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

Well...

[burtosis]

It's never to late to act sensibly.

#idontwantsocialmedia

[Errol backfiring]

I have a new tag: #idontwantsocialmedia. Now I am going to post this tag everywhere!

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?

[_Sharp'r_]

purchased to aid President Trump's successful 2016 bid for the presidency

This is somewhat easy to misconstrue. Most people will take that as the data was used in the general election, when according to this story:

“In late September 2016, Cambridge and other data vendors were submitting bids to the Trump campaign. Then-candidate Trump’s campaign used Cambridge Analytica during the primaries and in the summer because it was never certain the Republican National Committee would be a willing, cooperative partner. Cambridge Analytica instead was a hedge against the RNC, in case it wouldn’t share its data.

The crucial decision was made in late September or early October when Mr. Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner and Brad Parscale, Mr. Trump’s digital guru on the 2016 campaign, decided to utilize just the RNC data for the general election and used nothing from that point from Cambridge Analytica or any other data vendor. The Trump campaign had tested the RNC data, and it proved to be vastly more accurate than Cambridge Analytica’s, and when it was clear the RNC would be a willing partner, Mr. Trump’s campaign was able to rely solely on the RNC. “

Re:Facebook's business model?

[_Sharp'r_]

Missing link from above.

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?

Re:Facebook's business model?

[syn3rg]

I think he was referring to the reactions over who used the data, not that is was used:
A former [Obama] campaign director, Carol Davidsen, tweeted that "Facebook was surprised we were able to suck out the whole social graph, but they didn't stop us once they realized that was what we were doing."

Forbes has a better analysis

[Anonymous Coward]

https://www.forbes.com/sites/kalevleetaru/2018/03/19/the-problem-isnt-cambridge-analytica-its-facebook/#385336e658a5

The problem isn't Cambridge Analytics. Obama's campaign was much worse about digital snooping. (Getting DVR viewing history? Seriously?)

But neither of them has abused their power nearly as much as has Facebook internally. The part about FB researching depressed early teen Australians for advertising purposes is probably just one of many extreme examples.

Time for FB / Google / Amazon to be broken up using the old trust busting laws.

What about the other side doing the same?

[RabidDawg]

https://www.investors.com/poli...

Facebook-free

[DaMattster]

I deleted my Facebook account back in the beginning of November 2017. I am now 120 days free from the bullshit! There is no way I will ever go back. I hope more people join the movement to delete Facebook and lead richer, fuller lives.

Re:Facebook-free

[monkeyxpress]

Since about 2-3 years ago I stopped using Facebook for personal stuff and now just post carefully curated things on it. I basically treat it as a public profile, so that if recruiters/customers etc go snooping for me they can have a look at some photos of my dog and see that I go on holiday every now and again. Pretty much like another linked-in.

Most other people I know do the same. We've moved family and friend groups to other networks, or just use email.

Does anyone actually share their life honestly on Facebook anymore? I don't even get many original posts from 'friends' now as my feed is always clogged up with adverts and viral videos. Personally I think the whole platform has jumped the shark, but will survive because lazy HR directors want to review job candidate's social media accounts instead of doing proper interviews.

Re:Facebook-free

[jellomizer]

I never bother deleting it. You can also just stop using it.

The biggest problem with Facebook, is the attempt to try to show that your life is a success, while others are doing the same thing. So you just kinda see things from peoples good day. I got promoted today! (While they are still underpaid for their skills). Look at my new apartment! (because I got evicted from the old one). Look at my New Car! (The last one was in a wreck). Look at my world travels (You are in the military, on shore leave and about to be redeployed or you job is throwing you across the world and that picture is the only site seeing you are doing before locking yourself in an office for the rest of the day)

That and you see a combined posting of hundreds of people at least one of them is having a good day, so you feel like your few good days a year is somehow worse then others.

In many ways Facebook has stopped us from growing up, we are reminded on a daily bases of all your inadequacies of your childhood.

Re:Facebook-free

[Dr. Evil]

Trouble with deleting your profile is that somebody can trivially impersonate you by creating a new profile in your name.

Your shadow profile still exists too... everyone who has you in their contacts likely uploaded your phone number, email and possibly home address, your face is in people’s photos, the exif data puts you at specific places at specific times, etc.

All your old measages still exist in the profiles of the people you communicated with. Your social media footprint is still in their database.

Better to keep the profile and lose your login.

Deleting Facebook....

[Anonymous Coward]

WhatsApp Co-Founder Tells Everyone To Delete Facebook

Friend of mine proudly told me one day that he deleted Facebook, but to my great disappointment, the next day I was still able to ping it.

I hope someone manages it though.

We know that already

[hcs_$reboot]

But people who know they should #delete FB don't have FB in the first place.

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?

Yes, Signal is open source.

[Futurepower(R)]

Yes, Signal is open source:

"Free for everyone. Signal is made for you. As an Open Source project supported by grants and donations, Signal can put users first. There are no ads, no affiliate marketers, no creepy tracking. Just open technology for a fast, simple, and secure messaging experience. The way it should be."

Works with Android, iPhone, Linux, and Windows.

"Stay private. Signal messages and calls are always end-to-end encrypted and painstakingly engineered to keep your communication safe. We can't read your messages or see your calls, and no one else can either."

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.

Another company ruined by Trump...

[mi]

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

See, how Trump destroyed the innocent company? In 2012 Obama's campaign did the same thing with Facebook data about millions of users, and it was all fine — a testament to Obama's genius, in fact.

Had Hillary won, Facebook would've been just peachy as well. Damn Trump!! #Impeach!!