Twitter and Threads: Intellectual property and antitrust law fight

Twitter and Threads controversy and threats of legal battle will be based on intellectual property and antitrust law to determine the case should it end in court.

“Threads” is reported to be an online social media and social networking service owned by American technology company Meta Platforms.

After its launch on July 6, 2023 the social network reached about fifty-five (55) million registered users.

The owner of the Meta Network which comprises Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp and Threads, Mark Zuckerberg has been accused of ‘copy and paste’ (Ctrl +C+V botton) version of Elon Musk’s Twitter App.

The general counsel and the head of legal, policy, and trust at Twitter, Alex Spiro has written to the Meta Network that they have unlawfully misappropriated Twitter’s trade Secrets and other intellectual property rights by way of employing Twitter’s former employees to copycat the resemblance and other attributes of the company.

According to Spiro, he accused “Threads Chief Executive Officer (CEO), Zuckerberg of engaging in “systematic, willful, and unlawful misappropriation of Twitter’s trade secrets and other intellectual property.”

Jeanne Fromer, a professor at New York University, said companies alleging trade secret theft must show they made reasonable efforts to protect their corporate secrets.

Cases often revolve around secure systems that were circumvented in some way.

If the suit goes through, the legal areas will be focused on the Intellectual Property and Antitrust Law.

Twitter attorneys might argue that when it comes to text-based Apps her Twitter company is in the lead hence Threads copied some features of it.

“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.

“Twitter reserves all rights, including, but not limited to, the right to seek both civil remedies and injunctive relief without further notice.”

It was gathered that some of the key engineers working at the premises of Threads are former employees of Twitter who were sacked.

However, that allegation has been debunked by the spokesperson of Meta Network Andy Stone in a post he wrote on Threads.

“No one on the Threads engineering team is a former Twitter employee — that’s just not a thing.”

However, the Meta Network can also depend on the fact that Elon Musk and his Twitter cannot claim monopoly power over the markets.

In some time past, Facebook was fully in the texting business until it was overtaken by other Apps.

It was observed that, Meta’s new app has also raised data privacy concerns. While Threads launched in more than 100 countries, it is notably unavailable in the European Union, which has strict data privacy rules.

It was gathered somewhere in June, 2023 that the Meta was working diligently on the development of its text-based app, which aims to provide users with an alternative to Twitter.

Musk was born in Pretoria, South Africa, and briefly attended the University of Pretoria before moving to Canada at age 18, acquiring citizenship through his Canadian-born mother.

Two years later, he matriculated at Queen’s University and transferred to the University of Pennsylvania, where he received bachelor’s degrees in economics and physics.

He is worth about two hundred forty-five billion nine hundred million (245.9) United States Dollars as was reported in beginning of 2023

Mark Elliot Zuckerberg at the hand was born on May 14, 1984, in White Plains, New York[9] to psychiatrist Karen (née Kempner) and dentist Edward Zuckerberg and wealth of about one hundred three (103 )billion as of the same date.

As consumers of these social media platforms, competitions among them will help us reduce costs as well as improve quality and control traffic.

By Nana Kwame Mensa-Abrompa TUMANYI