The Morning After: Twitter says Meta stole trade secrets to build Threads
Are you on Threads yet? Meta’s Twitter rival pulls your existing Instagram handle and follows to create a pretty busy timeline, despite only launching over 24 hours ago. It’s already got over 30 million users – which is insane – and speaks to the ease of converting your Instagram account to a Threads account.
Twitter probably isn’t happy, as beyond its own problems, Threads is doing a decent job (in these early days) of replicating Elon Musk’s social network. Now that’s legally true: Twitter has threatened legal action against Meta, accusing it of poaching former employees and unlawful misappropriation of trade secrets and intellectual property.
“Twitter 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,” Alex Spiro, Elon Musk's personal lawyer, wrote in a letter to Meta. Spiro, who is acting on behalf of Twitter parent X Corp., claims Meta has hired dozens of ex-Twitter employees over the last year. (Surely, they have to get jobs somewhere.)
Meta has refuted Spiro's claims. “No one on the Threads engineering team is a former Twitter employee — that’s just not a thing," Meta communications director Andy Stone wrote on… Threads.
– Mat Smith
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This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/the-morning-after-twitter-says-meta-stole-trade-secrets-to-build-threads-111503761.html?src=rss