 'improperly retained Twitter documents and electronic devices'.

Spiro claims that Meta 'deliberately assigned' these former Twitter employees to make Threads, which they call a 'copycat'.

Chesnot/Getty Images

The letter also claimed Meta acted with a 'specific intent that they use Twitter's trade secrets and other intellectual property' to speed up the development of the Threads app.

Twitter says this is a 'violation of both state and federal law' and has demanded Meta 'take immediate steps to stop using any Twitter trade secrets'.

Spiro said Twitter had the right to pursue 'civil remedies and injunctive relief' to stop this and insisted that Meta was not allowed to try any 'crawling or scraping of Twitter's followers or following data'.

The letter ended by saying that Meta 'must preserve any documents that could be relevant to a dispute' between Twitter and Meta, including documents on the hiring of former Twitter employees.

Threads indeed launched today (6 July) and had tens of millions of people signing up right away, and since it piggybacks off a person's Instagram profile it means many can simply migrate their social media following over.

ANDREW CABALLERO-REYNOLDS/AFP via Getty Images

The new social media site already has an account with over a million followers and there are some touting Threads as a 'Twitter killer'.

Meta boss Mark Zuckerberg appeared to make a dig at Twitter's fortunes today as he said the ambition for Threads was to create a 'public conversations app' with over a billion users.

The Facebook founder said 'Twitter has had the opportunity to do this but hasn't nailed it' while hoping that he would be able to hit that goal.

Twitter

The fates and fortunes of Twitter have been rather turbulent ever since Elon Musk assumed control of the platform, with many users expressing discontent at a number of changes which have hit the site since the Tesla boss took charge.

The recent rate limiting debacle, Musk firing a bunch of staff only for them to not be around to help fix the problems the site had been suffering from, basically everything about Twitter Blue, the list goes on.

Meta spokesperson Andy Stone posted a brief statement on their new social media site saying: "No one on the Threads engineering team is a former Twitter employee - that’s just not a thing."

LADbible has contacted Twitter for further comment on this story, and Twitter's press office responded with its customary automated poop emoji.

Topics: Elon Musk, Facebook, Mark Zuckerberg, Social Media, Technology, Twitter, Threads

Joe Harker

Joe graduated from the University of Salford with a degree in Journalism and worked for Reach before joining the LADbible Group. When not writing he enjoys the nerdier things in life like painting wargaming miniatures and chatting with other nerds on the internet. He's also spent a few years coaching fencing. Contact him via [email protected]

@MrJoeHarker