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[Continuation] Musk buys Twitter II

angrysoba said:
At this point who is to even say what is legal or illegal in these kinds of situations?

I imagine a lot of people like Musk and Zuckerberg just play the game of doing what they want and outspending their rivals in court.
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Well there is a concept called industrial or corporate espionage, but it seems unlikely that anything here would fall under the illegal sort.

You can obtain information about a competitor by legal means.

Found some pretty interesting reading on the topic here:

Trade secrets: Who owns what is in your head?

This was published last year but seems to be a good explainer for the current state of the law in the United States.

But basically they would have to prove ownership of some kind of trade secret and also that the other party used illegal means to learn that secret.
 
Puppycow said:
Who made the claim?
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Uh, you did. :covereyes :D Turns out that was where I saw the claim:

Puppycow said:
Musk is angry that some of the Twitter employees he fired have been subsequently hired by Meta, although Meta denies that any of them were involved in creating the Threads app.
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Sorry, I've been really tired today.

Puppycow said:
ETA: and would it be illegal if they had?
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No, of course not. It would only be illegal if they used Twitter's own proprietary code in Threads. And to prove that they'd have to actually let someone look at it.
 
arthwollipot said:
Uh, you did. :covereyes :D Turns out that was where I saw the claim:

Sorry, I've been really tired today.

No, of course not. It would only be illegal if they used Twitter's own proprietary code in Threads. And to prove that they'd have to actually let someone look at it.
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OH, OK. No worries.

Both the claim and the denial are detailed in the story I linked to. Since I didn't initially pull any quotes, here are the rival statements from Twitter and Meta:
In a move first reported by news outlet Semafor, Twitter attorney Alex Spiro sent a letter to Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg on Wednesday accusing Meta of "systematic, wilful, and unlawful misappropriation of Twitter's trade secrets and other intellectual property" to create Threads.

Specifically, Mr Spiro alleged that Meta had hired dozens of former Twitter employees who "had and continue to have access to Twitter's trade secrets and other highly confidential information" that ultimately helped Meta develop what he termed the "copycat" Threads app.

"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," the letter says.

"Twitter reserves all rights, including, but not limited to, the right to seek both civil remedies and injunctive relief without further notice."
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And Meta's response:
On Threads, Meta spokesperson Andy Stone posted that "no one on the Threads engineering team is a former Twitter employee - that's just not a thing".
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Twitter's accusation seems to stop short of saying outright that the said employees were specifically hired "for the purposes of creating Threads" but it does allege that they have proprietary information. The denial also seems to be somewhat narrow, claiming only that the employees are not "on the Threads engineering team". Which isn't quite the same as saying that none of their knowhow is being used to create Threads.

Anyway, I'm interested to see if anything actually comes of this. Seems like it would be difficult for Twitter to prove what they are alleging.
 
ISTM that Twitter's lawsuit is a cheap way to attempt to tarnish Threads whether there's any merit to it or not.
 
Could be only that. IANAL, but it seems very unlikely that they could actually prevail in a lawsuit. Could there be some sort of Streisand effect? If anything it seems to be free publicity for Threads.
 
The Don said:
ISTM that Twitter's lawsuit is a cheap way to attempt to tarnish Threads whether there's any merit to it or not.
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I dunno, makes Musk look weak and desperate. It only confirms the narrative that threads is a serious threat.
 
This whole thing reminds me of MySpace, which was once the dominant social media network. No one thing killed MySpace, it was more death by a thousand cuts. It's like how a your local shopping mall dies, very gradually.

The parallel to MySpace is pretty direct. It got bought out by someone (in that case, News Corporation, Murdoch's compay) that didn't really understand what made the social media site so popular to begin with. A series of bad decisions followed that made the site progressively less attractive until finally it went from the premier social media site to a niche site for certain communities to a total ghost town.

No one thing is going to kill Twitter (unless Musk does something exceptionally stupid), but the site is on a death spiral unless it radically changes course. Honestly it may be too late.
 
Wudang said:
David Allen Green's reading of the lawyer's letter to Meta. Note his disclaimer that he is English and may have missed something an American litigation lawyer would see.

https://davidallengreen.com/2023/07...ta-a-guided-tour-of-a-weak-litigation-letter/
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I like this bit

Some clients sometimes demand that such a litigation letter is sent even when there is little or no case, and this is the sort of letter that gets sent in those circumstances.
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I think this is a letter that's meant to massage Musk's ego.
 
TurkeysGhost said:
This whole thing reminds me of MySpace, which was once the dominant social media network. No one thing killed MySpace, it was more death by a thousand cuts. It's like how a your local shopping mall dies, very gradually.

The parallel to MySpace is pretty direct. It got bought out by someone (in that case, News Corporation, Murdoch's compay) that didn't really understand what made the social media site so popular to begin with. A series of bad decisions followed that made the site progressively less attractive until finally it went from the premier social media site to a niche site for certain communities to a total ghost town.

No one thing is going to kill Twitter (unless Musk does something exceptionally stupid), but the site is on a death spiral unless it radically changes course. Honestly it may be too late.
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Yes, probably. The assumption by those that thought Twitter was too restrictive was the idea that it was the de facto public square, and that if you banned people merely for using the n-word or harassing the families of murdered children or other such noble pursuits then you are effectively acting as if you are the tyrant of some country that has no first amendment rights. I mean, it was always a stupid argument given that literally only one country has “first amendment rights” anyway, and once Musk became Twitter’s capricious dictator he made on the fly decisions to ban people he had personal issues with. But now, there are a plethora of social media platforms, mastodon, blue sky, threads, etc…. which puts the lie to the idea that being unable to say it on Twitter was effectively being unable to say it at all.

In fact as much as many of us might not like it, Donald Trump was a little bit of a trail blazer here. Unable to post any more on Twitter where he had effectively used the platform to become president and almost succeeded in using it to overthrow democracy in the US once and for all, he went out and set up his own platform. And when allowed back on Twitter by that idiot Musk, Trump told him to stick it. It’s actually quite amusing that Trump taught everyone what you should do if you get booted from a social media platform. Make your own and make the one you left irrelevant.
 
arthwollipot said:
Yeah, a lot of people are complaining about that, but I'm not. It's basically the same idea as the Facebook News Feed, which a lot of people also complained about but which people got used to and no longer complain about.
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I would push back that people just got used to Facebook feed. A lot of people stopped using Facebook as it got more bloated and weird. At least, my anecdotal experience is that many people my age (30s) who were early users of Facebook no longer use it as it exists today, and younger people never used it at all. The people still using Facebook got used to it, and those that didn't left the site or reduced their usage.


The statistics bear out that assessment. Five million U.S. teenagers log in to Facebook every day, compared with 22 million for Instagram, according to the materials leaked to The Journal. Most teens I know regard Facebook as the place where their parents go to argue about politics and their grandparents post vacation pictures. And which self-respecting member of Generation Z wants to hang out in an old folks’ home? So it’s goodbye to Boomerbook, and hello to TikTok or Instagram instead. (There is some consolation in this for the company because Instagram, like the messaging platform WhatsApp, is also owned by Facebook.)
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https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2021/10/facebook-midlife-crisis-boomerbook/620307/


If Threads is trying to compete directly with Twitter for users, the difference in feed may well be a significant factor. The "reverse chronological feed of only those you follow" has been the central feature of Twitter since inception.
 
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angrysoba said:
Yes, probably. The assumption by those that thought Twitter was too restrictive was the idea that it was the de facto public square, and that if you banned people merely for using the n-word or harassing the families of murdered children or other such noble pursuits then you are effectively acting as if you are the tyrant of some country that has no first amendment rights. I mean, it was always a stupid argument given that literally only one country has “first amendment rights” anyway, and once Musk became Twitter’s capricious dictator he made on the fly decisions to ban people he had personal issues with. But now, there are a plethora of social media platforms, mastodon, blue sky, threads, etc…. which puts the lie to the idea that being unable to say it on Twitter was effectively being unable to say it at all.

In fact as much as many of us might not like it, Donald Trump was a little bit of a trail blazer here. Unable to post any more on Twitter where he had effectively used the platform to become president and almost succeeded in using it to overthrow democracy in the US once and for all, he went out and set up his own platform. And when allowed back on Twitter by that idiot Musk, Trump told him to stick it. It’s actually quite amusing that Trump taught everyone what you should do if you get booted from a social media platform. Make your own and make the one you left irrelevant.
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what the audience elon musk decided to pander to wanted out of twitter was free access to a captive audience to trigger while still collecting revenue. which is actually pretty difficult to establish and maintain.

truth social and all the right wing weirdo social media apps always fail to provide because they can't attract the triggered audience. posting insane or offensive right wing political nonsense, which is it's only function, isn't very fun when it's all that's ever posted on the site and everyone just agrees.

normal social media sites have a wider audience, but they also can't let the right wing weirdos take it too far as they are incredibly annoying people. normal people will start to look for alternatives. musks biggest mistake, amongst his many, many errors, was embracing them instead of limiting them. they're chasing away the advertisers and the normal people. you can't monetize these guys.
 
I Am The Scum said:
Musk comments further on his feud with Mark Zuckerberg:

This man is 52 years old
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Geez, I'm a pretty big Musk hater and this is too pathetic, I'm actually feeling a bit bad for him.

I'm guessing he's too far up his own ass at this point for him to reassess the dumb things he's done that have lead to this and change course.

Really have to worry about how nasty Musk, and by extension Twitter, is going to get if this trend continues. Musk is already quite chummy with the nastier elements of the right wing community and this public failure could very well be the inflection point where he totally abandons any modicum of decency and plunges into the deeps.

Musk's Twitter is already awash in antisemtism and fascist conspiracy theories, and I suspect his product getting trashed by the Zuck controlled goliath will only accelerate the overt antisemitism tolerated by Musk.

The $8chan barb becomes more apt every day.
 
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jeremyp said:
Early onset dementia?

No, I think the real problem is that, when he got to the age where you are supposed to grow out of the frat boy mentality, he was already very rich and surrounded by people telling him he could do no wrong. He's not entering his second childhood because he never left his first.
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This seems an apt description of someone else in the news these days.
 
jeremyp said:
Early onset dementia?

No, I think the real problem is that, when he got to the age where you are supposed to grow out of the frat boy mentality, he was already very rich and surrounded by people telling him he could do no wrong. He's not entering his second childhood because he never left his first.
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There's probably something to be said about the damage that being obscenely wealthy tends to do to people's minds, but that's probably going a bit too far off topic.

Suffice to say, Musk is not unique in being a rich person who think he's God's Most Specialist and Smartest Boy and that having attitude lead them into fantastic blunders.
 
angrysoba said:
Yes, probably. The assumption by those that thought Twitter was too restrictive was the idea that it was the de facto public square, and that if you banned people merely for using the n-word or harassing the families of murdered children or other such noble pursuits then you are effectively acting as if you are the tyrant of some country that has no first amendment rights. I mean, it was always a stupid argument given that literally only one country has “first amendment rights” anyway, and once Musk became Twitter’s capricious dictator he made on the fly decisions to ban people he had personal issues with. But now, there are a plethora of social media platforms, mastodon, blue sky, threads, etc…. which puts the lie to the idea that being unable to say it on Twitter was effectively being unable to say it at all.
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Of course, the obvious answer is that Twitter isn't the public square, the broader internet is the public square in which Twitter is just one participant.

The anything goes, post whatever you like digital public square already exists. Anyone can get up on their soapbox by registering a domain and put out whatever screeds they like.

Twitter and other social media sites are much more like a cafe on the public square than the pubic square itself. And just like a cafe, allowing patrons to stand up on a chair, piss themselves, and scream slurs is generally bad for business. Even places that are largely open to the public have to exercise a bit of discretion to exclude the most anti-social elements if they want to remain attractive to the general public.
 
TurkeysGhost said:
Geez, I'm a pretty big Musk hater and this is too pathetic, I'm actually feeling a bit bad for him.

I'm guessing he's too far up his own ass at this point for him to reassess the dumb things he's done that have lead to this and change course.
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The second-hand embarrassment I get from reading his tweets is real no matter how much he sucks as a person. It's like watching your worst enemy slip and fall face-first into dog doo. Yeah, he deserves it, but damn, that's just nasty.
 
TurkeysGhost said:
Of course, the obvious answer is that Twitter isn't the public square, the broader internet is the public square in which Twitter is just one participant.

The anything goes, post whatever you like digital public square already exists. Anyone can get up on their soapbox by registering a domain and put out whatever screeds they like.

Twitter and other social media sites are much more like a cafe on the public square than the pubic square itself. And just like a cafe, allowing patrons to stand up on a chair, piss themselves, and scream slurs is generally bad for business. Even places that are largely open to the public have to exercise a bit of discretion to exclude the most anti-social elements if they want to remain attractive to the general public.
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attractive to the general public is really only a consideration because the entire platform, and all similar ones, is financed by advertising. with these giant platforms, you have free access to millions of eyeballs and access to a portion of the revenue. if you were to start your own site, you don't have that built in and if you did to broadcast to that many people it would be incredibly expensive.

so it's never really a free speech issue, just an i want access to your audience and platform but don't want to follow your rules issue. and if you don't believe it, check out how much self censorship they'll do if there's a demonetization threat. it's their own fault for getting in bed with advertisers to begin with
 
dirtywick said:
attractive to the general public is really only a consideration because the entire platform, and all similar ones, is financed by advertising. with these giant platforms, you have free access to millions of eyeballs and access to a portion of the revenue. if you were to start your own site, you don't have that built in and if you did to broadcast to that many people it would be incredibly expensive.

so it's never really a free speech issue, just an i want access to your audience and platform but don't want to follow your rules issue. and if you don't believe it, check out how much self censorship they'll do if there's a demonetization threat. it's their own fault for getting in bed with advertisers to begin with
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It's hard to imagine what other model would work besides advertisement. A paid membership system would probably result in a much, much smaller user base.
 
TurkeysGhost said:
It's hard to imagine what other model would work besides advertisement. A paid membership system would probably result in a much, much smaller user base.
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yes, you'd make a lot less money. to me, more evidence that free speech isn't the primary concern. it's the access to the ad money.
 
dirtywick said:
yes, you'd make a lot less money. to me, more evidence that free speech isn't the primary concern. it's the access to the ad money.
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The "free speech" angle isn't targeted to people that think much about evidence or consistency.
 
arthwollipot said:
I've seen a claim that Meta specifically hired developers that had been fired from Twitter, for the purposes of creating Threads. Don't know how much credence to give that report, though.
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Unless they have swiped stuff directly from Twitter, nothing illegal about their working for Meta. In fact, Stealing talent from other tech companies has been SOP in the Tech business since day one.
 
dudalb said:
Unless they have swiped stuff directly from Twitter, nothing illegal about their working for Meta. In fact, Stealing talent from other tech companies has been SOP in the Tech business since day one.
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It isn't even poaching talent, let alone stealing, when Musk fired them in the first place.
 
tyr_13 said:
It isn't even poaching talent, let alone stealing, when Musk fired them in the first place.
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Noncompetes are unenforceable in California anyway, where both companies are headquartered. "Poaching" is just boss speak for the normal functioning of the at-will labor market. Twitter would have to demonstrate some outrageously bad behavior by former employees (like ripping off proprietary code or other trade secrets) to have any kind of claim, which seems extremely dubious since Threads seems to be a text-based ripoff of Instagram more than anything else.
 
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