I have over a hundred apps on my phone but, of all, there are two apps that I use the most and can’t seem to get enough of – WhatsApp and Facebook. My day starts with checking my WhatsApp messages and going through my Facebook feed over breakfast like a newspaper. Once I’m done with these, I move onto the other 98 apps on my phone. It was during one such scroll on Twitter when I saw this:
It is time. #deletefacebook
— Brian Acton (@brianacton) 20 March 2018
Shocked, aren’t you? Now let me remind you that:
1. Brian Acton is the co-founder of WhatsApp. He left WhatsApp earlier this year to start his own foundation.
2. Mark Zuckerberg, the co-founder and CEO at Facebook, bought WhatsApp from him for $16 billion in 2014 making him as rich as a Lannister.
But then why would Acton want us to delete Facebook? Let’s dig into that groundbreaking tweet, shall we?
The first thing you’ve to do to create an account on Facebook is enter a bunch of your personal details including your phone number. Facebook is often seen with a prompt message on our phones asking permission to access certain features other than information like contacts, location, photos, etc. Well, some of these permissions are scarier than they seem. According to reports, a data analysis company, Cambridge Analytica, accessed personal information and details of around 50 million users on Facebook without their permission.
There might be a lot of questions in your head right now such as – why are they accessing my personal data? What are they going to do with it? Is there any way I can stop this? And Mark Zuckerberg hasn’t made any public statement about the scandal as yet, attracting further criticism. But looks like our IT Minister, Ravi Shankar Prasad, has got our back. Here’s what he said in an interview earlier today:
“If Facebook is found to be involved in data breach of Indians, we will take very strict action against them including the summoning of Mark Zuckerberg to India,” Prasad told reporters. “Today, 20 crore Indians are on Facebook. If the data of the Indians is shared through Facebook, we have the stringent IT Act. We can even summon Facebook officials for data sharing,” Prasad added.
How do you plan to handle this huge violation – #DeleteFacebook or deal with it?
