As crisis deepens at Facebook, co-founder of popular messaging app WhatsApp thinks "it is time" to delete the popular social media platform. Following reports of the massive data theft from Facebook, Brian Acton, who quit WhatsApp early this year, took to Twitter to post his brief but clear message. "It is time. #deletefacebook," he wrote.
It is time. #deletefacebook
— Brian Acton (@brianacton) March 20, 2018
Notably, Acton and his co-founder Jan Koum had sold WhatsApp to Facebook for a whopping $19 billion in 2014. While Koum is still heading WhatsApp, Acton had moved on to start his own foundation.
Acton's message comes in the wake of the data theft in which more than 50 million users' personal profiles from Facebook were harvested by UK-based data firm Cambridge Analytica. It has been alleged that the data firm used this to influence and sway voting patterns in favour of US President Donald Trump during his presidential campaign back in 2016.
The allegations, which led to the Mark Zuckerberg-owned company's value tumble by $60 billion of its stock market value in just two days, has paved way for a massive #deleteFacebook campaign in the West.
Facebook, on the other hand, has stated that it was not aware that a third party app developed by Cambridge Analytica was harvesting data from its users. However, Facebook has been summoned by federal agencies from both the US and the UK for an explanation to the whole episode.