Twitter Threatens To Sue Meta Over Alleged Hiring Of Ex-Twitter Employees For ‘Threads’ App Design

  |  
Jul 7, 2023

Meta’s new Twitter rip-off, Threads, is not only facing backlash from unimpressed users, but also Billionaire Elon Musk himself.

According to Musk, Zuckerberg’s Twitter clone allegedly hired ex-employees to design the app.

Meta Communications Director Andy Stone has since denied this claim, but that hasn’t stopped speculation on the internet over Threads and its striking similarities to Twitter.

Threads, which is touted as being a more “friendly” app compared to Twitter, has so many similarities within its design and purpose that makes it hard to oversee the potential for intellectual property theft of some magnitude.

Twitter, for one, is taking this seriously. Here is the cease-and-desist Twitter letter sent to Meta on Thursday:

Dear Mr. Zuckerberg:

I write on behalf of X Corp., as successor in interest to Twitter, Inc. (“Twitter”). Based on recent reports regarding your recently launched “Threads” app, Twitter has serious concerns that Meta Platforms (“Meta*) has engaged in systematic, willful, and unlawful misappropriation of Twitter’s trade secrets and other intellectual property.

Over the past year, Meta has hired dozens of former Twitter employees. Twitter knows that these employees previously worked at Twitter, that these employees had and continue to have access to Twitter’s trade secrets and other highly confidential information; that these employees owe ongoing obligations to Twitter; and that many of these employees have improperly retained Twitter documents and electronic devices. With that knowledge, Meta deliberately assigned these employees to develop, in a matter of months, Meta’s copycat “Threads” app with the specific intent that they use Twitter’s trade secrets and other intellectual property in order to accelerate the development of Meta’s competing app, in violation of both state and federal law as well as those employees’ ongoing obligations to Twitter.

Per Twitter and its lawyer Alex Spiro, the platform says it will “strictly enforce its intellectual property rights.” 

The company also demanded Meta to “take immediate steps to stop using any Twitter trade secrets or other highly confidential information.”

Since the launch of Threads, tens of millions of people have signed up – with many being unimpressed due to reported censorship and privacy concerns.

As Journalist Michael Shellenberger wrote, Meta’s botched app promised it would be better than Twitter, but is instead nothing more than another platform that secretly censors users while capturing their private information.

Shellenberger also notes an important distinction. He says Twitter’s policy only censors and removes posts that go against national laws. Meta’s app appears to censor content that goes against woke ideology.

These claims of IP theft don’t help Zuckerberg’s botched platform either.

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