WhatsApp Co-Founder Tells Everyone To Delete Facebook, Further Fueling the #DeleteFacebook Movement (theverge.com)

"In 2014, Facebook bought WhatsApp for $16 billion, making its co-founders -- Jan Koum and Brian Acton -- very wealthy men," reports The Verge. "Koum continues to lead the company, but Acton quit earlier this year to start his own foundation." Today, Acton told his followers on Twitter to delete Facebook. From the report: "It is time," Acton wrote, adding the hashtag #deletefacebook. Acton, who is worth $6.5 billion, did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Nor did Facebook and WhatsApp. It was unclear whether Acton's feelings about Facebook extend to his own app. But last month, Acton invested $50 million into Signal, an independent alternative to WhatsApp. The tweet came after a bruising five-day period for Facebook that has seen regulators swarm and its stock price plunge following concerns over data privacy in the wake of revelations about Cambridge Analytica's misuse of user data. Acton isn't the only one taking to Twitter to announce their breakup with Facebook. The #DeleteFacebook movement is gaining steam following the New York Times' report about how the data of 50 million users had been unknowingly leaked and purchased to aid President Trump's successful 2016 bid for the presidency. For many users, the news "highlighted the danger of Facebook housing the personal information of billions of users," reports SFGate. "And even before the Cambridge Analytica news, Facebook has been grappling with its waning popularity in the U.S. The company lost 1 million domestic users last quarter -- its first quarterly drop in daily users."

Comments

Facebook's business model?

[jbmartin6]

This is ridiculous:

the data of 50 million users had been unknowingly leaked and purchased to aid President Trump

Facebook's business is *knowingly* providing access to those data. The only reason Cambridge Analytica was dinged was because Facebook didn't get their cut.

Re:Facebook's business model?

[nine-times]

Well it's not quite that simple. Whether it's because of explicit terms of service or it's users making assumptions, people had some expectations of how the data that they'd given to Facebook would be shared. Cambridge Analytica "got dinged" because they mislead people by claiming they were performing academic research and because they violated Facebook's terms of service.

Also because their behavior was unethical and disturbing in any case. It doesn't help that they'd been approached by Putin's stooges to influence American elections, and then went to work on the Trump campaign, thereby creating yet another suspicious tie between Trump and Putin.

Re:Facebook's business model?

[Zocalo]

Allegedly, in addition to misusing the data Facebook had knowingly provided (albeit under false pretenses of academic research), Cambridge Analytica also went above and beyond the accepted methods of acquiring the profile data using techniques that are skating a thin line between whether they are actually legal or not. Facebook was quite right to ding them. Political partisanship aide (yes, Obama did it too, and FWIW I found that usage rather disturbing as well, although the techniques used now seem to be on a whole other level), it's absolutely unethical and if not squashed now then you can bet that $party_you_dont_approve_of will using it come the next election.

Psychologically, that angle is also rather interesting - people don't like admitting they were scammed / maniupulated, and often get overly defensive as a method of coping with the subconcious knowledge that it has probably happened to them - it's one of the classic stages of acceptance. The reality is that advertisers, politicians, and other shills do this to us Every. Single. Day. and if you step back from the political partisanship it's pretty clear that a lot of voters on all sides got manipulated and had their well-targetted buttons pushed in the US election, the Brexit referendum, and several other elections Cambridge Analytica was supposedly involved in. Do we *really* want to leave that tool in their box unchecked, and continuing to become more and more effective?

So:

[ledow]

So:

"We sold you all out to them years ago, including all your data, for money to become billionaires. Now we are telling you that you shouldn't ever give them your data and should delete your account with them immediately."

Tell me a) why I should listen to you, b) how you think this makes you the hero?

Re:The only way to actually "delete Facebook" is..

[Spamalope]

Yes! Poisoning the database is the best way.

Won't someone make a plugin that peer to peer shares your advertising stalking cookies to randomize them? It'd be tougher for them to filter out genuine cookies to keep the poison out. For bonus points report that it's being done 6 months to a year later. Later publicly ask whether they're disclosing this or get quotes for an ad buy to see.