Published -July 7th, 2023 @ 9:52 AM (GMT+2)

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In a significant development in the social media industry, Twitter (NYSE:TWTR) , under the leadership of Elon Musk, has threatened to sue Meta Platforms, the parent company of Facebook and Instagram, over its new social media platform, Threads. As outlined in a letter sent to Meta's CEO Mark Zuckerberg by Twitter's lawyer Alex Spiro, the claim alleges that Meta has unlawfully appropriated Twitter's trade secrets and intellectual property to develop Threads.

Threads' Rapid Growth and Twitter's Allegations
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Threads (NASDAQ:META), launched on Wednesday, has already seen over 30 million sign-ups. The platform is designed to rival Twitter by leveraging Instagram's vast user base. However, Twitter's legal team has accused Meta of hiring ex-Twitter employees who allegedly have access to Twitter's confidential information and trade secrets.

Meta has refuted these allegations, with spokesperson Andy Stone stating that no former Twitter employees are part of the Threads engineering team. This statement was corroborated by a former senior Twitter employee who told Reuters they were unaware of any ex-Twitter staff working on Threads.

Musk's Take on the Controversy
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Musk, the owner of Twitter, responded to the news by stating, "Competition is fine; cheating is not." Since Musk's takeover of Twitter last October, the platform has faced competition from other social media platforms like Mastodon and Bluesky. However, Threads' user interface resembles Twitter, despite lacking features like keyword searches or direct messages.

Legal experts, including Stanford law professor Mark Lemley, suggest that Twitter would need more detailed evidence to press a trade secret theft claim against Meta. Companies alleging private trade theft must demonstrate that they made reasonable efforts to protect their corporate secrets, often revolving around secure systems that were somehow circumvented.

Twitter's Controversial Decisions Amidst Legal Dispute
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The launch of Threads and the ensuing legal dispute comes amidst a series of controversial decisions by Twitter that have alienated both users and advertisers, including Musk's recent move to limit the number of tweets users can read per day. This ongoing rivalry between Twitter and Meta, as well as the legal implications, will be closely watched by the financial and trading community.

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