In a twist of Silicon Valley’s never-ending saga of dueling tech titans, Twitter is preparing to take legal action against Meta Platforms, the parent company of Facebook. Alex Spiro, a lawyer representing Elon Musk, has dispatched a warning letter to Meta’s CEO, Mark Zuckerberg, accusing the company of using ex-Twitter employees to design a clone of the Twitter platform. This move has reignited a fiery discussion about the tech giant’s legacy of imitation rather than innovation.
Meta’s business model has often raised eyebrows due to its habit of repackaging the ideas of others, which starkly contrasts the ethos of other tech innovators. There are numerous instances, most notably the US House Judiciary Committee’s probe in 2020, which unveiled internal Facebook emails from 2012 explicitly stating that “copying is faster than innovating”. When questioned by the Judiciary Committee about whether Facebook had ever threatened to clone another company’s product while trying to acquire that company, Zuckerberg’s response was a rather unconvincing “not that I recall”.
It’s also worth noting the mockery Elon Musk faced when Twitter Blue was launched. However, it wasn’t long before Instagram mimicked the strategy, a classic example of Meta’s propensity to follow rather than lead.
For those who may have lost count, here are a few examples of Meta’s failed attempts to ride on the success of other companies:
- Facebook Check-In deals, a Groupon and LivingSocial copycat, which was launched in 2011 and folded just four months later.
- Facebook Gifts, a clone of the gifting app Karma, initiated in 2012 but closed after only a year.
- Facebook’s acquisition of Parse in 2013, which was performing well until Facebook took over and later shut it down.
- Facebook Credits, a scheme deemed too confusing by users and similar to credits systems implemented by companies like Disney Dining.
- Facebook Messages with email, a supposed “Gmail killer”, which failed to gain traction and was dropped.
- Facebook Places, akin to Foursquare, which faced the ax in 2011 over privacy concerns.
- Facebook Stories, a blatant attempt to replicate Pinterest and Snapchat.
- Facebook Slingshot, another Snapchat clone, was launched in 2014 and scrapped a year later.
- Facebook Poke, arguably the first Snapchat feature imitation, initiated in 2012 and removed in 2014.
This litany of imitation brings us to two primary thoughts: one is a fervent hope that Twitter proceeds with its lawsuit. It seems time for a challenger to question Meta’s vulture-like business practices – that is, either acquiring competitors or seeking to destroy them by copying their products.
However, we do not see Meta as a genuine threat to Twitter. These platforms are fundamentally different, not in their functionalities, but in their respective stances on free speech. The two platforms can co-exist. They are not mutually exclusive, just like Twitter is migrating to be the ‘everything app’, and Meta is expanding to compete with Twitter. We foresee both ecosystems existing a decade from now, boasting similar apps but providing vastly different experiences.
These differences make it practically impossible for either platform to successfully copy the other. Twitter has carved a niche as the Free Speech Town Hall, and it’s hard to imagine any other platform wresting away that mantle. Not least Meta. It seems the tale of the tech titan copycats is far from over, and we eagerly await the next chapter.
