Why does a major official regret selling WhatsApp to Facebook
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- BBC News World
Neeraj Arora helped broker the sale of WhatsApp to Facebook for about $22 billion in 2014.
Eight years later, this was confirmed by the Commercial Director of WhatsApp sorry to contribute to the sale.
“No one knew at first that Facebook would become a file Frankenstein’s monster That eat up user data and spit out dirty money. Arora wrote in a Twitter thread posted on May 4.
Today, WhatsApp is the second largest platform on Facebook (bigger than Instagram or FB Messenger) the shadow It’s the product we poured our hearts into and wanted to build for the world,” Arora said.
WhatsApp was founded by Jan Koum and Brian Acton in 2009, as an app that allowed this international contacts Arora is remembered among users who pay $1 to download it.
“For people (like me) who have relatives in many countries, WhatsApp has been a medium stay connectedWithout paying SMS or long distance call charges.
When negotiations began, Facebook agreed to certain unchangeable terms for the founders of WhatsApp: not to use user information for data mining, not to publish Ads Arora explained that, or implement cross-platform tracking.
He pointed out that Facebook communicated with WhatsApp with “a an offer It seemed like a partnership, “based on” full end-to-end encryption support, no advertising, complete independence in product decisions, and a place on the board for Jan Koum. ”
However, “In 2017 and 2018, things started to look a lot better Different“, pointed out.
The former commercial director noted that in 2018, “details of the Facebook/Cambridge Analytica scandal surfaced,” and WhatsApp co-founder Brian Acton sent a shocking tweet. jacketsalsosphere from social networks.
“it’s time. #DeleteFacebookActon posted on his personal account in March 2018 to support the conviction against Facebook for allowing British consulting firm Cambridge Analytica to collect data from millions of the social network’s users without their consent and use it to design political propaganda.
“Tech companies have to admit when they are finished Something wrongArora has been added.
At the end of the thread, he said he’s not the only one to regret that WhatsApp has become part of Facebook.
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