The company behind Threads, which was introduced to millions of people on Wednesday, has positioned it as a “friendly” substitute for Twitter. “Competition is fine, cheating is not,” said Elon Musk on Threads.
Elon Musk of Twitter claimed that “competition is fine, cheating is not,” but Meta refuted this accusation in a court letter, denying that any ex-Twitter employees were involved in the creation of Threads.
According to Meta, more than 30 million users have downloaded the new app. According to James Clayton, a technology correspondent for BBC News, Threads has a look and feel that is comparable to Twitter’s. The news stream and the reposting, according to him, were “incredibly familiar.”
“Competition is fine, cheating is not,” said Elon Musk on Threads
In a letter to Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg on Wednesday, Twitter attorney Alex Spiro accused Meta of “systematic, wilful, and unlawful misappropriation of Twitter’s trade secrets and other intellectual property” in order to establish Threads.
More specifically, Mr. Spiro said that Meta had employed a large number of ex-Twitter workers who “had and continue to have access to Twitter’s trade secrets and other highly confidential information” and who eventually assisted Meta in creating what he called the “copycat” Threads program.
Threads: A vanilla platform that can’t embrace Twitter’s energy
Twitter demands that Meta take immediate action to stop exploiting any Twitter trade secrets or other highly private information and states that it will vigorously defend its intellectual property rights.
Twitter declares that it “reserves all rights, including but not limited to the right to seek injunctive relief as well as civil remedies at any time. In response to a tweet that included the legal notice, Mr. Musk responded that “competition is fine, cheating is not.”
“No one on the Threads engineering team is a former Twitter employee – that’s just not a thing,” wrote Meta spokesman Andy Stone in a thread.
Threads had an impressive launch day
The app store page for the Twitter competitor went up on July 6 at midnight UK time. In the hours after its release, nearly 5 million people joined the new app, according to Mark Zuckerberg, the inventor of Meta. The text-based conversation program is being introduced at a time when Twitter, run by Elon Musk, is facing criticism for limiting the number of tweets users may access in a day.
Customers of iOS were able to “preorder” Threads after learning about it via a showy Instagram cross-promotion. Due to the strong connection between Threads and Instagram, Instagram profiles now display a Threads user number, making the counting transparent and in real-time.
According to Zuckerberg, Threads hit the landmark of 10 million signups within seven hours of its launch. He had said that 5 million people had signed up four hours after Meta officially released Threads.
Featured image credit: Threads.net
