Legal action threatened over Threads App

[Social Media]

 

 

Twitter is considering legal action against Meta's fast-growing rival app Threads. Unveiled to millions of people on Wednesday, Threads, similar to Twitter, has been touted by the bigwigs as a “friendly” alternative. Twitter’s Elon Musk said that “competition is okay, cheating is not” — but Meta disputed in a legal letter that former Twitter employees helped create the posts.

 More than 30 million people have signed up for the new app, according to Meta. BBC News technology reporter James Clayton pointed out that Threads looks similar to Twitter. He said newsfeeds and retweets looked very familiar. The move was first reported by the Semafor news agency, and Twitter lawyer Alex Spiro wrote to Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg on Wednesday, accusing Meta of being "systematic, deliberate and unlawfully misappropriating Twitter's trade secrets and other intellectual property" to create the website. Threads.

 

Specifically, Spiro claims that Meta hired dozens of former Twitter employees who "had and continue to have access to Twitter's trade secrets and other highly confidential information," which ultimately helped Meta develop what he designated as a "copycat" threading app program.

 "Twitter intends to strictly enforce its intellectual property rights and requests that Meta take immediate steps to cease using Twitter's trade secrets or other highly confidential information," the letter read. "Twitter reserves all rights, including without limitation, the right to seek civil and injunctive relief without notice." In response to a Twitter post related to the legal letter, Musk said: "Competition is ok, cheating is not." On Threads, Meta spokesperson Andy Stone wrote, "No one on the Threads engineering team is an ex-Twitter employee — that's not a problem at all."

 

-- © Copyright Asean Now 2023-07-07

[pegman]

Funny I watched an interview of Musk a few months ago and he stated his companies do not take out patents or copyrights. Something about being all about free and open competition.

[eisfeld]

4 hours ago, pegman said:

Funny I watched an interview of Musk a few months ago and he stated his companies do not take out patents or copyrights. Something about being all about free and open competition.

He has a history of saying one thing and then doing the opposite. Like claiming to restore freedom of speech on Twitter and then censoring people who mention competing services.

[Chomper Higgot]

The ‘Space Karen’ objects to people he fired going to work for a competitor.

 

Perhaps he should have engaged his reputed intellect before firing them and trolling them on their way out the door:

 

https://deadline.com/2023/02/twitter-staffers-fired-over-weekend-owner-elon-musk-tweets-hope-you-have-a-good-sunday-1235273068/amp/

 

 

Edited July 7, 2023 by Chomper Higgot

[bendejo]

7 hours ago, Chomper Higgot said:

The ‘Space Karen’ objects to people he fired going to work for a competitor.

Perhaps he should have engaged his reputed intellect before firing them and trolling them on their way out the door:

https://deadline.com/2023/02/twitter-staffers-fired-over-weekend-owner-elon-musk-tweets-hope-you-have-a-good-sunday-1235273068/amp/

In SiliValley world (and probably other places) it's pretty common that when hired the new employee must sign a non-compete clause that addresses this directly, and covers a specific period of time after termination -- I've signed a few.  I would think that in California enough of these things have turned up in court that they are commonplace and a precedent has emerged of the need for a signed agreement.  On the other hand he might be able to drag the case to a conservative backwater in another state (the smiling African seems to be favoring Texas these days  https://www.statesman.com/story/news/2023/03/13/elon-musk-city-bastrop-texas-near-tesla-spacex-boring-co/69999587007/) where justice is, um, impressed by wealth or political partisanship; you may have noticed the GOP is doing a spell of such things these days. 

I saw a piece of an interview with him in recent days, looks like maybe he's not doing too well.  But don't underestimate what he is willing to spend on lawsuits, he's one of the richest guys on the planet and the way he blew $44 billion on a non-spectacular technology company shows just how capricious he can be.  He can blow another $44B and still be very wealthy.

 

 

 

Edited July 7, 2023 by bendejo

[placeholder]

19 hours ago, bendejo said:

In SiliValley world (and probably other places) it's pretty common that when hired the new employee must sign a non-compete clause that addresses this directly, and covers a specific period of time after termination -- I've signed a few.  I would think that in California enough of these things have turned up in court that they are commonplace and a precedent has emerged of the need for a signed agreement.  On the other hand he might be able to drag the case to a conservative backwater in another state (the smiling African seems to be favoring Texas these days  https://www.statesman.com/story/news/2023/03/13/elon-musk-city-bastrop-texas-near-tesla-spacex-boring-co/69999587007/) where justice is, um, impressed by wealth or political partisanship; you may have noticed the GOP is doing a spell of such things these days. 

I saw a piece of an interview with him in recent days, looks like maybe he's not doing too well.  But don't underestimate what he is willing to spend on lawsuits, he's one of the richest guys on the planet and the way he blew $44 billion on a non-spectacular technology company shows just how capricious he can be.  He can blow another $44B and still be very wealthy.

 

 

 

Actually, Meta denies that any of the people involved in the development of Threads were previously employees of Twitter.

 

"On Threads, Meta spokesperson Andy Stone said "no one on the Threads engineering team is a former Twitter employee - that's just not a thing"."

https://www.ign.com/articles/elon-musk-accuses-meta-of-cheating-with-twitter-rival-threads