Twitter files lawsuit against 4 unidentified entities: Here's why
What's the story
Elon Musk's Twitter is used to lawsuits. The company has been at the receiving end of multiple legal challenges since Musk's takeover.
Now, the microblogging platform is the one that is suing. On the opposite side, we have four unnamed entities in Texas, reported WFAA, a local TV station.
The lawsuit has something to do with data scraping. Let's see what it is about.
Context
Why does this story matter?
Musk has been very vocal about Twitter being a victim of data scraping over the past few weeks. According to him, AI companies are scraping data off the platform to train their large language models (LLMs).
The company went as far as introducing rate limits to solve the problem. Now, the number of tweets a person can view in a day is limited.
Lawsuit
Four unidentified entities flooded Twitter's sign-up page with automated requests
In the lawsuit filed on July 6 before the District Court of Dallas County, Texas, Twitter alleged that four entities engaged in widespread unlawful data scraping from Twitter.
According to the company, it noticed the defendants' IP addresses among those that flooded Twitter's sign-up page with automated requests.
It argues that the volume of requests suggests they were aimed at scraping data.
Information
Automated requests taxed servers: Twitter
Twitter claims the automated requests from the specified IP addresses taxed its servers, which affected the user experience. Per the firm, the unnamed entities unjustly enriched themselves by scraping data. However, it couldn't ascertain their identity.
Musk
Musk reiterated his views on data scraping
Twitter is yet to make any public statement regarding the lawsuit. Musk, however, responded to a tweet about it.
In the tweet, he reiterated his views on data scraping. He said the company had to put rate limits as several companies tried to scrape tweets in a very short time.
The tweet seems to be an implied acknowledgment of the lawsuit.
Twitter Post
Musk explains why rate limits are necessary
Several entities tried to scrape every tweet ever made in a short period of time. That is why we had to put rate limits in place.
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) July 13, 2023
Threads
Twitter is battling Threads for microblogging supremacy
Twitter's new lawsuit comes amid its ongoing battle with Threads, Meta's Twitter challenger. Threads has grown by leaps and bounds in a few days.
Twitter's rate limits may have played a part in pushing users toward the Mark Zuckerberg-owned microblogging platform.
The company has even threatened to sue Meta over hiring former Twitter employees with access to trade secrets.