Elon Musk-owned Twitter claims Meta hired "dozens" of former Twitter employees who "had and continue to have access to Twitter's trade secrets." Meta has denied the allegations, saying none of the engineers involved in the development of Threads had any previous affiliation. With Twitter.
Twitter's lawyer Alex Spiro has threatened to sue Meta Platforms over its new Threads platform in a letter to Facebook parent CEO Mark Zuckerberg. Some of those employees "continued to access Twitter's trade secrets and other highly confidential information" and "did not properly safeguard Twitter documents and electronic devices," the letter said.
"Based on recent reports regarding your recently launched 'Threads' app, Twitter has serious concerns that Meta Platforms ('Meta') is systematically, willfully and unlawfully misappropriating Twitter's trade secrets and other intellectual property," it said.
Referring to the allegations, Threads spokesperson Andy Stone said, "No one on the Threads engineering team is a former Twitter employee — that's just not the case". In response to a tweet citing the news, Twitter said, "Competition is fine, not cheating."
Additionally, Twitter CEO Linda Yaccarino wrote that Twitter "is often imitated - but the Twitter community is never duplicated". "On Twitter, everyone's voice matters. Whether you come here to view history, find real-time information from around the world, share your opinions, or learn about others -- you can be real on Twitter. You've built a Twitter community. And that's irreplaceable. It's your public square. We often imitate -- but the Twitter community can never be duplicated," she said in a tweet.
Meta's newly launched Twitter rival, Threads, launched in more than 100 countries on Wednesday, and the platform hit 10 million signups within hours, according to co-founder and chief executive Mark Zuckerberg. Threads is a separate app, but you need to use your Instagram account to sign in to the service. Once you've signed up for Threads, you can only temporarily deactivate your profile. You cannot delete your Threads profile without also deleting your Instagram account.
Meta confirmed that threads impose a 500-character limit, while unverified Twitter users are limited to a maximum of 280 characters. Additionally, verified Instagram accounts can have their blue badge in threads, unlike Twitter, which offers this feature for an $8 monthly fee. Twitter subscribers availing this service can also extend their character limit to 25,000. Meta, however, has not offered such an option till now.
