
Facebook Lies - JoshTriplett
https://iain.learmonth.me/blog/2017/2017w402/
======
bmelton
I've tried (and failed) to delete my Facebook a couple times in the past, so
this most recent go, when I quit using Facebook, I just quit using Facebook --
I uninstalled the apps from my phone, and mapped 'facebook.com' to localhost
in my /etc/hosts files.

The result was... amusing. Facebook kept emailing me the "Hey, did you see
what so and so posted?" emails, knowing full well that I didn't see them. But
then, after that, I started getting weekly reminders that "You haven't updated
your timeline in a week". Facebook, ever the clingy ex-girlfriend it is,
seemed to start amping _up_ the frequency of the emails the more I neglected
them, so I started just marking them as spam.

Two blissful days went by in which Facebook wasn't a distraction, but then
they shifted from email to SMS which, as an Android/Hangouts user, was even
more annoying, since now I have to engage in multiple steps to delete.

They really, really want me to use their service.

~~~
imustbeevil
This is such a weird thing to think. You can turn off all notifications and
they'll never contact you, ever.

I stopped using Facebook 6 years ago and haven't gotten a single email / sms
from them since then, because I used the settings properly.

Yeah, if you just ghost them and never click "update your email settings" at
the bottom of every email they send, they'll keep sending them.

~~~
komon
Anecdote incoming: I've turned off every notification setting possible on my
Facebook account. The issue is that every time they add a new notification
"feature" it seems like they flip all of them back on again. All as if to say,
"Everybody wants a daily/weekly rollup of what happened on Facebook! Subscribe
everybody by default!"

So I feel the GP's pain, I've taken to marking them as spam as well because I
know that my settings aren't guaranteed to stay where they are. It's not even
in Facebook's best interest to try and keep my notification settings where
they are.

~~~
r00fus
The growth hacker mentality was cute when FB was a scrappy little startup. Now
they're dominant, it's just creepy.

~~~
mncharity
> cute when [...] was a scrappy little startup. Now they're dominant, it's
> just creepy.

Microsoft/Gates also had trouble with this. What is "business hardball" in a
startup, can be illegal conduct in an almost-monopoly.

In a kitten, pouncing aggression is cute... in a liger, not so much. For the
same behavior, you'd put it down.

Individuals can similarly fail to recognize transitions. "You can't do X."
"But I've been doing X for years!" "Yes, but here you have relationship Y, so
X is no longer ethical/legal."

~~~
fapjacks
In a liger. Indeed.

------
AndrewStephens
I wrote this several years ago - it is still true:

[https://sheep.horse/2013/10/the_seven_realities_of_social_ne...](https://sheep.horse/2013/10/the_seven_realities_of_social_networking.html)

You do not have a Facebook page. You never did. Facebook has a page on you.

~~~
dwringer
At the time Facebook was created, there was a lot of talk about how private
organizations already had such dossiers on the general public. Facebook is
more like the "tip of the iceberg". At least it gives users some control over
how they are presented (though less and less every day as they filter
timelines and use our names to endorse their ads)

------
Artemis2
Quite looking forward to GDPR forcing Facebook to actually remove all records
they have on me. It’s a pain to implement for businesses, but it’s ultimately
the right move.

~~~
nathantotten
At least for European customers. This won’t help everyone.

~~~
gberger
How is "European customer" defined?

If someone is not European but resides in Europe, do they have this right?

If someone not from Europe travels to Europe and issues the request while
inside Europe, do they have this right? (If so, would using a VPN work?)

~~~
adtac
If that's actually the case, I can see a Deletion-as-a-service business. "We
thoroughly delete your account for you."

The fact that I have to come up such mechanisms is a damning indictment of the
way things are.

~~~
davesque
I really don't get why AckSyn's comment was marked dead.

------
dorfsmay
Even if you've never used Facebook, you have a "shadow" account, it is a well
known fact. Every time somebody you know upload their contacts into FB, they
link them with your shadow account, or create it if not already there, as a
strong possible match.

I have started to use Facebook recently as I needed an account for work so
decided to explore a bit, my biggest problem with Facebook is that your "feed"
is made up of things that your "friends" liked or posted etc... but in what
seems a random order, and not all of them appear. One has to wonder what kind
of weighting they apply to each post to decide if it will make it to your feed
or not.

Twitter has brought something similar recently, but at least you can disable
it and get a sane timeline - Just tweeted about this today (check my profile
for account).

~~~
joncrane
You can change the sort to most recent first, but the setting isn't sticky and
the next day, it's back to the echo chamber, er, I mean, FB curated content.

~~~
dorfsmay
When you set it as most recent then it switches to a very short timeline, and,
again incomplete (judging from what you see as default).

Indeed, curated content, which is very scary.

------
proofofstake
I am in this Kafka-esque situation where I try to get an account deleted that
is not even mine. I don't have and want a Facebook account, but Facebook does
not agree.

I few years back I started receiving mail for an account that I never created.
The name is not close to mine, but a silly sexual pun.

I have mailed security and account support multiple times, asking for the
account to be deleted, or decoupled from my email address, because I keep
getting login attempt notifications and even friend suggestions.

Just checking, and coincidentally the very last email is one for the Facebook
account. "Hey, it seems you are having trouble logging in! Click here to sign
in.". Yes, Facebook, someone, for whatever reason, is trying to log in to a
Facebook account for 4 years now, and won't take no for an answer... "If this
wasn't you, please let us know by clicking here". Ok, Facebook, this is not
me, and it was not me the last 10 times I clicked that button.

(I now assume, that this account is somehow being used to mine my social
connections. Something like a public ghost account.)

Timeline:

2013: Hi Fuck, you got more friends on Facebook than you realize! List of 6
people I know IRL.

2013: Hi Fuck, you have 1 friendship request. Log in to accept.

2013: Do you know [3 people I know]?

2013: Hi Fuck, Fuck placed something on your timeline and is waiting to see
it.

2013: Do you know [9 people I know]?

2014: We've updated our Terms of Service

2015: Someone asked a new password for your account.

2017: Hey Fuck, it seems you are having trouble logging in.

2017: Hey Fuck, it seems someone tried logging into your account from a new
location.

2017: Hey Fuck, we received your request to reset your account password. XXXXX
is your reset code.

2017: Fuck, go back to Facebook in just one click.

2017: Hey Fuck, it seems you are having trouble logging in.

~~~
uniformlyrandom
I have the same thing, but with PayPal. My full namesake has created another
account, and used my email there - so I guess he is not getting any
notifications. I am afraid to contact PayPal support, since they might just go
ahead and block the wrong account, or both of them, so I just ignore these
emails from parallel universe.

I was able to shut down a couple of Instagram accounts that were using my
email though. Instagram does not verify emails, but fully trusts them to reset
your password.

------
adrianratnapala
Well when I "deleted" my account years ago, Facebook made it absolutely clear
that it was really only deactiviating the thing and that it would retain its
records. Nonetheless, as far as any of my friends can tell, I am no longer on
Facebook at all.

So maybe the author of this post removed his account at an earlier period when
Facebook didn't make such an honest claim. In that case the title should be
"Facebook used to lie."

~~~
mikeash
The help page about deactivating or deleting (they are two separate actions)
makes it quite clear that your data will be _gone_ , not merely rendered
inaccessible, when you delete:
[https://www.facebook.com/help/250563911970368](https://www.facebook.com/help/250563911970368)

That page uses the phrase "permanently delete[d]" multiple times, says there's
"no option for recovery," and calls out some information they _do_ keep
because it's not actually part of your count, implying that the rest is _not_
kept.

~~~
brownell
Did you even read the comment you replied to?

Years ago they did not delete accounts. They would deactivate it and never
delete the data. They do now (apparently), but in the past they were very
openly not deleting anything.

~~~
mikeash
Yes, I read it. I took it as meaning that they either read something else
which was unclear, or just deactivated the account, or misremember what
Facebook said at the time.

Do we know that Facebook actually deletes accounts now?

------
vcanales
I'm not trying to defend Facebook, but I used the 14-day deletion and it
worked for me. Just saying that there must be more to this story than just "I
did it and Facebook lied to me".

~~~
Kequc
I deleted my account there 10 years ago, about a year ago I needed an account
to join a memorial group for someone. Facebook somehow knew that the email
address I used to sign up with, which was new, was related to my old email
address and tried to link my new account to my old data which was still there.

It also still knew a heck of a lot about me including suggestions for people I
had just recently met. And some of them I only met once, in passing, never
exchanged info with, and never saw again.

~~~
omnimus
This is most disturbing. I remember big change in facebook policy on 1.1. 2015
that would mean that deleting your account would not delete data they had on
you. Up to that point their policy was that after you delete, data about you
is erased (at least in europe).

I did delete the account before that date with few other people (mostly
because of that policy coming).

I never tried coming back but if they still kept all the data, that is pretty
substantional. One could sue facebook for that or am i missimg something?

~~~
Kequc
Before I left I used a tool that would delete all of my posts and content and
stuff like that. Cleaned up the profile as best I could. The type of data they
had was more about who they thought I knew, how desperately single I am stuff
like that. Given how many privacy related scandals they have had I don't think
suing them is going to do anything.

------
kirbypineapple
I've been locked out of my facebook account for almost a year because they
didn't believe I legally changed my name to "Captain Hook Pope Mobile". I sent
my revised birth certificate, drivers license, everything. No response on the
support ticket for 8 whole months...

~~~
quake
Wait a second. Don't tell me that you're actually _the_ Captain Hook Pope
Mobile

~~~
kirbypineapple
Could there ever be more than one?

------
Twisell
Actually I think that an extra step is required to fully "delete" while the
standard procedure only "deactivate" accounts.

I've permanently delete back in 2014 but actually needed a "ghost account" in
2016 to access some FB walled garden content.

I used the same email as my former one and data was gone, no restauration was
proposed. (However friend suggestion based on email showed up due to some
probable shadow account).

~~~
intoverflow2
I did similar with a good 6 years between and with two different emails on
different domains and it's friends suggestions both in it's own app and
Instagram (not linked to FB account but sharing an email) manage to reference
people I only ever knew during the time of the first account and never even
interacted with on Facebook.

e.g a guy I interned for 10 years ago who I never spoke to/added on FB keeps
showing up in my Insta suggestions. It's actually a bit unnerving and makes me
worry who my account is suggested to.

~~~
bcoates
Those people probably have your email in an inbox Facebook slurped (possibly
as a CC or something)

------
megous
I expected this, so I first deleted all posts, comments, events, whatever
could be deleted, unfriended everyone, replaced everything that could not be
removed with random strings, including my name and profile url, and then
deleted the account.

Even if it gets reactivated, it will be useless.

It's annoying that this has to be done. There are several other well known
companies that make account deletion a stupid hassle. Amazon for example
should have already archived my account automatically after not being used for
7 years at all. Apple is another idiotic company that makes it hard to remove
stuff from your account (you have to have a mac to disassociate credit card
from your account, their web app doesn't allow it for no reason whatsoever
(despite being able to add CC info there), only iTunes app on the mac can do
it)

Companies should think more about account removals.

~~~
seizethecheese
This would actually be a cool product. Could call it Facebook Discombobulator.

~~~
megous
I believe there are some browser extensions to do this.

I just wrote a few document.querySelectorAll() based loops in the console that
artificially clicked the right elements in the right order with some delay.

Fun thing is that while most things are very fats on facebook, deletion is
super slow. It takes like 2 seconds to complete. They must have some
artificial delay somewhere just to frustrate this kind of scripting.

------
andrepd
I'm really really hoping regulators get their act together and come down hard
on this sort of things.

~~~
bojan
If you live in the EU, do a search on GDPR.

------
SKYRHO_
It's been a while (6-8months) since I DELETED my account, but I do remember
separate options for delete vs deactivation. Out of curiosity I tried logging
in again and received "email you have entered does not match any account".
While I'm sure the account exists somewhere in the facebook database, it
appears to have been successfully deleted.

Anyone else have similar results?

~~~
482794793792894
Haven't ever had a Facebook account, but I've encountered the deactivation-
deletion dark pattern before, most recently on Twitch.

I think, it's a matter of them being required by law (won't be the case in all
countries) to have true account deletion, but then they try to deflect as many
users as possible from actually deleting their accounts by having an account
deactivation option and having it in a far more prominent place.

------
tomger
[https://m.facebook.com/help/delete_account](https://m.facebook.com/help/delete_account)
states that it will delete your account permanently. Facebook’s current FAQ
notes it’ll take about 90 days for your information to be gone from their
system.

~~~
Danihan
Just reactivated my 8 year old account and deleted it permanently. Long
overdue!

~~~
tomger
Glad I could help!

~~~
tomger
# Account successfully scheduled for deletion

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.

------
chiefalchemist
No immediate deletion makes sense in that it would encourage hacking. But if
they say 2 weeks it should be that.

However, as someone else mentioned, the reality is you don't have a FB
account, FB has an account on you.

------
odammit
I fell into the timeline where it was so easy to log in with Facebook that I
auth’d to almost every site with it.

Now I’ve got the “Facebook handcuffs”.

Stop using Facebook and recreate accounts for everything or keep My account
active.

I know FB doesn’t care but I have my own little revolt I’ve staged.

\- unfriended everyone and added random people

\- swapped out my info (I know they still have it)

\- post some bs links and nonsense just to dork with any ML running against my
account

I wish more sites added functionality to sever Facebook auth from your
account.

------
hardwaresofton
[EDIT] - I missed a key point, the author does say in the article that they
deleted their account long ago.

While I'm all for bashing Facebook when they do something nefarious, this
seems more to do with someone else having the author's password and using
their account at an inopportune time (during the FB account deletion process).

As a refresher for all:

\- FB delete != FB deactivate

\- You can't log in (or let anyone else log in) for 2 weeks post FB delete
through
[https://m.facebook.com/help/delete_account](https://m.facebook.com/help/delete_account)

\- The only way you can be sure they delete your info is if you're in the EU,
where the government has stepped in appropriately.

Facebook will very likely still know who you are, and have tons of
information/"shadow profile" on you, because your friends will still post
stuff there.

~~~
stupidcar
He explicitly says that he deleted his FB account "long ago". So this isn't
about somebody interrupting the deletion process, it's about FB keeping the
account around, ready to be "reactivated", even after the 2 weeks.

------
lerie82
I was always under the impression that Facebook never deleted accounts, just
"deactivates" then.

~~~
vcanales
The deletion is relatively new.

------
trishmapow2
[https://haveibeenpwned.com](https://haveibeenpwned.com) Make sure that you
don't have any insecure accounts or reuse passwords that have been exposed
through breaches.

~~~
IshKebab
Really annoyingly though they don't provide the hashes. I'd really like to
know _which_ passwords have been leaked.

Does anyone know of a similar site that provides hashes? I don't need the
complete list - just the hashes for my email.

~~~
dublinben
What you're asking for is basically the full details of the data breach, which
can be directly used to compromise accounts. You're not going to get that for
free anywhere.

You can check your own passwords (hashes recommended) through their new
Password service.

[https://haveibeenpwned.com/Passwords](https://haveibeenpwned.com/Passwords)

~~~
IshKebab
Ah yes, type all my passwords into a third party network. I thought this was a
site about _good_ security.

Also why wouldn't I get the full details for free anywhere? HIBP obviously has
them. Criminals have them. I bet it isn't that hard to find them on
bittorrent.

In fact, here they are:
[https://hashes.org/public.php](https://hashes.org/public.php)

Edit: Although that doesn't match them up with usernames, so it's not entirely
useful.

Edit 2: In fact I just discovered that a long password I used to use is still
in the 'not cracked' category of the Last.fm leak (unsurprising since it is 13
random alphanumeric characters). That is useful information.

------
tomsthumb
If corporations are people why not file a restraining order?

~~~
redbeard0x0a
You gotta work within the system, I like the idea...

------
thetoddfather
This near exact scenario happened to me today.

I had disabled Facebook about 3 weeks ago. For good measure, I went ahead and
deleted all apps, history, or any method by which I might wander back.

Needless to say I was a bit thrown off this morning by the slew of “welcome
back to Facebook” texts from my friends. I assured them somebody had created a
false account, but sure enough there I was seemingly alive and well with an
active profile.

The only explanation I can think of is that an application or service
attempted to authenticate via Facebook connect- if this is enough to reactive
an account, it damn well shouldn’t be.

Given that social media has overtaken reality for most, it feels a lot like a
company unknowingly took my life and ran with it. It’s a bit eerie to scroll
through a feed of your friends trying to reach you, and living your life
without you. For a few days, Facebook was a more believable authority on my
life than I was.

------
AmrEldib
Netflix also does this. I unsubscribed and many months later subscribed again
only to find that all my everything was exactly the same. They never deleted
my account.

With regard to Facebook, not exactly the same thing, but in August, I tweeted
that I haven't logged in to Facebook in over a month. The next day, I got an
email from Facebook asking if I'm having trouble logging in to Facebook. I
never gave Facebook my Twitter account.
[https://twitter.com/AmrEldib/status/899423898139148289](https://twitter.com/AmrEldib/status/899423898139148289)

------
nneonneo
Have they always had such a 14-day policy? If not, it’s entirely possible that
the policy was different when the account was previously deleted, and the
account was being retained under that old policy.

I’m also surprised that his hacker didn’t bother changing his password - maybe
it wasn’t intended to be an account takeover.

~~~
Insanity
Conspiracy theory: It was facebook pretending to hack is account so he would
log back in and hopefully stay using the service.

But OT: I'm sure that unless they are legally forced to remove the data,
they'd rather keep it.

~~~
ydt
I briefly had a Facebook account years ago before deciding I didn't like it. I
deleted/deactivated my account. About 6 months ago I received an email saying
that 'someone' had reactivated my account and that if it wasn't me I should
log in and visit the help center. My old password still worked and there had
been no activity. I strongly suspect this was an attempt by FB to get me back
on board.

------
thebigspacefuck
I'll have to try this. One of my biggest regrets was deleting my Facebook
account sophomore year of college when I moved schools. A lot of pictures and
memories erased. I moved away so a huge part of my connection with my old life
was gone. It would be amazing to get them back.

------
owly
I deleted my account years ago. At the time there was a web plugin which could
be used to automate the deletion of all posts, pictures, etc. I wonder if
there is a tool to do this now as I'm sure FB has cracked down on automated
deletion of content.

------
EGreg
This reminds me of the hilarious phonecalls trying to cancel accounts at other
companies:

[http://time.com/2985964/comcast-cancel-ryan-
block/](http://time.com/2985964/comcast-cancel-ryan-block/)

------
Xeoncross
> If it’s still not gone, I hear you can just post obscene and offensive
> material until Facebook deletes you. I’d rather not have to take that route
> though.

I honestly never thought about that. Spammer accounts often are cleaned up
pretty well.

------
chirau
The closest thing you can do to deleting your account is actually manually
deleting all your posts and albums first... the using their so called
delete/deactivate option.

~~~
nmg
Try it for yourself. After a number of deletions, response time will slow, an
error will occur. You'll reload your page and items you thought were deleted,
are not. I've tried many, many times.

~~~
mathgenius
Wow, this is like, part Twilight Zone, part Franz Kafka.

------
mrlyc
I kept getting email messages from Facebook after I deleted my account. They
stopped after I lodged a complaint with the Australian Communications and
Media Authority. It enforces the Spam Act (2003) which prohibits the sending
of unsolicited commercial electronic messages with an Australian link, i.e. if
it originates or was commissioned in Australia or originates overseas but was
sent to an address accessed in Australia.

------
skrowl
I deleted mine over 10 years ago. My wife (who still uses) said that people
still click on the "wish happy birthday" shit for me every year.

~~~
5ilv3r
Well that shows how much they actually care... Yeah. Direct contact has value.

------
faceboksukha
I deleted my account long time ago from facebook.

Liars, cheaters, fake news and privacy violations you will found only from
facebook.

I really questioning whole company morals

------
fancyfacebook
This happened to me as well when I signed up for spotify under the same email
I used for facebook, was shocked to see my ~six year old deleted account
suddenly become "reactivated" despite them claiming it was "deleted" at the
time. Nope, all the stupid stuff that was hilarious to post in 2007 was still
there and came right up.

Turns out they never delete anything.

------
ksk
I think Google does the same with everything (email, web history, searches, ad
profile, etc) but I believe their reasoning was that there is no way to
guarantee that your data will be deleted from the backups, other redundant
caches and whatnot, so they don't claim to be able to.

------
lazzlazzlazz
This person deactivated their account but didn't delete it. That's all there
is to it.

How is it possible this reaches so high up Hacker News? None of you have seen
users (or yourselves) make similar mistakes?

------
ape4
What if you fill your Facebook profile with bogus info? Like writing random
bytes on a drive to wipe it.

~~~
gruez
They probably keep a history on all the changes you made, so I doubt it would
help

------
benevol
Who expects anything different, really, from companies like Facebook?

~~~
alecco
Most people don't even think about the consequences until it's too late. It's
a new kind of problem.

------
spirit556
Huh? It's always been this way. Like more than 10 years ago I messed around
trying with account deactivation. I've had a fb account since ~2004 it was
only avail to certain colleges. This is exactly how it's always been. Am i
missing something here? They never actually "delete" anything whatsoever.
Isn't this already well known..

