Call it a case of biting the hand that fed you. Call it a case of having so much money you can say whatever you want. Whatever the case may be, a former official with high-level ties to Facebook has come out and slammed what the social network has become.
But this time, the person is telling everyone just to dump Facebook entirely.
Brian Acton, one of the two founders of WhatsApp, the company behind the popular messaging app of the same name, took to Twitter late Tuesday with a simple message: Delete Facebook.
It is time. #deletefacebook
— Brian Acton (@brianacton) March 20, 2018
In 2014, Acton, and WhatsApp’s other founder, Jan Koum, sold their company to Facebook for $16 billion. To put that figure in some perspective, Facebook paid “only” $1 billion for Instagram back in 2012.
Why would Acton take a swipe against the company that made him a very rich man? Well, for starters, Acton no longer has a role with Facebook or What’sApp, so he might just have nothing to lose. He left the company earlier this year to start a foundation, and last month, Acton invested $50 million in a company called Signal, which purports to be a messaging alternative to WhatsApp.
Acton’s call to action came on the heels of the Cambridge Analytica scandal, in which the U.K.-based analytics firm allegedly misused the data of 50 million Facebook users starting in 2014. Cambridge Analytica provided analytic data to the presidential campaign of Donald Trump in 2016, but denies that any of the Facebook data was used in connection with Trump’s campaign. However, Cambridge Analytica is alleged to have planted fake news items in front of Facebook users throughout the 2016 presidential race.
The Cambridge Analytica matter is proving to be the biggest test Facebook and Chief Executive Mark Zuckerberg have ever faced. The situation has resulted in legislators calling upon Zuckerberg to appear before Congress and give details on how Facebook uses information about its users. Investors have also bailed on Facebook this week, sending the company’s share price down by 9.5 percent since Monday, to around $167.
