International

Twitter Threatens To Sue Meta Over Threads

Published

3 years ago

July 7, 2023

611 Views

The owner of Twitter has threatened to sue Meta just hours after the Instagram parent company launched Threads, an app it hopes will beat out the struggling site owned by Elon Musk.

In a letter to Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg, published by online news outlet Semafor on Thursday, Musk lawyer Alex Spiro accused the company of “unlawful misappropriation of Twitter’s trade secrets and other intellectual property.”

The letter accused Meta of hiring dozens of former Twitter employees who “had and continue to have access to Twitter’s trade secrets and other highly confidential information.”

Threads is the biggest challenger yet to Musk-owned Twitter, which has seen a series of potential competitors emerge but not yet replace one of the world’s biggest social media platforms, despite its struggles.

Zuckerberg’s latest move against Musk further heightened the rivalry between the two multibillionaires who have even agreed to meet for hand to hand combat in a cage match.

And in his first tweet in over a decade, Zuckerberg posted a Spiderman pointing at Spiderman meme in an apparent reference to the similarities between Threads and Twitter.

Threads went live on Apple and Android app stores in 100 countries at 2300 GMT on Wednesday, and early feedback noted its close, but scaled back, resemblance to Twitter.

Within a few hours, more than 30 million people had downloaded Threads, Zuckerberg said Thursday.

“Feels like the beginning of something special, but we’ve got a lot of work ahead to build the app,” Zuckerberg wrote on his official Threads account Thursday.

Accounts were already active for celebrities such as Jennifer Lopez, Shakira and Hugh Jackman, as well as media outlets including The Washington Post and The Economist.

On Threads, Zuckerberg wrote: “It’ll take some time, but I think there should be a public conversations app with 1 billion+ people on it.”

Twitter has said it has more than 200 million daily users.

‘Be Kind’

Threads was introduced as a spin-off of Instagram, giving it a built-in audience of more than two billion users and sparing the new platform the challenge of starting from scratch.

Instagram chief Adam Mosseri told users that Threads was intended to build “an open and friendly platform for conversations.”

“The best thing you can do if you want that too is be kind,” he said.

Zuckerberg is taking advantage of Musk’s chaotic ownership of Twitter to push out the new product, which Meta hopes will become the go-to platform for celebrities, companies and politicians.

Analyst Jasmine Engberg from Insider Intelligence said Threads only needs one out of four Instagram monthly users “to make it as big as Twitter.”

“Twitter users are desperate for an alternative, and Musk has given Zuckerberg an opening,” she added.

Under Musk, Twitter has seen content moderation reduced to a minimum with glitches and rash decisions scaring away celebrities and major advertisers.

He also fired more than half of Twitter’s staff, some of whom presumably went to other tech companies, including Meta.

EU ‘Many Months’ Away

Meta has its legion of critics too, especially in the major market of Europe, which could slow the growth of Threads.

The company has been criticized for its handling of personal data, the essential ingredient for targeted ads that help it rake in billions of dollars in profits.

Mosseri said he regretted that the launch was delayed in the European Union, but had Meta waited for regulatory clarity from Brussels, Threads would have been “many, many, many, months away.”

According to a source close to the matter, Meta was wary of a new law called the Digital Markets Act (DMA), which sets strict rules for the world’s “gatekeeper” internet companies.

One rule restricts platforms from moving user data between products, as would potentially be the case between Threads and Instagram.

Globally, the Threads hashtag on Twitter has garnered three million tweets, with many users jokingly suggesting people will return to Musk’s platform.

Others expressed privacy concerns.

“Meta loves to collect private information and I don’t trust the way it treats private information,” a Japanese user tweeted.

“I also have the impression that this is a company hated by EU, so I’m reluctant.”

But some said they would permanently move to Threads.

One Threads user wrote: “Now I truly can say goodbye to Twitter forever.”

Related Topics:Meta Threads Threans to Sue Twitter

Up Next

President Tinubu Assures ECOWAS of standby force, other plans actualization

Don't Miss

Fifty People Die In Pakistan Monsoon Floods

Click to comment

International

Burnham becomes PM, vows 10-year plan to stabilise UK

The 56-year-old is the sixth prime minister to enter Downing Street in the last 10 years.

Published

1 day ago

July 20, 2026

OCHEFA

26 Views

•Incoming Prime Minister Andy Burnham poses with Britain’s King Charles III on July 20, 2026 (Photo by Aaron Chown / POOL / AFP).

Andy Burnham became British prime minister Monday after meeting King Charles III at Buckingham Palace and was set to set out his vision for the country after taking over from Keir Starmer.

In his first speech, Burnham vowed to put forward a 10-year plan for Britain, saying the country needed to make politics work.

“Britain needs to show the world that we can regain our stability once again,” Burnham said just after being appointed by King Charles III to take over from Keir Starmer.

He pledged to “issue my first instruction to end rough sleeping in our country” once he starts work.

Starmer departed Downing Street on Monday morning, insisting in a farewell speech his two years in office had made Britain a better place.

The monarch met Starmer to accept his resignation and Burnham arrived next for the formal procedure in which the king asked him to form the next government and he accepted.

The 56-year-old is the sixth prime minister to enter Downing Street in the last 10 years.

International

US Vice President Vance announces birth of baby boy

The birth marks the latest addition to the Vance family. Vance and Usha got married in 2014 and previously had three children before welcoming their new son.

Published

2 days ago

July 20, 2026

OCHEFA

25 Views

United States Vice President JD Vance has announced the birth of his son, saying both the newborn and his wife, Usha Vance, are healthy.

The birth marks the latest addition to the Vance family. Vance and Usha got married in 2014 and previously had three children before welcoming their new son.

Vance made the announcement in a statement shared on Sunday, expressing gratitude to the medical personnel who assisted during the delivery.

Vance also paid tribute to the medical teams at Walter Reed Medical Centre and the White House Medical Unit for their care and support.

“We are excited to announce that our baby boy, Alec Neel Vance, was born this morning.

“Usha and the baby are happy and healthy, and our kids are overjoyed to meet their little brother,“ he said.

International

Andy Burnham set to become Labour leader before taking over as UK PM

Burnham, who has since become known as the “king of the North,” returned to Westminster in June after securing a huge majority in the Makerfield by-election, comfortably beating out challengers from Nigel Farage’s Reform UK party and Rupert Lowe’s hard-right Restore Britain.

Published

4 days ago

July 17, 2026

OCHEFA

49 Views

• Andy Burnham / Euro News

Andy Burnham is set to be announced as the Labour Party’s new leader on Friday.

Euro News reports that the Makerfield MP is scheduled to be unveiled at a special press conference before taking over as the UK’s seventh prime minister in a decade on Monday.

Burnham is expected to deliver a speech during the conference where he will reportedly pledge to be “unashamedly Labour” and vow that his government will have the “courage to fix the big things that politics has neglected.”

Burnham was left with a clear path to Downing Street after his last potential leadership rival ruled out challenging last week.

He received 379 nominations from Labour MPs for the party leadership out of a possible 403.

His uncontested run has sparked concern from some analysts and government insiders, however, and opposition leader Kemi Badenoch has accused Labour of “running scared” of scrutiny.

It comes after Keir Starmer announced he was stepping down as PM last month, as pressure continued to build in the wake of Labour’s disastrous local election results in May.

Who is Andy Burnham?

Born on Merseyside in the northwest of England and raised in the village of Culcheth in Cheshire, Burnham has said he was first inspired to enter politics after watching “Boys From The Blackstuff,” an acclaimed 1982 TV show about five unemployed men in Liverpool navigating life in Margaret Thatcher’s Britain.

He went on to study English at the University of Cambridge before starting out in journalism, working for a number of trade publications.

He soon made the jump into politics, taking a job as a researcher for the late Tessa Jowell, a former MP for Dulwich, while in his early 20s.

He eventually became MP for Leigh in 2001, a position he held until 2017, and served in a number of senior ministerial positions, including as secretary of state for health and chief secretary to the Treasury. He unsuccessfully ran for the Labour leadership in 2010 and 2015, losing to Ed Miliband and Jeremy Corbyn, respectively.

In 2017, he took over as mayor of Greater Manchester, overseeing a period of huge growth and development and gaining a reputation for his loyal defence of the region during the Covid-19 pandemic lockdown.