Given the amount of personal information we post onto Facebook, it’s not surprising that the social media platform is a treasure trove of user data that could be used to sell to marketing companies, advertisers, researchers, and so on. In fact this is something that Facebook recently found themselves in hot water over regarding its data sharing practices.
So much so that WhatsApp co-founder Brian Acton has decided to join the #DeleteFacebook movement. Posting on Twitter, Acton wrote that “It’s time” to delete Facebook, which is interesting considering that Facebook actually owns WhatsApp in what was one of the biggest acquisitions of all time when Facebook acquired WhatsApp for $16 billion back in 2014.
It is time. #deletefacebook
— Brian Acton (@brianacton) March 20, 2018
However it should be noted that Acton had left WhatsApp in 2017 and formed his own nonprofit foundation and also invested a good $50 million into Signal, a messaging app designed to focus on user privacy and encryption. That being said, the #Delete movement has been known to cause quite a bit of damage to reputations in the past.
For example there was that time in the #DeleteUber campaign which saw 200,000 Uber accounts deleted, which in turn allowed Uber’s competitor Lyft to see an increase in app downloads. With regards to Facebook’s data collection practices, the company is expected to face a probe by the Federal Trade Commission, but exactly what will become of it remains to be seen.