Old Zuckerberg Chat Resurfaces Amid Meta's WhatsApp Privacy Lawsuit, Drawing Telegram Founder's Ire
In a move that reignites long-standing debates over user privacy and corporate trust, Telegram founder Pavel Durov has publicly shared a 2004 instant message conversation attributed to a teenage Mark Zuckerberg. The resurfaced chat, in which Zuckerberg appears to mock early Facebook users for trusting him with their data, was posted by Durov as Meta faces a fresh lawsuit over WhatsApp's privacy practices.
The lawsuit, filed in U.S. District Court in San Francisco by an international group of plaintiffs, alleges that Meta misled users by marketing WhatsApp as fully end-to-end encrypted while maintaining the ability to store, analyze, or access large volumes of user communications. Meta has dismissed the case as "frivolous," reiterating that WhatsApp's encryption prevents the company from reading private messages.
Durov, commenting on the nearly two-decade-old chat, argued that the core issue remains unchanged—only the scale has grown. "The only thing that's different today is the number of people involved," he stated, suggesting Meta now benefits from the trust of billions rather than thousands.
The controversy gained additional momentum after Elon Musk publicly labeled WhatsApp "not secure," a claim swiftly rebutted by WhatsApp head Will Cathcart. Cathcart emphasized that encryption keys are stored on users' devices, inaccessible to the company.
This legal and public relations challenge for Meta arrives amid heightened scrutiny of tech giants' data practices. Zuckerberg has previously expressed regret over the 2004 messages, telling The New Yorker in 2010 that he should not be defined by remarks made at age 19.
Meta did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Durov's latest post.
User Perspectives
David Chen, Tech Policy Analyst: "This lawsuit touches on the fundamental tension between marketing promises and technical reality. Even with end-to-end encryption, metadata and backup practices can create privacy gray areas that users often don't understand."
Marcus Johnson, Small Business Owner: "As someone who switched my team to Signal last year, this doesn't surprise me. There's a pattern. We're told a service is private, then we learn about loopholes or exceptions. It erodes trust across the entire sector."
Rebecca Shaw, Digital Rights Advocate: "It's exhausting. We have a CEO's juvenile comments from 2004 being used to question a global platform's current security, while a serious lawsuit gets drowned in noise. Both matter, but the focus should be on the present legal allegations and technical audits, not ancient chats."
Alex Rivera, Software Developer (sharply): "The hypocrisy is staggering. Zuckerberg called users 'dumb' for trusting him, and now his company runs the world's largest messaging platform on that very trust. Durov is right to call it out. This isn't about a teenage mistake; it's about a proven track record of treating user data as a commodity to be managed, not a right to be protected."