Facebook's David Marcus responds to Brian Acton's interview, calls him '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 27 September, **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. [caption id=“attachment_5273631” align=“alignnone” width=“1280”] David Marcus. Image: Twitter/David Marcus[/caption] “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.” Facebook got another jolt this week when **Instagram founders Mike Krieger and Kevin Systrom quit the company** late on 24 September. Founded in 2010, **Instagram** was bought by Facebook for $1 billion in 2012.