Twitter Set to Sue Meta Over Threads for Stealing Trade Secrets
A day after Instagram Threads’ launch, it is getting threats of being sued by its competitor Twitter, according to Semafor. In the letter obtained, addressed to Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg, Twitter lawyer Alex Spiro claims that Meta utilized Twitter’s trade secrets and intellectual property to create the platform.
A day after its launch Threads has received 30 million users. A post stated that on the first day itself, the Threads app received over 95 million posts. Threads App was launched on 6th July in around 100 countries.
Why Is Twitter Suing Meta?
Spiro, a partner at the Quinn Emanuel law firm, alleges that Meta employed dozens of ex-Twitter employees to build Threads. This is not surprising given how many people lost their jobs after Musk’s takeover.
According to Twitter, many of these former employees still have access to trade secrets and other sensitive information. Twitter claims Meta tasked these employees with creating a “copycat” software. Which happens to violate both state and federal law.
Source: Semafor
Twitter plans to take legal action in the form of Civil remedies and injunctive relief. It also wants Meta to immediately stop using Twitter secrets and highly confidential information. Also, indicates that Twitter won’t allow Meta to crawl or scrape its data, either.
Twitter, according to Spiro, intends to “strictly enforce its intellectual property rights, and demands that Meta cease using any Twitter trade secrets or other highly confidential information immediately.”
Will Twitter’s Claim Stand?
According to intellectual property law experts, such as Stanford law professor Mark Lemley, Twitter would require more substantial evidence to prosecute a trade secret theft action against Meta. He said, “The mere hiring of former Twitter employees (who Twitter itself laid off or drove away) and the fact that Facebook created a somewhat similar site is unlikely to support a trade secret claim“. According to Jeanne Fromer, a professor at New York University, organizations accused of trade secret theft must demonstrate that they took reasonable precautions to protect their intellectual information.
Meta Communications Director Andy Stone strictly denied hiring any former Twitter employee team to develop the thread app. It would be interesting to see what happens shortly as Elon and Mark are already engaged in a fight. It would be interesting to see who wins the tech battle.