Credit: Rita El Khoury / Android Authority
Opinion post by
Rita El Khoury
10 years ago to the day, Facebook announced that it was purchasing WhatsApp for $19.6 billion — that’s billion, with a B. The news rocked the online world for several reasons, not the least of which being Facebook’s iffy privacy and data handling reputation, plus its propensity to use ads anywhere, which contradicted with WhatsApp’s core principles and what everyone had loved about it so far.
The online media and communities weren’t clement about that purchase either, criticizing the sale, scrutinizing Facebook’s promises, and generally being pessimistic about WhatsApp’s future. As a WhatsApp user myself and a forced Facebook user (my friend created my profile before we graduated college so we could all keep in touch, and I barely used it), I felt conflicted by all of it. I wanted to move away from WhatsApp right then, but I also had all of my friends and family on it. Even some businesses too. I was sure not everyone would be as bothered as I was by the ownership transfer and, even if I could convince my close ones, I couldn’t convince an entire nation and culture.
