1 in 10 Americans in survey say they deleted their Facebook account over privacy • Hacker News Board

Re: 1 in 10 Americans in survey say they deleted their Facebook account over privacy

#71

Post by whiddershins » Sat, Apr 14, 2018, 9:49 PM UTC

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #63

ummonUncommon wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Knowledge that one need not use heroin this day has never saved those who are its servants, nor those servants' prey.

> Knowledge that one need not use heroin this day has never saved those who are its servants Recovery rates for heroin addicts "ranges from 35-65%" [1]. And Facebook isn't as addictive as heroin. [1] http://crehab.org/2017/08/14/heroin-addiction-why-the-recove...

I am a little unsure whether Facebook truly isn't as addictive as heroin, or that it couldn't ultimately be as the algorithms improve. I find it as pernicious as alcohol, for my personal, subjective, experience.

Re: 1 in 10 Americans in survey say they deleted their Facebook account over privacy

#72

Post by sdhgaiojfsa » Sat, Apr 14, 2018, 9:52 PM UTC

propman wrote: post #67

Go on your friends list and look at all the deleted profiles. Facebook no longer deletes the profile from your friendlist. If you have 900 friends and 50 delete, it still shows 900 and the names of deactivated profiles are still in friend list, but with no avatar. I went to my Facebook and found 8% of my friend list deactivated. I would be surprised if this entire hoopla resulted in more than 1% deletion but even 1%…

Note that they'll also have no avatar if they never set an avatar, and further if they deleted their account in the past, before the latest hoopla. So this way of estimating the number of people who have deactivated lately necessarily provides only an upper bound on the total number of deactivations.

Re: 1 in 10 Americans in survey say they deleted their Facebook account over privacy

#73

Post by sdhgaiojfsa » Sat, Apr 14, 2018, 9:54 PM UTC

Phenomenit wrote: post #66

ModernMech wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> There's probably still a shadow account of the data you gave them. Let's hope not, for Zuck's sake, because he just testified in front of Congress that when you delete your account it's gone from Facebook's servers for good.

So do they delete your account in all of their backups as well?

Unlikely, although they do probably keep a listing of accounts not to restore. And of course you'll age out of their backups over time as well.

Re: 1 in 10 Americans in survey say they deleted their Facebook account over privacy

#74

Post by humanrebar » Sat, Apr 14, 2018, 10:24 PM UTC

nodesocket wrote: post #34

Either this survey is biased, or Zuckerberg and FB are outright lying when they say they have not seen a noticeable increase in deletions. My money is on the survey and media who push these headlines being BS.

Why?

Re: 1 in 10 Americans in survey say they deleted their Facebook account over privacy

#75

Post by Phenomenit » Sat, Apr 14, 2018, 11:09 PM UTC

sdhgaiojfsa wrote: post #73

Phenomenit wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So do they delete your account in all of their backups as well?

Unlikely, although they do probably keep a listing of accounts not to restore. And of course you'll age out of their backups over time as well.

Yeah but if they wanted to they could just restore the whole thing and ignore the list. I mean as long as you can't see them deleting everything from everywhere you can't be a 100%

Re: 1 in 10 Americans in survey say they deleted their Facebook account over privacy

#76

Post by beizhia » Sun, Apr 15, 2018, 12:48 AM UTC

I actually deleted my facebook account because I felt like it was negatively affecting me mentally. I've never been the most social person (although I'm working to change that), and I would spend a lot of time alone reading my facebook feed, thinking about how I don't do as much cool stuff as all the people I'm friends with. I realized that I would only really post things to seek affirmation. Initially I just changed my password to something long that I couldnt remember, to keep me from logging in, knowing that I could reset the password if I needed to login. I never did though for the next 6 months.

I also deleted the instagram app from my phone, and blocked reddit on all my PCs. Hackernews might be next I'm afraid - I just don't see that it's a good use of my time anymore. I've even been considering getting a non-smartphone next time I need a new phone. Maybe it's just a reaction to everything going on online, but I'm enjoying being free from social media.

Re: 1 in 10 Americans in survey say they deleted their Facebook account over privacy

#77

Post by __onetimeacc__ » Sun, Apr 15, 2018, 1:15 AM UTC

ummonUncommon wrote: post #62

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #59

Deletion is too extreme for most people. Facebook is a monopoly for users and in an oligopoly for advertisers. This is a market failure [1]. More reasonable: escalating partial dis-engagement. Here's what I did, sequentially, over the years: 1. Turn off notifications for the Facebook app on your phone; 2. Turn off notifications for the Facebook Messenger, Instagram, et cetera apps on your phone; 3. Delete the Faceboo…

Knowledge that one need not use heroin this day has never saved those who are its servants, nor those servants' prey.

Have you done heroin yourself? I haven't, but it's a mistake to assume that Heroin is the most addictive drug ever.

Anecdotally, I'm had several friends completely had their lives ruined by benzodiazapene addiction (usually in the form of street-pressed xanax [alprazolam]), so personally I would probably rather be addicted to heroin than benzos (not that I would want to be addicted to either)

Re: 1 in 10 Americans in survey say they deleted their Facebook account over privacy

#78

Post by misterhtmlcss » Sun, Apr 15, 2018, 2:21 AM UTC

Phenomenit wrote: post #75

sdhgaiojfsa wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Unlikely, although they do probably keep a listing of accounts not to restore. And of course you'll age out of their backups over time as well.

Yeah but if they wanted to they could just restore the whole thing and ignore the list. I mean as long as you can't see them deleting everything from everywhere you can't be a 100%

Legally (I believe) they can't delete an account, they can only hide it or deactivate it. There are rules around the data that go beyond Facebook. Think about it. Someone's told the cops I've been using threats using my Facebook account and I hear that and request the service be deleted. Poof it's all gone. Somehow I don't think that's allowed or does anyone think I'm not making a valid and likely assumption here?

Then sure they delete YOUR data, but all the inferencial data such as which sites you clicked like on, which sites you signed into with Facebook, the type of commentary or information you share you made/shared isn't yours and the knowledge gained also isn't the users it's Facebook's so that'll all be there. So sure they won't have your face or name, but they'll know everything else about you that makes you you.

Anyway most people don't even know that Facebook owns Instagram or WhatsApp, so no matter what they say unless they are tech savvy they have up at most an account on Facebook, but not it's subsidiaries (I believe).

Re: 1 in 10 Americans in survey say they deleted their Facebook account over privacy

#79

Post by beenBoutIT » Sun, Apr 15, 2018, 4:33 AM UTC

According to FB, it takes 90 days for an account to actually be deleted. If you 'delete' your account and then login before the 90 day period has passed your account is just reinstated. I'd love to see what percentage of these users stay off of FB long enough for their accounts to actually get removed.

Re: 1 in 10 Americans in survey say they deleted their Facebook account over privacy

#80

Post by TylerE » Sun, Apr 15, 2018, 4:46 AM UTC

misterhtmlcss wrote: post #78

Phenomenit wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah but if they wanted to they could just restore the whole thing and ignore the list. I mean as long as you can't see them deleting everything from everywhere you can't be a 100%

Legally (I believe) they can't delete an account, they can only hide it or deactivate it. There are rules around the data that go beyond Facebook. Think about it. Someone's told the cops I've been using threats using my Facebook account and I hear that and request the service be deleted. Poof it's all gone. Somehow I don't think that's allowed or does anyone think I'm not making a valid and likely assumption here? Th…

Messages from A to B are surely stored in the accounts of both A and B (Or more accurately probably stored in a side table referenced from both accounts). Anyway - I really doubt deleting a single account will delete the messages.