Twitter Threatens Legal Action Against Meta Over Threads App: Allegations of Trade Secret Misappropriation

 

In a recent development that highlights the fierce competition between social media giants, Twitter has issued a warning to Meta Platforms (Meta) threatening legal action over its newly launched Threads app. Twitter claims that Meta has violated its intellectual property rights by unlawfully misappropriating trade secrets. This escalating conflict between the two companies could have significant consequences for the tech industry. In this blog post, we delve into the details of the dispute, examining the claims made by Twitter and Meta's response.

The Letter to Mark Zuckerberg

A lawyer representing Twitter sent a letter to Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg, asserting serious concerns about Meta's actions. The letter, initially published by news outlet Semafor, accuses Meta of engaging in systematic, wilful, and unlawful misappropriation of Twitter's trade secrets and other intellectual property. Twitter intends to enforce its intellectual property rights and demands that Meta ceases the use of any Twitter trade secrets or highly confidential information.

Meta's Threads App and Twitter's Allegations

Meta launched Threads, a text-based conversation app designed to compete with Twitter. The app received a positive response, amassing 30 million sign-ups within 24 hours of its release, potentially making it the fastest-downloaded app to date. Threads are seamlessly integrated with Instagram, allowing users to sign up effortlessly and providing the Twitter rival with an established user base.

Twitter's cease-and-desist letter claims that Meta has poached several former Twitter employees over the past year, some of whom had access to Twitter's trade secrets and highly confidential information. According to Twitter, these employees were intentionally assigned by Meta to expedite the development of Threads, utilizing Twitter's proprietary knowledge in violation of state and federal laws, as well as their ongoing obligations to Twitter.

Meta's Response and the Ongoing Debate

In response to Twitter's allegations, Meta's communications director, Andy Stone, posted on Threads, denying the presence of any engineers on their team who previously worked at Twitter. However, it remains unclear what evidence Twitter possesses regarding the continued access of former employees to Twitter's intellectual property and trade secrets. Twitter's response to inquiries consisted of an automated email featuring a poop emoji, indicating their unwillingness to provide further comment.

The Significance of Data Scraping

Twitter also accused Meta of being "prohibited" from scraping data from any Twitter service. This accusation comes amidst Elon Musk's recent efforts to restrict data scraping from Twitter, including limiting the number of tweets users can view in a day. Musk cited concerns about companies utilizing Twitter data to train their AI models as the reason for these measures.

Precedents and Possible Consequences

The tech industry has witnessed similar trade secret appropriation disputes in the past. Notably, in 2018, Waymo, the Google-owned self-driving car company, sued Uber for trade secrets theft when a former top executive joined Uber's self-driving technology division. Google and Uber eventually settled the case for $245 million. The employee involved, Anthony Levandowski, faced charges of trade secrets theft and was sentenced to 18 months in federal prison, though he was later pardoned by former President Donald Trump.

The ongoing conflict between Twitter and Meta Platforms over the Threads app highlights the cutthroat competition within the social media industry. Twitter's claims of trade secret misappropriation by Meta raise serious concerns about intellectual property rights and fair competition. As the legal battle unfolds, the consequences of this dispute could significantly impact the tech industry and set important precedents regarding trade secrets and proprietary information. It remains to be seen how Twitter and Meta will resolve their differences and whether this conflict will shape the future of social media innovation.