In a recent incident, social media behemoth Twitter allegedly threatened legal action against Facebook’s parent corporation Meta over the rollout of its Threads program.
Users can participate in threaded chats and discussions with the help of the Threads app, which Meta released on Thursday as part of its collection of social networking tools.
The idea behind the app is similar to Twitter’s main features, where users may respond to and further develop existing tweet conversations.
The issue arises because Twitter asserts that the Threads app breaches specific terms of use and infringes upon its intellectual property rights.
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, according to a letter to CEO Mark Zuckerberg published by Semafor from Twitter’s lawyer, Alex Spiro.
Twitter, according to Spiro, “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.”
“Twitter reserves all rights, including, but not limited to, the right to seek both civil remedies and injunctive relief without further notice to prevent any further retention, disclosure, or use of its intellectual property by Meta,” Spiro said.
Spiro also accuses Meta of recruiting numerous former Twitter employees who “had and continue to have access to Twitter’s trade secrets and other highly confidential information.”
He alleges that these employees were assigned by Meta to develop the Threads app with the specific intent that they use Twitter’s trade secrets and other intellectual property 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.
