WhatsApp co-founder asks users to delete Facebook amid public outrage over data misuse

News Network

March 21, 2018

San Francisco, Mar 21: Brian Acton, a co-founder of WhatsApp, which Facebook bought in 2014, on Tuesday (March 20) urged people to delete their accounts on the giant social network, USA Today reported.

"It's time," tweeted Acton, who quit Facebook earlier this year to start a foundation. He added the hashtag #DeleteFacebook.

WhatsApp declined to comment.

According to The Verge, it was unclear whether Acton's feelings about Facebook extend to his own app. But last month, Acton invested US$50 million (S$66 million) into Signal, an independent alternative to WhatsApp.

His latest comment comes amid growing public outrage over the misuse of the private information of tens of millions Facebook users by Cambridge Analytica, the firm that claimed it helped US President Donald Trump in the 2016 presidential election.

Shares of Facebook, Twitter and Snapchat owner Snap fell further on Tuesday as Wall Street fretted over potential regulatory scrutiny that could hobble the business of the social networks.

Facebook lost 2.6 per cent after it said it faced questions from the US Federal Trade Commission about how its users' personal data was mined by a political consultancy hired by Trump's campaign. Facebook shares had already tumbled 6.8 per cent on Monday.

Since revelations on Saturday that a political consulting firm had improperly obtained personal data on 50 million Facebook users, the world's largest social media company has lost US$60 billion of its stock market value.

In 2014, Facebook bought WhatsApp for US$16 billion from its co-founders Jan Koum and Acton. Koum continues to lead the company,

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", The Verge reported.

Other former executives to express regrets include Sean Parker, Justin Rosenstein, and investor Roger McNamee.

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20 Israeli soldiers killed in Gaza by resistance fighters: Hamas

News Network

November 12,2024

The Palestinian Hamas resistance movement says its fighters have killed at least 20 Israeli soldiers in northern parts of the besieged Gaza Strip in just two days, in retaliation for the occupying regime’s genocidal war on the Palestinian territory.

In a statement on Monday evening, Hamas said that fighters of its military wing, al-Qassam Brigades, “killed at least five occupation soldiers” in northern parts of the coastal territory earlier in the day.

It added that Hamas fighters also killed 15 Israeli soldiers in the war-ravaged region on Sunday.

The resistance movement’s “qualitative operation … confirms once again the failure of the criminal Zionist entity to suppress and eradicate the Palestinian resistance, which continues to direct qualitative strikes against its terrorist soldiers,” Hamas further said on its Telegram channel.

Palestinians have increased their resistance operations in the face of intensified Israeli aggression in northern Gaza that has claimed the lives of more than 1,000 over the past weeks.

“Our valiant resistance is waging a war of attrition with the criminal enemy, inflicting daily losses on its soldiers and vehicles, and all of [Israeli prime minister Benjamin] Netanyahu’s bets and dreams of achieving any of his goals are failing,” the Gaza-based resistance movement added.

Hamas also vowed that Israel’s ongoing crimes and aggression against Gaza would be met with increased resistance and painful strikes, which will continue until the aggression against Palestinians ends and the regime fully withdraws from the blockaded territory.

As the war in Gaza enters its 14th month, the Health Ministry reports that Israeli attacks have killed at least 43,603 Palestinians and wounded 102,929 others.

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