SoftBank is at the center of yearlong Nikkei rally

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TOKYO – It’s no surprise, perhaps, that SoftBank Group’s 22% stock rally these last 12 months exactly mirrors that of the broader Nikkei 225 index.

Few Japanese conglomerates have benefited more from the Nikkei rally – or from the Bank of Japan’s ultra-loose policies – than the one that Masayoshi Son built.

Case in point: SoftBank’s telecom unit just pulled off one of the biggest yen bond sales in recent memory thanks to wide-scale market expectations that the BOJ will keep its foot on the monetary gas.

SoftBank‘s feat in raising US$840 million managed to lift confidence in credit markets that big debt issuance deals were back. It more than confirmed promising hints from earlier sales by Mitsui Fudosan Co and Kubota Corp. It was even better that the SoftBank sale was supersized from an initially planned US$350 million amid demand that was more than twice what SoftBank anticipated.

Yet as much as SoftBank is benefiting from the Nikkei rally and the BOJ’s largess, it remains unclear if one of Japan’s three richest men is ready to return the favor.

The reason Son is a subject of global intrigue is the US$100 billion SoftBank Vision Fund he created in 2017. It has since remade the global venture capital game, with Son adding the financial firepower of a Vision Fund 2. Very quickly, a meeting with Son’s team became the top aspiration for young entrepreneurs from Silicon Valley to Hyderabad to Seoul.

Son’s VC ambitions were always a way to tap growth outside aging Japan. Japan’s deflation, dismal demographics and a play-it-safe corporate culture had Son deploying billions and billions in China, India, South Korea, Indonesia, Bangladesh, Brazil, Kenya, Israel and elsewhere.

The plan was to ride a herd of tech “unicorns” around the globe to riches SoftBank could no longer find at home in Japan.

At the core of Son’s vision, of course, was recreating the magic he achieved with China’s Alibaba Group 23 years ago, around the same time the BOJ pioneered quantitative easing.

In 2000, Son had the remarkable foresight to hand US$20 million to an obscure English teacher in Hangzhou. By the time Jack Ma took Alibaba public in New York in 2014, SoftBank’s stake was worth more than $50 billion.

Softbank Group founder Masayoshi Son and Alibaba founder Jack Ma. Photo: Asia Times files / Getty via AFP

The feat earned Son a reputation as the Warren Buffett of Japan. The launch of his Vision Fund was an attempt to replicate that success over and over again.

Yet Son has found that to be easier said than done. Among the big swings that Son missed: a perplexing fascination with WeWork, which over time became the Vision Fund’s cornerstone investment. Son bought into founder Adam Neumann’s claims to be creating the next Apple Inc with his office-sharing empire.

By 2019, as WeWork looked more like a financial house of cards and epic losses mounted, Son admitted “really bad” judgment in having championed the company as the next big thing. As Son scrambled to stabilize the Vision Fund, sandbagging efforts included selling roughly $7.2 billion worth of Alibaba. Son’s team is also working on an initial public offering of Arm Ltd, SoftBank’s chip unit.

Might Son now pivot to investing big in Japanese startups as opposed to prospective Chinese unicorns?

A few big data points have changed some Asia-region calculus since Son’s WeWork debacle:

  • slowing Chinese growth following leader Xi Jinping’s crackdown on mainland tech;
  • a deepening Sino-US trade war aimed particularly at tech goods; and
  • a Nikkei rally that has top global investors like Buffett rediscovering Japan.

In recent days, US Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen and Chinese Premier Li Qiang tried their hand at rebooting the Sino-American relationship. But with US President Joe Biden’s team determined to limit Chinese access to key technology like semiconductors — and Xi curbing exports or rare earth materials — tensions appear to be going from bad to worse.

This has Team Son rethinking its aversion to putting big money to work in Japan. Here, Buffett’s own bets on Japan’s economy may come into play.

In May 2022, Prime Minister Fumio Kishida took his campaign to lure more foreign capital to London, where he implored businesspeople to “invest in Kishida.” It was a play on a plea that Kishida’s mentor had made in New York nine years earlier.

In September 2013, then-Prime Minister Shinzo Abe brought his “buy my Abenomics” tour to the floor of the New York Stock Exchange. Abe pledged to reduce bureaucracy, loosen labor markets, incentivize innovation, boost productivity, empower women and reclaim Tokyo’s place as Asia’s undisputed financial center.

Mostly, though, Abe relied on BOJ easing to juice Japanese gross domestic product via a weaker yen. That, and some modest tweaks to corporate governance had Buffett and his ilk kicking Japan’s tires.

The so-called “Buffett effect” first hit Japan in August 2020. The Oracle of Omaha surprised many in the Tokyo establishment with sizable investments in five old-economy companies. Buffett took 5% stakes in rather stodgy “sogo shosha” trading houses: Itochu, Marubeni, Mitsubishi, Mitsui and Sumitomo.

The bets paid off handsomely. Last month, around the time Buffett topped up those investments — to an average 8.5% — shares had roughly doubled among his initial five investments. Buffett, true to his value-investing-guru reputation, front-ran the Nikkei’s biggest rally in 30 years.

The question now is how Son responds. Part of it involves how Kishida plays things.

Japan Prime Minister Fumio Kishida in London seeking investment, May 5, 2022. Photo: Prime Minister’s Official Residence

Kishida took power in October 2021 with grand plans to implement a “new capitalism.” Part of the scheme involved redistributing wealth to increase domestic consumption. Kishida also aimed to enliven Japan’s startup scene.

One early Kishida idea that holds great promise: devising a way to harness the $1.6 trillion Government Pension Investment Fund – the largest of its sort – to finance a startup boom. There, Kishida talked of facilitating the “circulation” of GPIF’s ginormous asset pool “into venture investment.” He talked of championing “stock options and other measures to promote the growth of start-ups.”

According to Ranil Salgado, an economist at the International Monetary Fund, there’s a need for a “holistic approach to address the constraints in the labor market, as well as improving the financing options and entrepreneurial education.”

Salgado adds that the “grand design of the new form of capitalism” includes measures to support venture capital, such as through public capital investment. In addition, it recognizes the constraint of personal guarantees on entrepreneurship, highlights the importance of entrepreneurial education, and strengthens the role of universities as startup hubs.”

Increased availability of venture capital equity funding, Salgado says, “is crucial to support startups and innovation. Reduced personal guarantees could help encourage entrepreneurship and allow unproductive firms to exit, which could in turn support investment and innovation, generate employment and improve productivity.

“Furthermore,” he says, “a more flexible labor market and a gradual shift from the lifetime employment system could encourage the most talented college graduates to venture and create new companies and have a reasonable backup option in case startups fail.”

Yet how SoftBank responds to these challenges and myriad others may decide how Asia’s number two economy fares in competition with the continental colossus that’s number one.

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China raises five demands during Yellen’s visit

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The Chinese government has made five demands on the United States, including the cancellation of its chip exports ban and sanctions, during US Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen’s four-day China trip ended Sunday.  

China’s Ministry of Finance said in a statement on Monday that it has expressed concerns to Yellen about the extra tariffs, company sanctions, investment restrictions, export controls and Xinjiang product bans imposed by the US on China in recent years. It said the US should take concrete actions to respond to China’s concerns.

Chinese commentators said the China side arranged meetings between key economic officials and Yellen, showing that Beijing attaches great importance to her visit. They said Washington knows clearly what to do if it wants China to purchase its treasury bonds.

During her four-day trip ended Sunday, Yellen met with Premier Li Qiang, Vice Premier He Lifeng, Finance Minister Liu Kun and People’s Bank of China (PBoC)’s party secretary Pan Gongsheng, as well as former Vice Premier Liu He and PBoC governor Zhou Xiaochuan. She had a total of about 10 hours of discussions with them.

“China’s development is an opportunity, not a challenge, for the US. It is a gain, not a risk,” Deputy Chinese Finance Minister Liao Min said in a statement published on Monday. “Strengthening cooperation between China and the United States is the practical need and the correct choice of the two countries.”

“To achieve a healthy Sino-US economic relationship, we must fully respect the legitimate development rights and interests of all parties, and conduct healthy competition in accordance with market economic principles and World Trade Organization rules,” he said. “Differences should not be a reason for estrangement, but rather a driving force for strengthening communication and exchange.”

He said China and the US should seek consensus on important issues in the bilateral economic field through candid exchanges, so as to inject stability and positive energy into their economic relationship. He said that during Yellen’s trip, China had shown its willingness to help resolve global challenges, such as financial stability, climate change and smaller countries’ debt problems.

Technology curbs

Last month, media reports said Washington will soon announce its plan to ban Nvidia from shipping its A800 and H800 artificial intelligence chips to China, and also restrict US funds from investing in China’s high-technology sectors later this month.

Yellen told the media on Saturday that Washington will listen to China’s complaints about security-related curbs on US technology exports. She said the Biden administration will try to avoid unnecessary repercussions but she did not indicate any possible changes. 

“We will open up channels so that they can express concerns about our actions, and we can explain and possibly in some situations respond to unintended consequences of our actions,” she said.

She said she had tried to explain to Chinese officials that the United States’s strategy of “de-risking” is not the same as “de-coupling.” She described her conversations with top Chinese officials as “direct, substantive and productive.”

“Even where we don’t see eye-to-eye, I believe there is clear value in the frank and in-depth discussions we had on the opportunities and challenges in our relationship, and the better understanding it gave us of each country’s actions and intentions,” she said. “Broadly speaking, I believe that my bilateral meetings – which totaled about 10 hours over two days – served as a step forward in our effort to put the US-China relationship on super footing.”

Yellen did not announce any agreements on major disputes with Chinese officials. She said both sides will have more frequent and regular communication.

Three bows

Ahead of Yellen’s visit to Beijing, Chinese commentators had said that the former Fed chairman was coming to China to sell US treasury bonds. 

This view came after US President Joe Biden and top Republican lawmaker Kevin McCarthy reached a tentative deal to raise the federal government’s US$31.4 trillion debt ceiling in May. The decision will be followed by the issuance of nearly $1.1 trillion in new treasury bills over the next seven months. 

An animated GIF of Yellen’s bows Photo: 163.com

When Yellen met top Chinese economic official He Lifeng on Saturday, she was seen bowing three times to him while they were shaking hands. She was criticized by some US lawmakers and academics for showing weakness with such a diplomatic gesture. Yellen’s official Treasury Department biography doesn’t mention any previous Asia forays in which she might have boned up on relevant protocol.

Chinese netizens turned the footage of her bows into an animated GIF picture, making her bow repeatedly. 

On Monday, Tian Liu, a Hubei-based columnist published an article with the title “If Yellen wants China to buy US debt, she must complete China’s tasks. Three bows are not enough.”

“From our or Yellen’s official statements, it is not difficult to see that the two sides mainly ‘exchanged views’ this time, and neither side got what they wanted. The US did not agree to lift the sanctions, and China did not agree to buy US debt,” the article says.

“Finding buyers for US debt is the top mission of Yellen. From a medium-and-long-term perspective, China is disposing of US debt,” it says. “Who else will buy it? Japan is the biggest creditor of the US but cannot buy more. The United Kingdom is facing an economic recession and sold $30 billion of US debt in April.”

“It is only the US side’s wishful thinking that the US can sell its debt to China, or set guardrails for the Sino-US relations, without giving what China wants,” Liu’s article says.

“Yellen’s bows will not be able to change anything. If the US does not satisfy China’s five demands, we will not respond to its call of buying US debt,” the article continues. 

“It is possible that the US may not consider any of our demands and use all possible means to contain and suppress our country,” it says. “If the US does not show some sincerity, the Sino-US relations will not improve.”

However, some other analysts have said that whether China will invest in US debt depends on its trade surplus situation, not its relations with the US.

No immediate war

Chinese media and commentators have so far made positive comments about Yellen’s trip.

Caixin said in its editorial on Monday that people should look at the competition and cooperation between the US and China rationally. 

It said China is not afraid of competition but opposes malicious confrontation. It said both China and the US can set areas and boundaries for competition and should avoid “de-coupling.” Another pundit also surnamed Liu says in his vlog that Yellen’s visit to China is important as it shows that China and the US are still having dialogues and will not have an immediate war. 

“Yellen is obviously the dovish among all top US officials. If we do not want to talk to her or we fail to achieve anything, it will send a pessimistic signal to the whole world,” Liu says.

“China and the US almost had a hot war, but still both sides have some hopes on each other in the economic areas,” he says. “China hopes that the US can ease its blockages and sanctions and lower some tariffs. Although the chance is slim, Chinese leaders have not given up as these are what we urgently need now.”

He says the US wants China to buy US debt, completely open up its markets and stop investing in high technology but Beijing will only consider the first request.

Read: Cordial tone in Yellen’s Beijing visit

Follow Jeff Pao on Twitter at @jeffpao3

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Kroll: Lack of communication weakens cyber resilience, say 52% of Singapore’s senior security decision makers

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95% of security decision-makers lack senior leadership trust in protecting firms
Only 20% of security professionals with cyber-mature security ops have cyber insurance

Kroll, the leading independent provider of global risk and financial advisory solutions, announced the release of its report State of Cyber Defense 2023: The False-Positive of Trust. 
In a statement the…Continue Reading

Gaming firm Razer probing ‘potential hack’ after data offered for US0,000 worth of crypto

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SINGAPORE: Gaming hardware company Razer said on Monday (Jul 10) that it is investigating a potential hack that affected its digital wallet Razer Gold, which customers use to purchase games and in-game content. This comes about three years after Razer suffered a cybersecurity breach that led to the personal information,Continue Reading

Who should pay developing world’s climate change bill?

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Here are three inconvenient truths. First, the world cannot fight climate change without developing countries. Second, developing countries will need massive amounts of investment for climate financing — and much of these required savings will need to be imported. 

Third, the governments of developing countries won’t allow the import of foreign savings if they worry that a backlash from international financial markets might cause financial instability.

The combination of these three truths has produced a predicament that the world has not yet grappled with – that action on climate change is inextricably linked to the financial stability of developing countries, both perceived and actual.

This is a big problem. Estimates of how much investment will be required by developing countries to fight climate change over the coming decades are in the tens of trillions of dollars. 

But developing countries, particularly those in East Asia, lack sufficient domestic savings given the massive amounts of investment already needed to reduce poverty and develop their economies, meaning they typically run current account deficits — where a country imports savings from overseas.

These current account deficits can often be a source of financial volatility. When an international shock occurs, countries with a current account deficit greater than 3% of GDP tend to be punished by the market with capital outflows, hurting the financial sector and the exchange rate.

The last few years have been a case in point. As US interest rates have risen, capital has been sharply withdrawn from developing countries and shifted to the United States to enjoy higher returns. 

This has caused a sudden tightening of financial conditions in developing countries and pushed down their exchange rates against the US dollar, making their foreign-denominated debts larger and, in some instances like Bangladesh, requiring IMF assistance. The same turbulence was experienced during the taper tantrum in 2013 and the global financial crisis in 2008.

Money dealers count Pakistani rupees and US dollars at an exchange in Islamabad. Photo: AFP/ Aamir Qureshi
Money dealers count Pakistani rupees and US dollars at an exchange in Islamabad. Photo: Asia Times Files / AFP/ Aamir Qureshi

Recent estimates suggest that if developing countries were to import the necessary foreign savings to fight climate change, their current account deficits could increase substantially. This is a terrifying thought for developing country finance ministers who have become hypersensitive to growing current account deficits. 

The result is that policymakers limit financial inflows using monetary policy and macroprudential tools to keep the current account deficit in check, constraining economic growth — and in the process, constraining the sustainable investment needed to fight climate change.

To be sure, recent international turbulence has revealed that developing countries, particularly in Asia, have come a long way in bolstering the resilience of their financial systems. 

Decades of reform have strengthened risk monitoring frameworks, hedged risks, liberalized exchange rates, deepened financial systems, strengthened supervisory mechanisms and improved resolution processes for troubled banks and financial institutions.

Not all developing countries face the same challenges, and not all developing countries have the same contribution to climate risks. And there is only so much developing countries can do. While recent crises have revealed how far developing countries have come, they’ve also shown their continued susceptibility to global shocks. 

If developing countries are to import the foreign savings needed to fight climate change, the rich world and the institutions it controls will need to work with them to reduce financial instability.

Luckily, there are practical things that can be done. At the global level, efforts to reform the lending conditions of the International Monetary Fund need to be continued, to reduce the stigma which stops developing countries from seeking assistance. 

Development banks, like the Asian Development Bank at the regional level and the World Bank at the global level, can provide finance directly through concessional lending and grants to ease the financing burdens of developing countries.

An emerging deal between China and the World Bank will likely see China agree to reschedule some of its loans to developing countries where, in return, the World Bank will increase its lending to developing countries, including for climate action. 

The COP27 agreement to loan Indonesia US$20 billion will also help. But given that the size of the green investment required dwarfs the resources of these institutions, development banks will need to be more innovative and use their balance sheets to help backstop the liquidity of developing country governments as they undertake sustainable investments.

Development banks don’t have enough capital to finance the developing world’s green investment needs. Image: Facebook

Bilaterally, rich world central banks need to use currency swap lines and standby loans to plug the gaps in the safety net and ensure that all developing countries have access to foreign exchange in times of need.

And international institutions need to support developing countries by implementing the tools and mechanisms that the countries need domestically to manage risks from capital inflows. 

These tools and mechanisms can also help them to price carbon domestically as part of a global approach and implement domestic regulatory reforms to fight climate change, including the elimination of fossil fuel subsidies.

In a nutshell, climate change is a global challenge that will be won or lost in developing countries. All countries have a shared incentive to ensure the necessary investments are undertaken in developing countries — and that means all countries have a shared incentive to bolster the financial stability of developing countries. 

If the last two years have shown us anything, it’s that we have a long way to go.

M Chatib Basri teaches in the Economics Department at the University of Indonesia and was formerly Indonesia’s Minister of Finance.

Adam Triggs is Partner at Mandala and Non-Resident Fellow at the Brookings Institution and the Crawford School of Public Policy, The Australian National University.

This article was originally published by East Asia Forum and is republished under a Creative Commons license.

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Paywatch, Visa sign MoU to promote financial inclusion among Asia’s workforce

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Aims to bridge gap between traditional banking & Asia’s unbanked
Plans to expand across Asia via Visa’s cross-border capabilities, network

Paywatch, an Earned Wage Access (EWA) startup based in Malaysia, announced last week an MoU with Visa to promote financial inclusion among Asia’s workforce. In a statement, the firm said it aims to…Continue Reading

Commentary: A year after Abe’s death, Japan is more geopolitically relevant than ever

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TOKYO: It would be easy to assume that not much has changed since Shinzo Abe, Japan’s longest-serving prime minister and de facto senior statesman, was assassinated in broad daylight one year ago.

But there’s an evolution underway, and Japan is moving closer to the nation Abe aspired to when he was gunned down on the campaign trail for upper house elections on Jul 8, 2022. The language of decline, of a country whose time has passed, is gone: From think tanks to hedge funds, Japan is on everyone’s lips. Tokyo is at the heart of Washington’s strategy to “de-risk” from China.

Money is flowing into the markets, led by Warren Buffett. And tourists are flocking back, with more Americans coming now than before the pandemic. 

Abe aimed to build a Japan that could cast off the shackles of its wartime guilt and assume a position on the geopolitical stage befitting its economic might.

The former prime minister laid out not just how his nation should position itself against China, but created the model that now dominates Western thinking toward Beijing. He spearheaded the concept of the “free and open Indo-Pacific,” later adopted by the United States, outlining this coalition of like-minded nations as far back as 2007. 

The current prime minister, Fumio Kishida, has taken that ball and is running with it, with his plan to radically overhaul Japan’s military spending, a move that has vociferous US support. The country is taking steps to shore up its weakened defense industry and is looking to relax a long-standing ban on the export of weapons in a bid to add additional support for Ukraine.

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Meta’s Threads in Twitter’s crosshairs

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The launch of social media app Threads as a competitor to Twitter is a game-changer.

Meta, which also owns Facebook and Instagram, launched the new platform yesterday, ahead of schedule. Threads was welcomed almost immediately – especially by hordes of Twitter users that have watched in dismay as their beloved platform crumbles in the hands of Elon Musk.

In less than 24 hours, Threads attracted some 30 million users. And with Meta already having more than two billion Instagram users who can directly link their accounts to it, Threads’ user base will grow fast.

Post by @zuck saying 'Wow, 30 million sign ups as of this morning. Feels like the beginning of something special, but we've got a lot of work ahead to build out the app.
Mark Zuckerberg posted on Threads to celebrate its 30 million new users. Threads

With its simple black and white feed, and features that let you reply, love, quote and comment on other people’s “threads”, the similarities between Threads and Twitter are obvious.

The question now is: will Threads be the one that finally unseats Twitter?

We’ve been here before

In October of last year, Twitter users looked on helplessly as Elon Musk became CEO. Mastodon was the first “escape plan.” But many found its decentralized servers difficult and confusing to use, with each one having very different content rules and communities.

Many Twitter fans created “back up” Mastodon accounts in case Twitter crashed, and waited to see what Musk would do next. The wait wasn’t long. Platform instability and outages became common as Musk started laying off Twitter staff (he has now fired about 80% of Twitter’s original workforce).

Shortly after, Musk horrified users and made headlines by upending Twitter’s verification system and forcing “blue tick” holders to pay for the privilege of authentication. This opened the door for account impersonations and the sharing of misinformation at scale. Some large corporate brands left the platform, taking their advertising dollars with them.

Musk also labeled trusted news organizations such as the BBC as “state-owned” media, until public backlash forced him to retreat. More recently, he started limiting how many tweets users can view and announced that TweetDeck (a management tool for scheduling tweets) would be limited to paid accounts.

Twitter users have tried several alternatives, including Spoutible and Post. Bluesky, which came from Twitter co-founder Jack Dorsey, is gaining ground – but its growth has been limited due to its invitation-only registration process.

Nothing had quite captured the imagination of Twitter followers … until now.

Andrews: Everyone right to go? Albanese: Ready over here...
Threads has been joined by a number of popular figures, including Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese, Oprah Winfrey, the Dalai Lama, Shakira, Gordon Ramsay and Ellen DeGeneres. Threads

Community is the key to success

Before Musk’s reign, Twitter enjoyed many years of success. It had long been a home for journalists, governments, academics and the public to share information on the key issues of the day. In emergencies, Twitter offered real-time support. During some of the worst disasters, users have shared information and made life-saving decisions.

While not without flaws – such as trolls, bots and online abuse – Twitter’s verification process and the ability to block and report inappropriate content was central to its success in building a thriving community.

This is also what sets Threads apart from competitors. By linking Threads to Instagram, Meta has given itself a significant head-start towards reaching the critical mass of users needed to establish itself as a leading platform (a privilege Mastodon didn’t enjoy).

Not only can Threads users retain their usernames, they can also bring their Instagram followers with them. The ability to retain community in an app that provides a similar experience to Twitter is what makes Threads the biggest threat yet.

My research shows that people crave authority, authenticity and community the most when they engage with online information. In our new book, my co-authors Donald O Case, Rebekah Willson and I explain how users search for information from sources they know and trust.

Twitter fans want an alternative platform with similar functionality, but most importantly they want to quickly find “their people.” They don’t want to have to rebuild their communities. This is likely why so many have stayed on Twitter, even as Musk has done so well to run it into the ground.

Challenges ahead

Of course, Twitter users may also be concerned about jumping from the frying pan into the fire. Signing up to yet another Meta app comes with its own concerns.

New Threads users who read the fine print will note that their information will be used to “personalize ads and other experiences” across both platforms. And users have pointed out you can only delete your Threads account if you delete your Instagram account.

This kind of entrenchment could be off-putting for some.

Moreover, Meta decided to not launch Threads anywhere in the European Union yesterday due to regulatory concerns. The EU’s new Digital Markets Act could raise challenges for Threads.

Shutterstock

For example, the act sets out businesses can’t “track end users outside of [their] core platform service for the purpose of targeted advertising, without effective consent having been granted.” This may be in conflict with Threads’ privacy policy.

Meta has also announced plans to eventually move Threads towards a decentralized infrastructure.

In the app’s “How Threads Works” details, it says “future versions of Threads will work with the fediverse”, enabling “people to follow and interact with each other on different platforms, including Mastodon.”

This means people will be able to view and interact with Threads content from non-Meta accounts, without needing to sign up to Threads. Using the ActivityPub standard (which enables decentralized interoperability between platforms), Threads could then function the same way as WordPress, Mastodon and email servers – wherein users of one server can interact with others.

When and how Threads achieves this plan for decentralized engagement – and how this might impact users’ experience – is unclear.

Did Meta steal ‘trade secrets’?

As for Musk, he’s not going down without a fight. Just hours after Threads’ release, Twitter’s lawyer Alex Spiro released a letter accusing Meta of “systematic” and “unlawful misappropriation” of trade secrets.

The letter alleges former Twitter employees hired by Meta were “deliberately assigned” to “develop, in a matter of months, Meta’s copycat ‘Threads’ app.” Meta has disputed these claims, according to reports, but the rivalry between the two companies seems far from over.

Lisa M Given is Professor of Information Sciences & Director, Social Change Enabling Impact Platform, RMIT University

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

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