One of the former bosses of WhatsApp, Neeraj Arora, who previously served as Chief Business Officer of WhatsApp admitted that he deeply regretted his role in selling WhatsApp to Facebook in 2014.
"In 2014, I was WhatsApp's Chief Business Officer. And I helped negotiate a USD 22 billion sale to Facebook. Today, I regret it," Arora wrote in a thread he posted on Twitter, quoted from iMore.
Arora said that originally Facebook, which has now changed its name to Meta, offered a deal that looked like a partnership, including a promise to continue to support full end-to-end encryption, without ads forever, full independence in product decisions, have their own offices, and more again.
He said that WhatsApp expressed a very clear stance on the lack of user data mining, no advertising, and no cross -platform tracking. At that time Facebook seemed to agree to follow the rules of WhatsApp. "We think they believe in our mission," he added.
But when WhatsApp finally officially became Facebook's, that's not what happened. Mentioned Arora, Facebook did not keep its promise. The revelation of the Cambridge Analytica scandal, which shocked the world, opened the eyes of user data mining practices and involved a large amount of money from corporations. Because of this issue, WhatsApp founder Brian Acton at the time chanted the hashtag #deletefacebook which shook the world of social media.
According to Arora, WhatsApp is currently the second largest platform after Facebook, even bigger than Instagram or Facebook Messenger. But WhatsApp is treated as if it is just a shadow of a product developed by the old team.
Although Arora's view is a bit bleak about the state of WhatsApp, this instant messaging app remains one of the best iPhone apps for communication on devices like the iPhone 12 and iPhone 13 thanks to strong cross -platform integration, and the app is free.