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WhatsApp co-founder urges people to delete Facebook

He added the hashtag #DeleteFacebook.
Credit: GABRIEL BOUYS/AFP/Getty Images
The Facebook and WhatsApp applications' icons are displayed on a smartphone on February 20, 2014 in Rome.

Brian Acton, co-founder of WhatsApp, which Facebook bought for $16 billion, on Tuesday urged people to delete their accounts on the giant social network.

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

The remark 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 Donald Trump win the White House.

The news broke over the weekend and has ignited a full-blown crisis, with U.S. and European lawmakers demanding hearings and investigations underway by the Federal Trade Commission and two state attorneys general.

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