Facebook executive calls WhatsApp co-founder 'low-class'

Denying WhatsApp co-founder Brian Acton`s claims that Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg tried to undermine the instant messaging app`s encryption technology, a top Facebook executive called Acton "low-class". Acton started WhatsApp with Jan Koum. Facebook acquired the messaging service about four years ago for $22 billion. Acton quit Facebook a year ago, and Koum too left the company in April. 

In an interview with Forbes, published on Wednesday, Acton alleged that Zuckerberg was in a rush to make money from the messaging service and undermine elements of its encryption technology, CNBC reported. Slamming Acton for his allegations, Facebook`s David Marcus, who ran Facebook`s messaging products before starting the blockchain group earlier this year, said that the global roll-out of end-to-end encryption on WhatsApp happened after the acquisition, and with Zuckerberg`s full support. 

"Yes, Jan Koum played a key role in convincing Mark of the importance of encryption, but from that point on, it was never questioned," Marcus wrote in a Facebook post, expressing his "personal views". "Mark`s view was that WhatsApp was a private messaging app, and encryption helped ensure that people`s messages were truly private," he added.

Speaking on the business model, Marcus said that Zuckerberg protected WhatsApp for a very long period of time. Acton, according to Marcus, actively slow-played the execution of a paid messaging service. "... while advocating for business messaging, and being given the opportunity to build and deliver on that promise, Brian actively slow-played the execution, and never truly went for it," Marcus wrote. 

"Lastly -- call me old fashioned. But I find attacking the people and company that made you a billionaire, and went to an unprecedented extent to shield and accommodate you for years, low-class," he said. "It`s actually a whole new standard of low-class."

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Facebook got another jolt this week when Instagram founders Mike Krieger and Kevin Systrom quit the company late on Monday. Founded in 2010, Instagram was bought by Facebook for $1 billion in 2012.