Threads round one: Twitter threatens Meta with lawsuit over "misappropriated" trade secrets

Cal Jeffrey

Cal Jeffrey

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What just happened? Meta's Threads app has emerged as an alternative to Twitter, attracting estranged tweeters disappointed with Elon Musk's management of their once-beloved platform. The app has garnered significant attention since its launch earlier this morning, with over 30 million users flocking to the Instagram-integrated service.

Shortly following the massive rush to Threads, Twitter's legal team sternly warned Meta that it would aggressively protect its intellectual property rights. The fear is that Meta poached "dozens" of former Twitter employees, including some who "had and continue to have access to Twitter's trade secrets."

In a letter obtained by Semafor, Twitter attorney Alex Spiro directly addressed Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg, accusing Meta of misappropriating trade secrets and infringing on intellectual property rights.

"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. 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."

The notice further accuses Meta of utilizing former employees to develop a Twitter knockoff app. It points to the rapid deployment of Threads as proof that Meta has stolen its IP. It remains to be seen whether Meta leveraged its new hires to assist in developing Threads using proprietary information. The letter could be seen as mere saber-rattling, as the company stopped short of filing formal legal action.

However, it did advise Zuckerberg to retain any and all records pertaining to the hiring of former Twitter employees and their assignment to the Threads development team, which would indicate a forthcoming lawsuit. At the very least, the letter suggests that Twitter views Meta as a significant threat and will pursue any opportunity to throw a wrench into the works.

Musk has uncharacteristically remained silent regarding the sudden surge towards Threads. However, CEO Linda Yaccarino appeared nervous in a tweet posted earlier today, attempting hide her trepidation by implying that Meta can "imitate" the Twitter experience but cannot duplicate it.

Mark Zuckerberg, who rarely posts to Twitter, made light of his company's alternative app yesterday, posting a meme with duplicate Spider-Man characters pointing at each other accusingly as if to quietly say, "Which is the real Twitter? Threads or Twitter?"

The migration to Threads comes as little surprise, considering that many in the Twitterverse had expressed dissatisfaction with Musk's acquisition of the platform even before finalizing the deal. Several other recent changes implemented by Musk have also contributed to long-time users becoming disenchanted with the social media platform. These changes include relaunching Twitter Blue, unbanning certain "permanently" suspended accounts, and introducing subscription requirements for verified accounts.

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https://www.techspot.com/news/99313-twitter-lawyers-threaten-meta-lawsuit-over-misappropriated-trade.html

 
Musk has destroyed any chance Twitter has left of success. He let all the hate speech and bully's back on Twitter and Advertisers fled in fear of what those people would do to their brands. Now only way to make Twitter profitable is to get everyone to pay for the service. Obviously that not going down well. So a big compnay like META comes along and offers an Alternative people are going to jump off the sinking USS Twitter and onto the Luxury Liner USS Threads. Na Na Na - Musk - Say Goodbye. 😎
 
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This sounds like a very uphill battle.

Twitter fired something like half of its staff. Of course they were going to work elsewhere in the industry, a point that California in particular codifies into its labor laws.

Meta has been operating Facebook and Instagram for a long time, including having built out all the systems needed to do that at scale. My bet is that an audit of Threads infrastructure will find it more closely resembles, or is flat out reusing, those previously existing systems than it does Twitter's, particularly because they probably have some integrated advertising features in mind.

If this is allowed to grow into a full-out IP claims battle, the only winners will be the IP lawyers, as both sides likely have large portfolios of previously untested patents that could be cross-litigated for years to come if they were mad enough to do it.

Then there's the maybe more subjective aspect of how jurors would react to Musk's public statements and persona. He's said enough things implying the infrastructure and engineers were never important; that Twitter's problems were mostly about its product problems such as political stances and lack of free speech. This leaves Meta to counter that they are just offering the older-style product that Musk is on record of not wanting to have offered anyway.
 
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The entire idea that a message board with no unique features can be intellectual property is just silly. Not exactly rocket science…
 
Thanthan said:
The entire idea that a message board with no unique features can be intellectual property is just silly. Not exactly rocket science…
Click to expand...

I thinks is more like you can't use the same people that "sold it" to your neighbor (as part of their paid labor) to build one for you, is usually part of the contracts (non-compete clause, see Tucker Carlson).
 
someOtherGuy said:
I thinks is more like you can't use the same people that "sold it" to your neighbor (as part of their paid labor) to build one for you, is usually part of the contracts (non-compete clause, see Tucker Carlson).
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In California any contract that restricts an individual from “engaging in a lawful profession, trade, or business” is null and void.

https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/codes_displaySection.xhtml?lawCode=BPC&sectionNum=16600

Maybe there's a direct infringement case if you can prove an ex-Twitter employee stole a big chunk of source code and Meta is using it. But again it seems much more likely that Meta is re-using their own code base, and they have stated they have no Twitter alumni on their Threads engineering team.
 
"Musk has uncharacteristically remained silent regarding the sudden surge towards Threads. However, CEO Linda Yaccarino appeared nervous in a tweet posted earlier today, attempting hide her trepidation by implying that Meta can "imitate" the Twitter experience but cannot duplicate it."

Surge? A ~2.5% adoption initial adoption rate with the app advertising baked-in, isn't special. Especially when you consider that Threads will never be able to replicate Twitter since Facebook's puritanical and draconian moderation is in place on the platform. This is going to be Metaverse 2.0 for Facebook.
 
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Not sure why ANYONE would go to a platform with a long history of ignoring the first amendment. Facebook does what they want, it's one of the worst companies in the world.
 
RandomWAN said:
"Musk has uncharacteristically remained silent regarding the sudden surge towards Threads. However, CEO Linda Yaccarino appeared nervous in a tweet posted earlier today, attempting hide her trepidation by implying that Meta can "imitate" the Twitter experience but cannot duplicate it."

Surge? A ~2.5% adoption initial adoption rate with the app advertising baked-in, isn't special. Especially when you consider that Threads will never be able to replicate Twitter since Facebook's puritanical and draconian moderation is in place on the platform. This is going to be Metaverse 2.0 for Facebook.
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Something like over 30 million users in seven hours isn't anything special? That's a way faster adoption rate than any of Twittter's competing platforms.
 
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Cal Jeffrey said:
Something like over 30 million users in seven hours isn't anything special? That's a way faster adoption rate than any of Twittter's competing platforms.
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When your advertising for it reaches ~2B users who already use your ecosystem to some degree and you only get a couple percent with initial interest, that's not very good. Unless they do something to out of brand to keep people interested, the novelty interest is going to be the big spike for them since they won't keep a large number of Twitter, Mastodon, Bluesky users. They will not offer a competing experience to those platforms simply because Facebook's moderation/rules will keep Threads from ever being a true competitor.
 
RandomWAN said:
When your advertising for it reaches ~2B users who already use your ecosystem to some degree and you only get a couple percent with initial interest, that's not very good. Unless they do something to out of brand to keep people interested, the novelty interest is going to be the big spike for them since they won't keep a large number of Twitter, Mastodon, Bluesky users. They will not offer a competing experience to those platforms simply because Facebook's moderation/rules will keep Threads from ever being a true competitor.
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Who said anything about that? You seemed to be arguing over the semantics of the usage of the word "surge."

EDIT: I'm open to suggestions of a better word to use there if you have one. :)
 
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RandomWAN said:
. However, CEO Linda Yaccarino appeared nervous in a tweet posted earlier today, attempting hide her trepidation by implying that Meta can "imitate" the Twitter experience but cannot duplicate it."
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Ms Yacarino leaving a high level position at NBC to go to work for Musk at Twitter was prima facia, (IMHO, of course), the most blatant case of wanton career suicide I've ever witnessed.

Of course I could be wrong. I suppose time will tell.
 
The fact that Musk let all the right winger bullys and their hate speech back on the platform is why all the advertisers left and took all the money with them. If Threads keeps it clean and these MAGAphobes are banned it's a perfect alternative platform. They can stay on Twitter with Musk and Bankrupt it.
BadThad said:
Not sure why ANYONE would go to a platform with a long history of ignoring the first amendment. Facebook does what they want, it's one of the worst companies in the world.
Click to expand...
 
Cal Jeffrey said:
Who said anything about that? You seemed to be arguing over the semantics of the usage of the word "surge."

EDIT: I'm open to suggestions of a better word to use there if you have one. :)
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Interest? I wouldn't call it a "surge." Unless there was some massive drop off in activity on Twitter and Threads was on fire, it just doesn't fit. It's more like people are checking out what is new and the numbers only seem large since it's built-in marketing on a platform with billions of users. It's not like Threads is some no-name, nkotb that pulled 50M+ in that time.

captaincranky said:
Ms Yacarino leaving a high level position at NBC to go to work for Musk at Twitter was prima facia, (IMHO, of course), the most blatant case of wanton career suicide I've ever witnessed.

Of course I could be wrong. I suppose time will tell.
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Everyone keeps prophesizing doom for Twitter that just isn't materializing. The landscape changed a little, but that's to be expected when you have a significant change in management with an equally significant change to how the platform is run. The reality is that Twitter would have been in the same boat as YouTube and Twitch now find themselves in since they can no longer mask that they've been operating at a loss. Musk was just open about how much money Twitter as a company was wasting and all the people who bought tickets on the hate train are trying to hold him responsible for the years of mismanagement there.
 
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RandomWAN said:
Everyone keeps prophesizing doom for Twitter that just isn't materializing. The landscape changed a little, but that's to be expected when you have a significant change in management with an equally significant change to how the platform is run. The reality is that Twitter would have been in the same boat as YouTube and Twitch now find themselves in since they can no longer mask that they've been operating at a loss. Musk was just open about how much money Twitter as a company was wasting and all the people who bought tickets on the hate train are trying to hold him responsible for the years of mismanagement there.
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You should probably dial back on the "Musk worship syndrome", and just be thankful you didn't work at Twitter when Musk walked in with his sink.
 
RandomWAN said:
Interest? I wouldn't call it a "surge." Unless there was some massive drop off in activity on Twitter and Threads was on fire, it just doesn't fit. It's more like people are checking out what is new and the numbers only seem large since it's built-in marketing on a platform with billions of users. It's not like Threads is some no-name, nkotb that pulled 50M+ in that time.


Everyone keeps prophesizing doom for Twitter that just isn't materializing. The landscape changed a little, but that's to be expected when you have a significant change in management with an equally significant change to how the platform is run. The reality is that Twitter would have been in the same boat as YouTube and Twitch now find themselves in since they can no longer mask that they've been operating at a loss. Musk was just open about how much money Twitter as a company was wasting and all the people who bought tickets on the hate train are trying to hold him responsible for the years of mismanagement there.
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The word surge does not denote a move from one thing to another in this context. It simply means rapid growth in the Threads user base. If I want it to indicate a move from Twitter to Threads I would have phrased it, "...the surge from Twitter to Threads..."

surge |noun|
a sudden powerful forward or upward movement, especially by a crowd or by a natural force.
 
Cal Jeffrey said:
The word surge does not denote a move from one thing to another in this context. It simply means rapid growth in the Threads user base. If I want it to indicate a move from Twitter to Threads I would have phrased it, "...the surge from Twitter to Threads..."

surge |noun|
a sudden powerful forward or upward movement, especially by a crowd or by a natural force.
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I know what the word means and I also know what it implies regardless of the textbook definition. I still stand by it not applying to this situation.
 
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