WhatsApp co-founder tells everyone to delete Facebook

[CyberTech]

Facebook bought his app for $16 billion

Photo by Amelia Holowaty Krales / The Verge
In 2014, Facebook bought WhatsApp for $16 billion, making its co-founders — Jan Koum and Brian Acton — very wealthy men. Koum continues to lead the company, but Acton quit earlier this year to start his own foundation. And he isn’t done merely with WhatsApp — in a post on Twitter today, Acton told his followers to delete Facebook.

“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 is not the first former Facebook executive to express unease about the company after leaving it. Last year, former head of growth Chamath Palihapitiya caused a firestorm after saying “we have created tools that are ripping apart the social fabric of how society works.” Other former executives to express regrets include Sean Parker, Justin Rosenstein, and investor Roger McNamee.

Developing ...​

 

[DavidLMO]

Never used WhatsApp - don't know what it is.

FB alternative

Minds

 

[LorSafari]

If you can't get an insight into someone's behavior or words, then watch how money flows. Money could give you a hint.

 

[Aleeyen]

Whenever any one uses a third-party tool to communicate there is always a risk of lot of info flowing to some third person. Unless you are whispering into someones ear you always run the risk to be tapped.

 

[DarkLense]

If someone who is the head of the company says that I can only imagine what has been created and developed. I think its gone in completely bad direction. Great post.

 

[Prorootect]

Super!
Never use Facebook, WhatsApp, Signal, Minds...

Stop Bad Habits.jpg

 

[vertigo]

Super!
Never use Facebook, WhatsApp, Signal, Minds...View attachment 182845Stop Bad Habits.jpg

What do you have against Signal? I use FB as little as possible, uninstalled WhatsApp within an hour or so of installing it long ago due to its invasiveness, and don't know anything about Minds, but Signal is open-source and extremely secure and private and is arguably the best solution for private communication.

 

[Prorootect]

Sure, no problem, but I don't use them, that's all.
For private communication I use Conversations MT feature, if not I communicate privately preferably with people alive, in front of me...or by phone.

 

[Azure]

What do you have against Signal? I use FB as little as possible, uninstalled WhatsApp within an hour or so of installing it long ago due to its invasiveness, and don't know anything about Minds, but Signal is open-source and extremely secure and private and is arguably the best solution for private communication.

What whatsapp invasiveness?

Sure, no problem, but I don't use them, that's all.
For private communication I use Conversations MT feature, if not I communicate privately preferably with people alive, in front of me...or by phone.

How would you know if your friend's phone hasn't been compromised?

 

[vertigo]

What whatsapp invasiveness?


How would you know if your friend's phone hasn't been compromised?

It's been a while, so I may not be remembering completely accurately, but I'm pretty sure it was more or less that I HAD to give it access to my contacts for it to work, there was no choice in the matter. Especially considering it was/is a Facebook-owned app, I really didn't want to give them that much more info about me, which could then all be cross-referenced as well. No thanks. I think there was more but, again, too long ago to remember.

And their phone doesn't have to be compromised. A standard phone call can be listened in on by the carrier, the government, and/or hackers. Granted, most conversations it doesn't really matter, and I don't worry about it, but given the choice, I'll take an encrypted communication channel over a non-encrypted one any day.

 

[DavidLMO]

Minds.com is ok. Been using it for a couple of months.

ALL phones in the US are compromised. Every last one by NSA. Just be careful using certain words! As is pretty much everything you do on the Net.
And Google, M$, ISPs et cetera ALL are in the NSA pockets.

 

[vertigo]

ALL phones in the US are compromised. Every last one by NSA. Just be careful using certain words! As is pretty much everything you do on the Net.
And Google, M$, ISPs et cetera ALL are in the NSA pockets.

While I don't doubt the possibility of this, or their desire to do this, I do question the logistical reality of it. As big as their budget is, it would cost a lot for them to embed a specialized hardware chip in all phones, not to mention requiring them to intercept all phones in transit from manufacturer to consumer, which seems very unlikely. Another option would be for them to force manufacturers, under gag orders, to do it themselves but, again, that seems unlikely. And if it's software-based, that drastically reduces the cost, but then it also reduces their capabilities, and they would still have to either intercept all phones or have the manufacturers do it. I just have a hard time believing this is happening. Then again, it wouldn't really surprise me if we were to learn they've been doing it after all. In the end, there's not much we can do to protect our privacy from the NSA, but we can (and IMO, should) take steps to make things harder for them and to make it known to them, and others, that we don't approve of it. And we can certainly take steps to protect our privacy from corporations. While I don't want the NSA knowing everything I say and do, and it bothers me from a philosophical and political standpoint, what really bothers me is my ISP and companies like Google, Facebook, etc knowing everything about me and everything I say and do. Not only for the sake of not wanting them invading my privacy, but to protect me when (not if) they get hacked or otherwise lose control of their data.

 

[vtqhtr413]

we have created tools that are ripping apart the social fabric of how society works This is the worst thing, forget politics and personal data, this guy didn't mention them. He was probably having trouble sleeping at night due to exactly what he said there.

LorSafari said If you can't get an insight into someone's behavior or words, then watch how money flows. Money could give you a hint.

The guardian is a for profit news business.

This is the guy that got all this going, I don't know his angle, maybe revenge, knew the truth was about to come out and wanted to be on the right side of it or maybe he saw the light and couldn't sleep either.



Published on Mar 17, 2018
Christopher Wylie, who worked for data firm Cambridge Analytica, reveals how personal information was taken without authorisation in early 2014 to build a system that could profile individual US voters in order to target them with personalised political advertisements. At the time the company was owned by the hedge fund billionaire Robert Mercer, and headed at the time by Donald Trump’s key adviser, Steve Bannon. Its CEO is Alexander Nix

 

[DavidLMO]

NSA does not need to install chips. Confer Snowden and Wikileaks. And check out their new digs.

 

[vertigo]

NSA does not need to install chips. Confer Snowden and Wikileaks. And check out their new digs.

Right, they just hack them. But they're not going to expend the resources and manpower to hack every phone, only those of interest to them. So the likelihood of my phone being compromised by them is miniscule at best. Or at least it was before this thread... In any event, I don't have a webcam or leave a mic or headphones/headset plugged into my computer for a reason; similarly, I don't trust Echo, Google Home, etc. At least with a portable device like a phone if it were recording and transmitting voice or data that would theoretically be noticed by packet sniffers and battery drain, unless they have some serious techno-wizardry going on.

 

[DavidLMO]

Well yeah they do have some serious techno-wizardry going on.

 

[Aleeyen]

Putting anything in the internet and then deleting it doesn't guarantee that the info really gets deleted. Some body could easily copy the data and store it somewhere else without any one knowing it. So, deleting FB is really useless, the more important thing is not to put any sensitive info in it.

 

[Prorootect]

What whatsapp invasiveness?


How would you know if your friend's phone hasn't been compromised?

"How would you know if your friend's phone hasn't been compromised?"
- Yes I don't know... but I never asked myself about this, why?

vertigo wrote what I think too:
"A standard phone call can be listened in on by the carrier, the government, and/or hackers. Granted, most conversations it doesn't really matter, and I don't worry about it"

- by the government...is good, it's against terrorists and criminals, so for our good, our sake.

 

[Prorootect]

Putting anything in the internet and then deleting it doesn't guarantee that the info really gets deleted. Some body could easily copy the data and store it somewhere else without any one knowing it. So, deleting FB is really useless, the more important thing is not to put any sensitive info in it.

...deleting FB is really good, but more important thing is not to put any sensitive info in it.
It's what I think.

 

[vtqhtr413]

In the United States even our government cannot listen in on a phone just because they feel like it. I think these things have to be resaid now and then or the youth may begin to believe the paranoid.