
How to permanently delete a Facebook account - chemcoder
http://www.facebook.com/help/224562897555674
======
skrebbel
To all the skeptics in threads like these: asking that Facebook actually,
entirely, erase all your data isn't a reasonable demand.

Unless, if course, you're also OK with Facebook's walled-garden, Facebook-is-
the-Internet, Compuserve-wasn't-so-bad strategy.

Anyone who ever tried to delete content from the internet knows this: The
Internet Archive has long since made a copy of what you're trying to delete.
Anything you post on the internet, the real, open internet, is forever.

If you don't want that, then you'll need to accept that a single entity has
full control over what happens with your content, locks it behind a log in so
that it can't be easily mined, and does with it what it pleases.

I'm not willing to accept that. I'd rather that my content belongs to
everybody than that it belongs to Facebook. But you can't have it both ways.

~~~
kryten
It's perfectly possible and reasonable to delete all of your data.

It's just hard.

We have to do this with our clients if they shift off our platform and believe
me, it's not much fun deleting 20-100Gb datasets from a shared database with
over 2000 tables in it on production kit.

But we do it, because we are honest.

Facebook are dishonest. Simple as.

~~~
skrebbel
Hmm, I'm not sure what you mean by "our platform", but if I post a youtube
video, it gets popular, but I get ashamed of it and decide to delete it again,
the video will have spread far and wide to other video sites again.

Some for public web pages and the internet archive, for stackoverflow
answers/wikipedia entries and SEO rats, and so on.

How is "your platform" going to help me delete my embarrassing drunk student
video from the internet's video sites?

The only way "your platform" can do this, is by actively working to block
public access to that video in the first place. Then you can have fun (or not)
deleting those 20-100Gb datasets. My point is that that means accepting that
you're posting stuff to a walled garden.

~~~
dave5104
It sounds like his platform is perhaps a private enterprise platform? In other
words, it doesn't sound like Facebook or Youtube where information can easily
spread, which is probably a prerequisite for having control over your data.

The company I work for deals with background checks and screening information
on behalf of our clients' clients. I could definitely see us safely removing
all of that personal information from our system and not being able to recover
it. But at the same time, we're a much much much smaller organization compared
to Facebook.

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rlu
At least I have the option to delete my FB account. On the other hand, Google
has lately been aggressively pushing me to convert my YouTube account into a
G+ account. Once this is actually forced upon me, is there any way to 'delete'
my Google+ account without deleting my YouTube one?

~~~
martinml
It seems so:
[https://plus.google.com/u/0/downgrade/](https://plus.google.com/u/0/downgrade/)

~~~
officemonkey
Thank you. I never use Google+ and I was so irritated by their youtube
migration attempts recently that I didn't look back.

~~~
martinml
That's weird. I got asked _once_ if I wanted to migrate my YouTube account to
G+, I said no, and never got asked again.

~~~
ajanuary
I've seen stories both from people who continually got pestered (like myself)
and from people who didn't (such as yourself). I dunno why though.

~~~
raspo
I get all those messages too. I think it's because I'm using an old youtube
account that I later connected to the google one.

~~~
officemonkey
That's what happened to me too.

------
sgrenfro
I work on this at Facebook and we do permanently delete your content when you
delete your account. It's an interesting distributed systems problem, and
we're happy with the framework we've developed for this. We're working on a
blog post with more details and hope to publish that soon.

Also, I mentioned why account deletion is a non-trivial problem in this
comment thread last week:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5976947](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5976947).

~~~
dredmorbius
Just to vouch, though not in Facebook's case, it _is_ complicated.

Many sites use a CDN (Akamai, Limelight, Amazon's Cloudfront, etc.). The whole
idea of a CDN is that it distributes content. Even if the origin goes away
(your copy), the CDN may continue serving it for a long time. If someone has a
specific item URL within that network, they can still access it. Working with
CDN APIs to delete content (especially if, say, that content has various
instances based on sizes, previews, etc.,) can be ... interesting.

And if third parties are presenting your content, they might also persist it,
say as a Google preview or cache, or Archive.org, or other tools.

Even within your own systems, data can be replicated in ways which are
difficult to access fully. Backups can exist which cannot be easily accessed
for wiping. There are war stories of magically re-appearing data resulting
from data recovery operations.

So, while it's possible to flag content as "don't present" pretty easily,
actually rooting all of it out thoroughly can be a much more involved task.

Un-seeing is difficult.

~~~
webvictim
Facebook uses CDNs; how is it not complicated in the way you describe for them
too?

~~~
dredmorbius
I phrased that poorly: I'm vouching for the general case, not for Facebook
specifically. I've not worked for them or on their systems.

------
brudgers
Saved to favorites - Right next to Lucy's Instructions for kicking a football.

So I visited my Linkedin profile earlier this week. They had automagically
added a long disconnected telephone number to my profile - as in disconnected
for over five years. I suspect it came either from extended internet data
mining or more likely an obsolete contact in some acquaintance's uploaded
address book.

A Facebook profile is mostly a Collection of Pointers. Deleting the pointer
doesn't delete the values at the other end. Until garbage collection, they
will persist. In other words, unless my friends and family and groups to whom
I have sent information delete their accounts, data about me will persist.

Accounts are not zombies. They are vampires, never having died in the first
place.

------
codesuela
pretty sure this is not a real full delete. Probably just switches around the
profile_status field:

0 - visible/default/active

1 - deactivated

2 - it is gone, really! I swear! _crosses fingers_

3 - suspended for tos abuse (we don't like you but your data might be valuable
at some point)

edit: also to be fair:

4 - memorial mode

~~~
Peroni
Coincidentally, Adam Hupp from FB spoke at HN London last night and he made a
comment that when you permanently delete your facebook account, they do
actually wipe all the data stored on you. In Europe at least, there are
significant due diligence processes that they are legally required to follow
in this regard.

~~~
codesuela
I have zero trust in Facebook and probably would not even believe them if Mark
swore on his mother that they perform a proper wipe of your private data.

With that in mind you shouldn't have a hard time understanding why it sounds
to me as if they delete all copies on servers in the EU but US mirrors of your
profile remain untouched. How else could their algorithm deduct that your
ladyfriend used to be a man without analyzing old conversations from deleted
profiles. Could you live in a world where facebook sells birth controll pills
to former biological males.

Ok I admit it's a hyperbole/edge case but I know that you know what I mean ;)

~~~
rwmj
You can be pretty certain the NSA's copy isn't wiped.

------
alan_cx
In the UK there are laws requiring businesses to retain certain data for
several years, so that the authorities can get at it if they need it for
evidence in the future. Yeah, I know...

So, is facebook bound by the same sort of laws? If not in the US, what about
the UK and other counties? Are there different policies per country, or does
FB only do what US law says, if it says anything at all.

If they are bound by such laws, then we cant really blame FB for keeping the
data. They may have no choice. Also, by then, the likes of the NSA/GCHQ could
already have a copy of such data.

I went through this delete procedure a while ago. I don't know how I try to
find out if my data was deleted or not. No way do I want to try to login as I
am worried it will reactivate my account and data. So, I'm just left with some
one's say so.

I wonder if in the UK a freedom of information act application would reveal
it?

Added: How do you even contact facebook? Looked at their site and I see
nothing. Of course in order to ask on a FB forum you need to sign up. Is there
a simple email address?

------
dangerlibrary
I deleted my Facebook account a few years ago through this process. I was very
careful not to log back in, and when I tried a few months later I was rejected
- no account linked with that email address.

Six months later I signed up with a different email address, and Facebook
forced me to confirm my account with my phone number. Javascript Error - that
phone number is associated with another Facebook account. I click OK, and I'm
redirected to my "new" account with all my old Facebook friends (on the
opposite side of the country) showing up as "people I may know."

Nothing is deleted from Facebook, ever.

~~~
temp453463343
The other possibility is that it's people that have looked up your name on
Facebook before you had an account. So HQ logged it as X wanting to find Y.
When Y makes an account, we'll let him know X was trying to find them.

------
djweber
Careful - if you even attempt to log in during the two week window, they will
reset the timer for deletion (it can be easy to almost unconsciously log in if
you're a heavy user). They even do it before you confirm or deny that you're
reactivating your account. Seems like one of those psychological games: "come
on, do you _really_ want to leave? Now you have to wait even longer for your
account to be deleted! Just come back to the fold!"

------
ErikAugust
UPDATE user_perception SET deleted = 1 WHERE user_id = ?;

------
normalocity
In terms of privacy I see two categories of data on a network: (1) data that
leaked/has been copied to other people and (2) data that hasn't yet leaked.

The thing is you can never know with certainly when a piece of data has
changed from "not leaked" to "leaked", so effectively you have to act as if
all data is leaked in all circumstances as soon as you put it on the network.

------
chemcoder
FYI it takes 14 days to permanently delete the account. They wait for 14 days,
if signed in before that you are given an option.

------
paulannesley
Worth adding, because it's not mentioned on the linked page:

When I deleted my account in 2010, there was a one month cooling off period,
during which any sign-in would cancel the deletion request.

Perhaps that's sensible to catch malicious/accidental deletions, but I imagine
it also makes it hard for Facebook addicts to leave.

~~~
restlessmedia
This is very true. I can't bear the deafening sound of trumpets blowing on FB
so rarely visit it. On occasions though, it's service as a 'Friends Reunited
v2' works well for me.

~~~
officemonkey
That's exactly what I used Linkedin for. Don't use the service, but it's a
handy way to keep up with my extended business network.

~~~
k-mcgrady
Isn't that one of the main features of LinkedIn? Maybe I'm misunderstanding
but aren't you essentially saying the equivalent of "I don't use Google's
services but it's a handy way to help me find websites"?

~~~
officemonkey
Somebody "friends" me on LinkedIn, I accept. If I need to contact that person
and I don't have their email, I go into LinkedIn and send them a message.

So it's essentially a backup in case my address book fails. I'll pop in there
maybe a dozen times a year. That's not exactly using their service.

------
kybernetyk
> Your account has been deactivated from the site and will be permanently
> deleted within 14 days. If you log into your account within the next 14
> days, you will have the option to cancel your request.

I guess I better delete all cookies before I accidentally get logged in back.

Why can't they just delete it?

~~~
thejosh
What if someone knew your password and requested it to be deleted? Wouldn't
you be "Why can't they just not delete it after a period of days?"?

~~~
kybernetyk
Ah, the old security vs freedom debate.

I would know whom to blame if I had used a weak password that got cracked in
order to delete my account. And I think you should expect the same from every
reasonable adult.

But yeah, FB should add a stronger auth for that dialog - more than a password
and a captcha field.

~~~
enneff
> And I think you should expect the same from every reasonable adult.

FYI: Facebook is not primarily populated by reasonable adults.

~~~
kybernetyk
Can minors legally accept a contract like the Facebook TOS in the US? (Real
question, I'm not an US citizen and not a lawyer).

~~~
pseut
I think the emphasis was on "reasonable"

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GruppeC956
THANK YOU! I just needed to erase a FB account today and after struggling for
a while I came across this. Made my life so much easier. Thanks again!

------
EzGraphs
If a user deletes their account using one of these forms, can a new account be
created with the same username ?

~~~
k-mcgrady
I doubt it because your username is linked with your Facebook email address
(username@facebook.com). It would probably lead to other people getting your
emails if they reassigned the username. I was actually surprised when I found
out Twitter reassigns usernames. After I closed my account it wasn't long
before someone took mine.

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GruppeC956
I just needed to erase a FB account today and came across this. Made my life
so much easier. Thanks you!

------
tomgirl1
I gather this link points to facebook.com. Funny, I deleted my facebook
account years ago, but Im sure as heck not going to click on a facebook.com
link and find out if I really did!

(subtitle, I react to facebook.com links as if they were phishing links and
what would be the difference? scraping my contacts, selling my personal data,
rewriting my TOS at every opportunity. I view the home page of facebook even
without logging in as a phishing site. Sorry Mark. :()

~~~
k-mcgrady
>> "I gather this link points to facebook.com. Funny, I deleted my facebook
account years ago, but Im sure as heck not going to click on a facebook.com
link and find out if I really did!"

So although you don't want a Facebook account, if you have one you forgot
about you'd rather not know about it??

------
ssw1n
Good try Facebook, good try ....

