With over 30 million users in just a day, Meta's Threads app is looking ahead to be the perfect rival for Twitter. However, the app is likely to be end up facing legal trouble with Twitter threatening to sue Meta over violating “intellectual property rights”.
Threads, with almost similar features of its rival, launched on Wednesday night focused on text and dialogue modelled after Instagram.
"Our vision is that Threads will be a new app more focused on text and dialogue, modelled after what Instagram has done for photo and video," the company said.
Twitter lawyer Alex Spiro alleged that Meta had used Twitter's trade secrets and intellectual property to build Threads. A letter addressed to Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg also claimed that Meta had hired "dozens" of ex-Twitter employees to develop Threads.
Several people were fired from Twitter after Musk had taken over the social media platform.
According to Twitter, many of the workers hired by the Threads still have access to Twitter's trade secrets and other confidential information. Twitter alleged that Meta made a "copycat" app "in violation of both state and federal law", reported The Verge.
“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,” wrote Spiro.
A legal action has been threatened by Twitter in form of “both civil remedies and injunctive relief”.
Meanwhile, in a response to the Twitter's letter, communications director Andy Stone in a post on Threads stated that "No one on the Threads engineering team is a former Twitter employee-that's just not a thing".
It is not the first time Twitter is threatening for a legal action. In May, Twitter accused Microsoft of abusing the company's API through integrations with some of its products.
Meanwhile, Musk in a reply to the post about the letter said "Competition is fine, cheating is not.”
Threads is positioned as a text-based version of Instagram, offering a separate space for real-time updates and public conversations. This integration creates a seamless experience for users who are already active on Instagram. Posts are limited to 500 characters, which is more than Twitter's 280-character threshold, and can include links, photos and videos up to five minutes long.
