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Twitter is threatening to sue Meta over Threads
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- LinuxBender 3y agoIn a similar vain is there any risk to Lemmy or Mastodon? Did any current or former Twitter or Reddit employees contribute to Lemmy, Mastodon or the other open source alternatives to Twitter and Reddit? If so would they be a target for big corporations like Twitter and Reddit to pursue?
- paxys 3y agoUnless someone can prove there was proprietary code involved (which there wasn't) none of them are under any threat from anyone.
- Sunspark 3y agoAgreed. Apple lost the lawsuit against Microsoft many decades ago when they tried to stop MS from using GUI elements that were similar to Apple's. You can't copy someone's code, but nobody can stop you from having scrollbars or avatar thumbnails or whatever in your own app.
- kalleboo 3y agoApple only lost the lawsuit against Microsoft because they literally licensed 90% of the GUI design to them. And then in the followup lawsuit, Steve Jobs settled in order to get Microsoft to promise to keep supporting Office on Mac to keep the Mac from dying.
- meepmorp 3y agoI sincerely hope this ends in CEO single combat.
- filoleg 3y agoIt was already about to happen, but, sadly, Elon's mom said "no" and vetoed the whole thing[0]. I doubt that she will change her mind on that anytime soon, unfortunately. 0. https://www.yahoo.com/lifestyle/elon-musks-mommy-says-hes-140900335.html https://www.yahoo.com/lifestyle/elon-musks-mommy-says-hes-14...
- netsharc 3y agoU like that HN cuts the URL to "elon-musks-mommy-says-hes-14..."
- iamdelirium 3y agoThis is literally one of the worst moves Twitter could have made to combat Threads or any of their copies. They're literally giving more eyes and coverage to Threads and painting them as a real contender.
- 3cats-in-a-coat 3y agoWe can always rely on Elon Musk's Twitter to make the worst move. Meanwhile (as the article says) Meta has confirmed no employee on the Threads team came from Twitter. So the letter is already shown to be completely without basis.
- toomuchtodo 3y agoMeta could always extend offers to the remaining Twitter engineers to simply sit on the rooftop. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QAiPcPRZlBk https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QAiPcPRZlBk https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y30pML-AW4k https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y30pML-AW4k
- paxys 3y ago- The entire Zuck fight saga. - Limiting access to Twitter. - Tweeting incessantly about the Threads launch. - Threatening to sue Meta. Musk can't stay out of the limelight, for better or worse, and in this case it is definitely for the worse. Threads would have had a tiny fraction of the hype it does had it not been for his antics these last few weeks.
- TechnicolorByte 3y agoYour last sentence makes me wonder when Meta decided on the launch date for Threads. Were they always planning to launch it early summer timeframe or they seized on the recent Zuck/Musk fight drama + twitter rate limiting to maximize eyeballs? Threads is far from feature complete.
- kalleboo 3y ago
- martin8412 3y agoLawyers should make sure to get paid in advance.
- minimaxir 3y agoBetween this and Twitter CEO Linda Yaccarino's weird tweet about how great Twitter is (https://twitter.com/lindayacc/status/1676965566597464065 https://twitter.com/lindayacc/status/1676965566597464065), the arrival of Threads is definitely an existential threat for Twitter.
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- 3cats-in-a-coat 3y agoI don't know Linda Yaccarino well, but so far all her statements, internal and public, read like cringe parody of corporate mediocrity.
- wilg 3y agoYep, she sounds exactly like someone who used to be an advertising executive.
- meepmorp 3y agoThey're corporate anodynes meant for a specific audience. Her job is to be corporate and professional - she's there to get advertisers back onboard with Twitter. She's the grownup there to soothe their worries about the instability in the platform. Or she was, until Musk decided to randomly change the basic value proposition behind the site with no warning, undoing anything she'd already accomplished and making it plain that anything she promises can't be trusted because she's completely powerless figurehead. For her sake, I hope she got her first year's salary up front.
- ulfw 3y agoYou mentioned Musk "undoing anything she'd already accomplished. What has she accomplished?
- dodgson 3y agoAssumably some backchannel conversations with existing advertisers or advertisers she’d like to lure back, assuring them that Twitter is a stable platform and its users will be able to do things like, for example, see tweets, for the foreseeable future.
- tw04 3y ago>Spiro 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.” So you fire 80% of your workforce claiming they're dead weight and completely unnecessary, while simultaneously suing their new employer because apparently they were vital cogs who somehow "continue to have access to trade secrets"? So vital you're refusing to pay out any of their severance packages. Only in Elon land.
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- nomel 3y ago> because apparently they were vital cogs who somehow "continue to have access to trade secrets" I don't think this is a sane take. Knowing trade secrets and being a "necessity" are not related. They were, and you are, and I am, replaceable. Our possible deep esoteric knowledge of secret sauce maybe makes the replacement more painful, but that's all. If you've ever been on the "not fired" side of a layoff, you'll understand how losing someone "vital" is almost always just a disruption, in reality. The group may even collapse, but if the work truly is non-optional, pressure will build, and it will be done. If there's any competence, nobody will miss that person in a short time, and that's a good thing, because key person risk is a bad thing.
- rumblerock 3y agoMy question is – what trade secrets does Twitter even have that Meta didn't already have the existing infrastructure for, or competency to build themselves (probably better)?
- bagels 3y agoThey definitely have existing products, knowledge and competency for building a twitter clone that could be adapted for this purpose (instagram/facebook posts & comment systems). Whether they did or not is maybe the question?
- 3y ago
- Dig1t 3y agoDespite this bone-headed move by Twitter, my question is: does this pose anti-trust problems for Meta? Meta having a monopoly on all forms of social media does seem pretty bad to me. I guess “monopoly” has a specific definition, but by having Facebook, WhatsApp, Instagram, and the new Twitter, one company will control the majority of normal peoples’ communication online.
- optymizer 3y agoIs Meta preventing any other entities from releasing their own Twitter? Nobody's forcing people to use Threads.
- Dig1t 3y agoThat's a good question, the answer to your question is "no". However you can apply the exact same logic to Apple. Is Apple's App Store preventing users from just using an Android phone? Or just launching their own competitor to the iPhone? The answer to that question is also "no". However, there is a lot of discussion around whether Apple is behaving in an anti-competitive way. Same with Google in the online advertising market. Given the other ant-trust discussions taking place, I don't think it's ridiculous to ask whether Meta controlling _all_ the platforms on which most communications happen is good for society.
- dvngnt_ 3y agoit's a bit tougher to compare as IG/threads and Twitter are just websites and phone apps whereas iPhone is the phone and app store that gates access to native applications so it's a level deeper and can be seen more as a utility.
- paxys 3y agoNot in the US, which has long abandoned the pretense of antitrust enforcement, but this is exactly why they haven't launched threads in the EU.
- 3y ago
- paxys 3y agoAn entirely predictable turn of events. Next up: - The lawsuit is never actually filed. Turns out just like Delaware (and unlike the SEC), California courts aren't going to bend to Musk's will. - Twitter continues to bleed users and advertisers. Musk continues to double and triple down on his failed policies. - Musk declares that this was his intention all along with the purchase, and killing Twitter was a "5D chess move". His fans eat it up.
- t4ay34565 3y ago> - Musk declares that this was his intention all along with the purchase, and killing Twitter was a "5D chess move". His fans eat it up. I think Musk dives further into cultural war nonsense and tries to become a messiahic figure to the right.
- SQueeeeeL 3y agoIt's interesting to think if grift of book sales and random convention talks can equal the ~30 billion of material value wiped out by Twitter. Somewhat reminds me of Andrew Wakefield who went from being a licensed research MD to a guest of honor for "Conspira-Sea", a novelty cruise. Just a complete loss of authenticity and meaningful career prospects.
- donmcronald 3y ago> The lawsuit is never actually filed. If it were, who pays for the court costs? Is that something the taxpayers have to pay for in the US?
- paxys 3y agoThere is a token fee to file a lawsuit, but other than that yes courts are funded by taxes. Both sides have to bring their own lawyers.
- ncallaway 3y agoIt depends what you mean by “court costs”. There are fees to file the case, but for the most part the judges time is paid for by taxpayers. The vast majority of the expense in a court case will be the lawyers on both sides. These are, by default, paid by each party. There are some specific cases where the loser has to pay the winning side’s lawyers, but it’s pretty rare.
- perlgeek 3y agoSo was the unauthenticated read block related to Twitter being afraid that Meta scrapes their user base for easier migration?
- goodbyesf 3y agoMakes you wonder. Imagine if Meta was literally cloning twitter to make it easier for twitter users to migrate to threads.
- AlexandrB 3y agoSeems wholly unnecessary. I imagine a majority of Twitter users also have an Instagram or Facebook account. Sure the social graph is not identical, but it's probably more than good enough. Especially since Threads only has an algorithmic feed and follows are less important to what you see.
- activiation 3y agoTwitter is so simple... I wonder which trade secrets they could be using
- kylehotchkiss 3y agoWasn't "the algorithm" already open sourced?
- doublerabbit 3y agoAnd here we are today because of MySpace. Good ole' Tom. MySpace concreted Web 2.0. Facebook came a year later. MySpace sold, Facebook continues. Twitter and here we are today. Nothing has changed in the grand scheme of things, well apart from your privacy and your data being sold as a commodity.
- cmrdporcupine 3y agoYou forgot about Friendster (2002), it came before MySpace (2003), had great momentum, failed to scale (slow as hell), turned down $30M from Google, and then fizzled out. It had most of the features of Facebook, but a number of years before Facebook was available to the general public.
- throw47474777j 3y agoThe only thing this proves is that Elon thinks Twitter is threatened by Threads.
- ksaj 3y agoThreads is built on Instagram's code base, which is why you can't currently delete your account on one without deleting on both. So it'll be a tough fight for Elon to prove the code is stolen, since such a big chunk of it was already there for years.
- ceejayoz 3y agoWe’ve come a ways from https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1592569305941807104 https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1592569305941807104, huh?
- bagels 3y agoIf I were one of those callously fired by Musk at Twitter and insulted, I'd be so motivated to help anyone outcompete them.
- housemusicfan 3y agoThe amount of "Twitter has no intellectual property I could build it in my bedroom" gaslighting going on in this discussion is unbelievable. Buried the needle.
- bagels 3y agoAt scale? Not in a few weeks, and not with all the features, but the core features don't seem like a stretch for a small team, without scale in a couple months. Meta/Instagram luckily already have a large scale social network, tons of money, and tons of engineers and a codebase that deals in users and text and images already, so it's a pretty good head start.
- housemusicfan 3y agoTwitter's search works pretty well at scale; you can search for detailed Tweet content fairly accurately. That doesn't happen overnight.
- AlotOfReading 3y agoHow important is refined search to a social network with no legacy content to search through? Surely that's something they can put off for N months and just accept whatever caption and relevancy limitations Instagram search imposes?
- housemusicfan 3y agoFunctioning search for a Twitter clone is absolutely essential.
- tmottabr 3y agonot necessarily on day one.. this is why threads only have search for users at the moment.. that is what everyone is doing now.. search for the people they care to follow.. They can work a few more days on that and add it in a update down the line.. by the time thread has enough content that search is important you can bet that search will be there.. i like the theory that they lunched now, sooner then originally planned, to surf on the mess that twitter made on the last few days. This would explain why threads is so incomplete in some areas, but probably will match all twitter features soon enough..
- meindnoch 3y agoMere mortals cannot comprehend what kind of secret, arcane knowledge is necessary to display 140-character messages on a website.