As Silicon Valley experiences a wave of criticism, even some former colleagues are becoming adversaries.
Another prominent sceptic spoke out this week, as a creator of one of Facebook’s top products waded into criticism of the internet giant. Brian Acton, who co-founded WhatsApp with Jan Koum in 2009, became a billionaire when Facebook bought the company in 2014. Now he is telling people to “#deletefacebook.”
Following the recent scandal with Facebook's alleged indirect involvement in the US Elections of 2016, Acton has declared it’s time for people to leave Facebook.
“It is time. #deletefacebook” wrote Acton on Twitter. "Delete and forget. It's time to care about privacy," he added.
His company was bought by Facebook for $19 billion in 2014. The deal made him a billionaire.
Data mining and analytics firm Cambridge Analytica misused Facebook user data in violation of Facebook's guidelines and terms, leading to a continuing, huge scandal. The data played a huge role in influencing voters in the 2016 US Elections to favour then-candidate Donald Trump. The scandal has lead to a big drop in Facebook stock value in the past week.
It goes without saying that many in the tech community have turned their attention to Facebook and CEO Mark Zuckerberg's silence has been troubling. Some investors are even reportedly suing Facebook over the stock price drop.
The massive social platform appears to have lost control over user data, leading to a firestorm of red-hot #DeleteFacebook tweets.
The tag trended briefly on Twitter Tuesday as a response to the scandal over Facebook user information that wound up in the hands of political advertisers without users' consent. Another indication of momentum behind the sentiment is this Reddit post that's received 120,000 up-votes and over 7,000 comments in less than 24 hours.
Fewer people may see your latest exploits via Facebook today than would have yesterday thanks to #DeleteFacebook.
