They're at it again! Twitter bosses slam Facebook for trying to 'dominate ...

Twitter's head of media made the claims in an interview with Fast Company She added that Twitter was better at creating a 'shared experience' The sites have been bitter rivals since Facebook tried to buy Twitter in 2008

By Daniel Bates

PUBLISHED: 11:02 EST, 8 October 2013 | UPDATED: 11:02 EST, 8 October 2013

Twitter bosses have reignited the war with Facebook by claiming that all it wants to do is 'dominate, destroy, break things'.

Chloe Sladden, Twitter's head of media, claimed Twitter was a plucky alternative to the social network because it was better at creating a 'shared experience'.

She also said Twitter had won the battle for the 'basic human need to connect' - even though Facebook has far more users.

FACEBOOK VERSUS TWITTER

Twitter and Facebook have bad blood which goes back to 2008 when Facebook tried to buy its rival for $500m but was turned down.

Relations went downhill further last April when Twitter tried to buy photo-sharing website Instagram but was beaten by Facebook which paid $1bn for it.

After that Instagram stopped a feature which allowed photos users had posted to appear in Twitter feeds.

Then, earlier this year, Facebook began using hashtags to group status updates in a direct assault on one of Twitter's most recognisable features.

In an interview with Fast Company, Sladden said: 'Five or six years ago, Silicon Valley was the creative disruptor.

'Facebook's approach is to dominate, destroy, break things. It was clear to me that wasn't us.'

Sladden added she was sure Twitter would retain its edge over Facebook because it was better at the 'humanities thing'.

She said: 'We've won the 'heart moment' in the shared experience, a basic human need to connect, whether it's something terrible like a bombing or something exhilarating, like a surprise reality show winner. And we are good at that.'

Among the other steps Facebook has taken to squeeze out Twitter is partnering with Yahoo on large media events.

Twitter, however, has recently updated its photo-editing software to add Instagram-style features such as filters and cropping, which earned it legions of fans.

Twitter is set to float on the stock market next month and will be worth about $20billion - even though it has yet to make a profit.

It also faces more of a challenge than Facebook - when Facebook went public in May 2012 it had 845 million users but Twitter has just 215 million. Twitter will also have just 13 per cent of the revenue that Facebook has.