Twitter has threatened legal action against Meta over its new text-based microblogging platform called Threads, which has drawn tens of millions of users since launching this week as a rival to Elon Musk’s social media platform.
Alex Spiro, an attorney representing Twitter, accused Meta of unlawfully using Twitter’s trade secrets and other intellectual property by hiring former Twitter employees to create a “copycat” app, in a letter to Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg.
Also read: All you want to know about Threads, the ‘Twitter Killer’
Threads, which is being called the Twitter killer, debuted on Wednesday, targeting those who are seeking out alternatives to Twitter amid unpopular changes Musk has made to the platform since buying it last year for $44 billion. Two days since it’s launch, it has reached over 55 million users.
‘No Twitter employee’
Meta spokesperson Andy Stone wrote Thursday on Threads, “No one on the Threads engineering team is a former Twitter employee — that’s just not a thing.”
In a tweet addressing the lawsuit, Elon Musk said, “competition is fine, cheating is not.”
Also read: Ex-Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey takes a dig at Meta over Threads
In the letter, which news website Semafor first reported on Thursday, Spiro said Twitter “intends to strictly enforce its intellectual property rights” and noted the company’s right to seek civil remedies or a court injunction.
He said the letter marked a “formal notice” for Meta to preserve documents relevant for a potential dispute between the companies.