The drama surrounding Facebook is back and WhatsApp co-founder Brian Acton is once again at the centre of it. In one of his rare public appearances, Acton while defending his stand to sell his social messaging platform to Facebook, asked the students of Stanford University to 'Delete Facebook'. "You go back to this Silicon Valley culture and people say, 'Well, could you have not sold?' and the answer is no," he said as reported by the BuzzFeed News. Acton explained that he had to think about 50 employees and his investors as well. 

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"I had 50 employees, and I had to think about them and the money they would make from this sale. I had to think about our investors and I had to think about my minority stake. I didn't have the full clout to say no if I wanted to," he added explaining his decision.

The statements came while Acton was speaking at Computer Science 181, an undergraduate class at the Stanford University that focuses on the impact and the ethical responsibilities of the tech companies. The 47-year-old explained why he decided to sell WhatsApp for $19 billion to Facebook. 

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This isn't the first time when he has asked people to delete Facebook. He had raised a similar voice last year when the Cambridge Analytica scandal broke out. "It is time. #deletefacebook," he had tweeted. Later in September 2018, he had opened up about this in an interview with Forbes. "I sold my users' privacy to a larger benefit. I made a choice and a compromise. And I live with that every day," Acton told the magazine. 

In his recent conversation at Stanford, Action also talked about how giants like Apple and Google have struggled to moderate their content. "Apple struggles to decide what's a good app and what's a bad app. Google struggles with what's a good website and what's a bad website. These companies are not equipped to make these decisions. And we give them the power," he said.