'Clone' or competitor? Users and lawyers compare Twitter and Threads

Just how similar is Instagram's chatty new app, Threads, to Twitter?

In a cease-and-desist letter earlier this week, Twitter threatened legal action against Instagram parent company Meta over the new text-based app Threads, which it called a “copycat.”

Threads has drawn tens of millions of users since launching as the latest rival to Elon Musk’s social media platform.

Threads creators pushed back on the accusations, and legal experts note that much is still unknown. For now, “it’s sort of a big question mark,” Jacob Noti-Victor, an associate professor at Yeshiva University’s Cardozo Law School who specializes in intellectual property, told The Associated Press.

The people starting to explore Threads, however, are already making their own observations.

“People are calling it a Twitter clone but I think there are some key product differences,” said Alexandra Popken, Twitter's former head of trust and safety operations.

One difference, she thinks, will likely be the people who use it. At Threads, “you’re essentially taking your audience from Instagram and putting this into a new text-based app, whereas Twitter is a kind of a niche audience for politicians, celebrities and news junkies,” she said.

Yet even though Threads makers have said they aren't particularly interested in making it a politics forum, it’s likely to attract journalists and politicians, among others, looking for a Twitter alternative.

Instagram’s CEO, Adam Mosseri, said Threads isn’t aiming to replace Twitter.

“The goal is to create a public square for communities on Instagram that never really embraced Twitter and for communities on Twitter (and other platforms) that are interested in a less angry place for conversations, but not all of Twitter,” he...