
How Facebook handles account deletions - khuknows
https://pageflows.com/blog/delete-facebook/
======
dade_
That is exactly the process I went through a few years ago and the
manipulative messaging assured me that I was making the correct decision to
get as far away from FB as possible.

Dr. Robert B. Cialdini, closed off Influence, The Psychology of Persuasion
with the following paragraph about organizations that manipulate us and I
completely believe Facebook is one of these organizations:

"I don’t consider myself pugnacious by nature, but I actively advocate such
belligerent actions because in a way I am at war with the exploiters—we all
are. It is important to recognize, however, that their motive for profit is
not the cause for hostilities; that motive, after all, is something we each
share to an extent. The real treachery, and the thing we cannot tolerate, is
any attempt to make their profit in a way that threatens the reliability of
our shortcuts. The blitz of modern daily life demands that we have faithful
shortcuts, sound rules of thumb to handle it all. These are not luxuries any
longer; they are out-and-out necessities that figure to become increasingly
vital as the pulse of daily life quickens. That is why we should want to
retaliate whenever we see someone betraying one of our rules of thumb for
profit. We want that rule to be as effective as possible. But to the degree
that its fitness for duty is regularly undercut by the tricks of a profiteer,
we naturally will use it less and will be less able to cope efficiently with
the decisional burdens of our day. We cannot allow that without a fight. The
stakes have gotten too high."

~~~
mercer
Thank you for that quote. The book has been high on my to-read list for a
while now and this is a good motivation get started on it.

~~~
Siemer
I think I gifted that book to at least a dozen people by now, it's an absolute
must read. I still paraphrase stories from it regularly.

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JoshMnem
> "Your friends will miss you!"

The company seems to have a strong culture of gaslighting and manipulating
users. When I saw that screen, there were people there that definitely
wouldn't miss me and who would probably be appalled that their identities were
being used in that way.

When other people quit Facebook, it's likely that your photo is being
presented to other users (who you may not really know) telling them that you
will miss them. It's terrible.

~~~
varrock
I deleted Instagram 6 months ago. I recently came into contact with somebody
in person, and they told me that they were aware I was deleting social media
because Instagram told them to re-invite me back to the platform. It was this
moment that I realized you're never truly out of the system. What is the point
of me deleting my Instagram if I am still showing up on people's application?

~~~
JoshMnem
It's a form of gaslighting. They are manipulating each of your realities in
unethical ways.

~~~
mtreis86
It is the fear of missing out, not gaslighting.

"Gaslighting is a form of manipulation that seeks to sow seeds of doubt in a
targeted individual or in members of a targeted group, hoping to make them
question their own memory, perception, and sanity."

"Fear of missing out is a pervasive apprehension that others might be having
rewarding experiences from which one is absent"

-wiki

~~~
JoshMnem
I'm not referring to the fear of missing out. I posted another comment about
it in this thread.

~~~
mtreis86
Do you mean coercive persuasion?

~~~
JoshMnem
I'm not sure if that's exactly it. It isn't quite coercion. Facebook's tone
and methods of communication often seem more like a manipulative but charming
narcissist who is insidiously trying to rearrange your reality. You think you
quit the site and suddenly they are back at your front door edging even deeper
into your life than before, using every manipulative trick possible. Maybe
there needs to be a new term for it.

I wrote other thoughts here:

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16664199](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16664199)

------
harryf
My experience of deleting my Facebook account back in 2009 (and reading this
the process hasn't changed) is once I finally deleted it, it was stolen by
someone else within a few weeks (I'm guessing automated / bots trying to steal
identities). I have a very unique name which, as far as I'm aware, is the only
one in the world. What caused me to notice was friends still on Facebook who
were getting this fake profile recommended as a possible connection.

Facebook ignored requests I made (submitted without having an account) that
the profile was fake. I also had friends report the account for me but it
still exists today - this is the fake account
[https://m.facebook.com/harry.fuecks](https://m.facebook.com/harry.fuecks) \-
thats not my picture.

So beware - it may be more pragmatic just to deactivate your account than
delete. That means Facebook gets to keep your data but at least you don't risk
identify theft.

Ultimately think it's going to take regulation to solve this problem in
general - it's not in Facebooks interest to make account deletion painless.

~~~
fiftyacorn
I think there is a browser plugin to recursively delete all your info - then
leave account as inactive

~~~
abhishekjha
What's the plugin's name?

~~~
anibalin
Social Book Post Manager

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anotheryou
Fun fact I experienced: if you get banned for anything, there is absolutely no
way to delete your account.

(It was a test account at a time I didn't even have a personal account yet. I
uploaded very mild nudity¹ as a profile pic and had a friend flag me on
purpose)

¹
[http://www.liverpoolmuseums.org.uk/walker/collections/painti...](http://www.liverpoolmuseums.org.uk/walker/collections/paintings/20c/item-242744.aspx)
(slightly NSFW)

~~~
indemnity
Interesting, my account got disabled a few months ago and radio silence from
them on why or what (appeals process seems a black hole).

In light of recent activities I’d like them to delete all data they have on me
but since I’m not an EU citizen unfortunately I don’t have the GDPR to force
them to do so.

~~~
vertis
How are they to know you're not a EU citizen. Even if you weren't, you could
be now.

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taurath
Biggest problem to me is if you are a login with facebook user (or were ages
ago), which is highly likely since many websites pushed it hard at the time,
some like spotify requiring it. If you log back into spotify while its still
deleting, even to move your account to a regular spotify account, it
permanently reactivates your facebook account. You have to do all the cleanup,
app deletion, etc beforehand.

~~~
jventura
If you delete your facebook account and had your spotify account associated
with facebook, now you cannot login into spotify anymore with your email
account. It happened to me, it's a very stupid thing, and as it seems, they
(spotify) can't or wont do anyting about it..

~~~
tlb
I deleted my fb account, and was able to recover my spotify account with the
'forgot password' mechanism.

~~~
fintler
> and was able to recover my spotify account with the 'forgot password'
> mechanism

If you signed up for Spotify using Facebook, this doesn't work.

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nosuchthing
Facebook's offline archives never get deleted.

[http://www.geekculture.com/joyoftech/joyimages/1390.jpg](http://www.geekculture.com/joyoftech/joyimages/1390.jpg)

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jzl
Wow, I had no idea there a buried option like that to really delete it.

Several years ago I read an article about how savvy teenagers and college
students were calling account deactivation "Super Logout", since it was well
known that deactivation was non-binding and immediately reversible at any
time. If you were going to be away from your phone or computer for anything
more than a few hours you would Super Logout and not have to worry about
potentially embarrassing wall posts, tagged photos, tagged comments, unwelcome
messages, etc.. It was all about having full control of who interacts with
your account and when. I thought it was quite brilliant and I totally get why
you would want to do that in the fast-paced social world of a teenager. Ever
since I read that I've always laughed at people saying "I'm going to delete my
account", thinking they were really deleting it. (I bet no more than a
fraction, if any, ever dug up the full deletion option.) People think they are
"deleting" their account while kids are literally using "deletion" as an
advanced feature of the platform.

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just_steve_h
There's also no mention in the article about what Facebook does with all of
the data you've surrendered to them while using the platform. Do they actually
remove your history of likes and your node in the social graph?

I'm very doubtful they voluntarily delete your data.

~~~
woweeeee
They likely never delete _anything_. They simply transform you back into a
"shadow profile" and keep monetizing everything they know, but conceal the
data from you and the rest of the public.

I believe they always retain all data forever, as a trade secret. They don't
need no stinking laws to do that.

This is a component of not requiring users to pay for premium service. When
you "create an account" you're simply "activating/linking/merging" one of your
shadow profiles to your IRL identity (or not-so-IRL personas), which
(possibly) has always existed (long before you showed up), claiming it as
yours, and publicly exposing whatever Facebook is willing to show you that
they know about you/that persona/whoever.

~~~
unicornporn
> They likely never delete anything. They simply transform you back into a
> "shadow profile" and keep monetizing everything they know, but conceal the
> data from you and the rest of the public.

If they stick to those habits with European users post May 25, GDPR will mess
them up pretty bad. It would require just one whistle blower to expose their
wrongdoings.

~~~
toomuchtodo
European citizens/residents, we're all counting on you to do your part.

------
notananthem
Always wondered if its worth trying to delete all your data before deleting
your facebook- or if deleting both does the same thing. They're supposed to
delete data in 30 days but in the 2012-2013 days people proved the links to
content were still up and photos/etc were all up.

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cronix
Does anyone think these services actually _delete_ all of your data, or just
use a "deleted" flag on the database, keeping all of your info making it look
like you're "deleted" but not allowing you to use it any longer? My vote is
the 2nd one.

------
subway
The mobile site makes this way, way, way easier. You literally just have to
enter your password and the deed is done:
[https://m.facebook.com/account/delete](https://m.facebook.com/account/delete)

I just reactivated my deactivated account to delete it.

~~~
wwayer
Just tried it and it worked great.

------
Waterluvian
How do I know if my account is deleted? I did it years ago but every few
months I get a suspect email about, "looks like you're having trouble logging
in. Let us help you get back on Facebook." Which makes me think it's not
actually deleted.

------
rhacker
Even though this user says he couldn't find the link to delete your account,
it is on two of his screen shots with the label "Request account deletion"

Edit: I guess the text above makes this link confusing. Go FB.

~~~
eknkc
I think that link applies to what happens when you die, as all the text above
it describes.

~~~
rhacker
Yeah I think you might be correct - I don't have a FB account so I couldn't
test it, but it was strange the author didn't mention this. at least. I guess
I retract my note.

------
Wazzymandias
Deletion can also be a little misleading.

I deleted (not deactivated) a Facebook account that I had from high school to
sophomore year of college.

A year or two later I made a new one and didn't fill out anything except my
name and didn't add any friends (yet). Almost immediately facebook started
suggesting friends, groups, etc that existed on my deleted account.

tl;dr nothing is every really "deleted," just hidden

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dgritsko
This is pretty clever marketing by Page Flows. I made it all the way to the
end before I realized I was being sold something.

~~~
cryptoz
Yeah. The authors don't want you to delete your facebook. They want you to
share their article on your facebook (it's right there at the top of the
page!).

The people/person who wrote the article seem desperate for you to _not_ follow
the directions. They want you to go to Facebook and starting sharing and
liking content right away. They just want your money.

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givinguflac
I went so far as to edit all comments give blank, remove all likes and untag
all images before deleting. This was years ago, but I’m glad others are seeing
the same issues and reacting appropriately.

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7granddad
Thanks for this post. I thought I deleted my Facebook four years ago only to
read this and find out it still existed. IIRC back then it said something
about deletion after a set period of inactivity.

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makkesk8
I would imagine if what happened to facebook happened to google, it would be
100 times worse. So when do we tackle google?

------
anonytrary
I don't think Facebook is being ethical by making people wait to delete their
account. Thought experiment:

Suppose John owns a room. John's room is occupied at full capacity, 24/7\.
People mingle in the room, sometimes they trade with each other. Assume John
is never present in the room at any time. John decides to install a camera and
microphone in the room. John analyzes the data in order help increase the
quantity of trades in the room, through which John makes a considerable
commission. Later, someone asks him to delete the data he has on them. John
says he will only delete the data after 90 days, and if the person takes a
step in the room within 14 days, they will not have their data deleted.

Is John's behavior ethical?

~~~
danso
So why are John's friends using the living room so frequently yet without
having any contact with him? Maybe you find that question to be pedantic given
the bigger picture you're ostensibly addressing. But trying to imagine the
answers would make it obvious why your hypothetical situation doesn't really
apply to reality.

For starters, your scenario involves a surveillance camera, but in the next
sentence, you ask us to imagine that the friends haven't given any permission.
Permission for what exactly?

~~~
anonytrary
> So why are John's friends using the living room so frequently yet without
> having any contact with him?

Good question. I rent out a house with 100% capacity, and I haven't set foot
in the house in the past year at all. It's managed remotely by me. There are
living areas where people can hang out. This is also what John does.

> you ask us to imagine that the friends haven't given any permission.
> Permission for what exactly?

I have edited that part out and made things more concise, thanks for catching
that. John records his living room and uses the data in order to sell products
to the people who happen to be there. Later, people found out and have
politely asked him to delete any video and audio involving them.

Side note: I feel John's implementation isn't important here, so I've
intentionally left it out. Perhaps he earns a profit by having buyers and
sellers meet, serendipitously, in his living room. For example, he may learn
that Alice is a laptop seller and Bob is a laptop buyer. Assume John can
influence the traffic in his living room for the sake of the gedanken.

------
mrlyc
I deleted Facebook before it was cool. They wouldn't stop sending me "Won't
you please come back" emails until I made a formal complaint about the spam to
the Australian Communications and Media Authority. No more emails.

I was on there just a few days ago to find out what my elderly aunts were up
to. Crickets. They hadn't posted anything for three years.

------
Waterluvian
When I quit WoW years ago it was the same thing. "You're making the peon cry!"

------
murphysbooks
Thanks for the post!

I just deleted my FB account, and I am a little less of a product (today).

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future31
This is just the beginning, next #deletegoogle

