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DeleteFB: Selenium script to delete all of your Facebook wall posts

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Re: DeleteFB: Selenium script to delete all of your Facebook wall posts

#211

Post by IanCal »

cyphar wrote: post #201
IanCal wrote: post #193

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I don't recall the last time (if ever) there have been legal ramifications for lying in front of Congress. It's one of the reasons Cohen is in prison, isn't it?

He lied to the FBI after a plea bargain which involved him telling them the truth. From memory, this all happened before his Congress testimony but it's definitely not related. It is illegal to lie to Congress (unrelated to whether you're under oath or not), but I can think of very few examples where there were real ramifications for it.

> He lied to the FBI after a plea bargain which involved him telling them the truth.

Sure you're not thinking of Manafort? I don't think Cohen had a plea deal, and I don't think he was charged with lying to the FBI. Manafort and Flynn did, and Manafort I think was the one that then broke the deal. There's a lot of crimes to keep track of.

I guess it depends on what you mean by real ramifications as it's being served concurrently but Cohen is serving two months for lying to Congress, a charge he plead guilty to.

Re: DeleteFB: Selenium script to delete all of your Facebook wall posts

#212

Post by bb101 »

AdmiralAsshat wrote: post #6

I don't trust the "delete" button to scrub it from FB's database. I'd be slightly more confident ( slightly ) that editing the post might cause the core data in the db to be updated, however. In which case, I think the more effective script would be one that goes through all of your FB posts and scrambles them, or replaces the text with gibberish.

With Facebook's distributed data stores, I'd be really surprised if any deletion was immediate. It's more likely that they tombstone a post. That's where they store a "this post has been deleted" flag in their database. Using this style of deletion, the post and the tombstone would be eventually removed from the data store when it is periodically compacted.

Re: DeleteFB: Selenium script to delete all of your Facebook wall posts

#213

Post by anticensor »

tuxpenguine wrote: post #134

In most of the tech companies, deleting only means flipping a flag in the column of the row so that those things won't show up to the user. "Hard delete" is what you want.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19965287 seems to disagree.

Re: DeleteFB: Selenium script to delete all of your Facebook wall posts

#216

Post by laumars »

saddlerustle wrote: post #109
AdmiralAsshat wrote: post #6

I don't trust the "delete" button to scrub it from FB's database. I'd be slightly more confident ( slightly ) that editing the post might cause the core data in the db to be updated, however. In which case, I think the more effective script would be one that goes through all of your FB posts and scrambles them, or replaces the text with gibberish.

Lots of people in this thread are claiming that it doesn't based on gut feeling, but consider: - Facebook publicly claims it does [1] - Mark Zuckerberg testified in-front of congress and stated they do [2] - Multiple government regulators have specifically checked that it does in their privacy audits. [3] They might be lying and actively conspiring to not delete it, but they'd have to have a very good reason to take…

Maybe not lie per se but they might have multiple data stores, one for the "social media" side of things and an archive for machine learning, one for targeted ads, etc. So they could legitimately say "we delete your data [from the perspective of social media]" while still having an archive for their other business units.

It wouldn't be the first time Facebook (nor any other business that profits from people's data) have been deceptive while treading a careful line between honesty and lies.

edit: I should add that if they were keeping archived records in a separate business unit, there is the possibility that they keep the original or even all edits. So scrambling your data might not do much aside confusing those who have you in their feed.

Re: DeleteFB: Selenium script to delete all of your Facebook wall posts

#217

Post by _khau »

kefs wrote: post #159
saddlerustle wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Lots of people in this thread are claiming that it doesn't based on gut feeling, but consider: - Facebook publicly claims it does [1] - Mark Zuckerberg testified in-front of congress and stated they do [2] - Multiple government regulators have specifically checked that it does in their privacy audits. [3] They might be lying and actively conspiring to not delete it, but they'd have to have a very good reason to take…

>>> They "trust me" >>> Dumb fucks https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Mark_Zuckerberg

It's always good to remember this and we should keep repeating it.

This is the most profound insight we have into the mind of Mark Zuckerberg and what he thinks of his user base.

Stop listening to the PR and examine his actions since then. You can see how that comment was not merely a youthful indiscretion, but his entire business.

Zuckerberg continues to display this exact same mentality, only now he has billions of dollars in resources.

Re: DeleteFB: Selenium script to delete all of your Facebook wall posts

#218

Post by ionised »

blunte wrote: post #45
AdmiralAsshat wrote: post #6

I don't trust the "delete" button to scrub it from FB's database. I'd be slightly more confident ( slightly ) that editing the post might cause the core data in the db to be updated, however. In which case, I think the more effective script would be one that goes through all of your FB posts and scrambles them, or replaces the text with gibberish.

Something like this is probably against some terms of use that you implicitly agree to as a Facebook user, and I wouldn’t be surprised if they would auto detect it and ban you.

If you're mass-deleting your Facebook posts I imagine you don't care about a ban.

Re: DeleteFB: Selenium script to delete all of your Facebook wall posts

#219

Post by huhtenberg »

saddlerustle wrote: post #109
AdmiralAsshat wrote: post #6

I don't trust the "delete" button to scrub it from FB's database. I'd be slightly more confident ( slightly ) that editing the post might cause the core data in the db to be updated, however. In which case, I think the more effective script would be one that goes through all of your FB posts and scrambles them, or replaces the text with gibberish.

Lots of people in this thread are claiming that it doesn't based on gut feeling, but consider: - Facebook publicly claims it does [1] - Mark Zuckerberg testified in-front of congress and stated they do [2] - Multiple government regulators have specifically checked that it does in their privacy audits. [3] They might be lying and actively conspiring to not delete it, but they'd have to have a very good reason to take…

> They might be lying and actively conspiring to not delete it, but they'd have to have a very good reason to take on that much legal risk.

Or they can just claim, again, that they accidentally forgot to delete copies of these posts from their backups. It just completely slipped their mind.

Re: DeleteFB: Selenium script to delete all of your Facebook wall posts

#220

Post by oli5679 »

nostalgk wrote: post #5

Does anyone know if there is an equivalent to delete Facebook friends or unlike pages/leave groups? I really want to clean out my Facebook since I've had it for a very long time and much of it doesn't appeal to me anymore, but I don't necessarily want to lose the tiny social ecosystem I've created with my family. However, I would like to remove the hundreds of friends and pages that I don't talk to/don't represent me…

You could easily write a Selenium bot that unfriends/ unsubscribes from all except a whitelist.
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