By Reuters | Updated: 7 July 2023
Twitter is threatening legal action against Meta Platforms over its new Threads platform, Semafor reported on Thursday, citing a letter sent to the Facebook parent’s CEO Mark Zuckerberg by Twitter’s lawyer Alex Spiro.
“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,” Spiro wrote in the letter.
Meta launched Threads on Wednesday as the social media firm looks to take on Elon Musk’s Twitter by taking advantage of Instagram’s billions of users.
Meta and Spiro did not immediately respond to Reuters requests for comment.
Meanwhile, Analysts have said Threads’ ties to Instagram might give it a built-in user base and advertising apparatus. That could siphon ad dollars from Twitter at a time when its new CEO is trying to revive its struggling business.
While Threads launched as a standalone app, users can log in using their Instagram credentials and follow the same accounts, potentially making it an easy addition to existing habits for Instagram’s more than 2 billion monthly active users.
“Investors can’t help but be a little excited about the prospect that Meta really has a ‘Twitter-Killer’,” said Danni Hewson, head of financial analysis at investment firm AJ Bell.
Others saw the launch of Threads as an opportunity to create a less toxic version of Twitter.
“May this platform have good vibes, strong community, excellent humor, and less harassment,” Ocasio-Cortez said in her post.
Much like Twitter, the app features short text posts that users can like, re-post and reply to, although it does not include any direct message capabilities. Posts can be up to 500 characters long and include links, photos and videos up to five minutes long, according to a Meta blog post.
It is available in more than 100 countries on both Apple’s App Store and Google’s Play Store, the blog post said.
© Thomson Reuters 2023
