Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Facebook doesn't want you to deactivate your account.

collison.ie

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

31–40 of 41 posts

Re: Facebook doesn't want you to deactivate your account.

#31

Post by tlrobinson »

code_devil wrote: post #25
tlrobinson wrote: post #10

I wonder if it wasn't a coincidence that all the people who Facebook says will miss him are girls (well, and one restaurant)

I just did some testing by refreshing the " http://www.facebook.com/deactivate.php page and I always got two same friends. Next I realized that it was displaying a picture where both of us were tagged. I had untagged myself from a bunch of other albums, so the other 3 friends picked were pretty much random. So, its definitely giving high priority if you both are tagged in the same picture irrespective of the fact if…

Weird, I'm not tagged in any of the same photos as the people who show up on mine. But I friended all of them relatively recently.

Re: Facebook doesn't want you to deactivate your account.

#32

Post by treyp »

tlrobinson wrote: post #19
randomwalker wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Facebook is probably using an algorithm that picks from among the friends that the user has interacted the most with. At least that's what I would do if I were implementing it. They already use such an algorithm internally to detect if your account is compromised (i.e., if the set of friends with whom you communicate changes sharply at some point.) Given that Facebook might be doing this, it is likely that the top fe…

We can try it ourselves. Just log in and go to http://www.facebook.com/deactivate.php The 5 that show up for me are people I recently friended (unfortunately all dudes)

Random selection of people I've been in pictures with.

edit: they've tagged me in their photo, or i've tagged them in mine. age of picture is all over the place, so not just recent ones.

Re: Facebook doesn't want you to deactivate your account.

#33

Post by Eliezer »

Radix wrote: post #30
Eliezer wrote: post #4

Evil with style.

I'm curious, what about this do you find evil?

Imagine the following more dramatic version:

"If you deactivate your account, we'll kill this kitten."

Same essential principle.

If you want a detailed ethical analysis, it would have something to do with saying that your friends will miss you, as though they're asking you to stay, when they said no such thing.

Re: Facebook doesn't want you to deactivate your account.

#34

Post by hboon »

chris11 wrote: post #11
LargeWu wrote: post #5

Of course they don't want you to deactivate your account. It's their business to try to retain their members/customers, just like every other company in the world. Now if they are pretending to deactivate your account but leaving it accessible to others, or other shenanigans, then we've something to talk about. But this? Big deal.

Not only is it their business to retain customers, I think they are also trying to retain your personal data. I don't really know what their business plan will be, but I'm sure it won't involve normal users paying any money. So they have to make money off of me somehow, whether it is through targeted advertising or selling information to marketers. The current privacy policy allows them to give information from your…

They seem to already have a business plan that works pretty well.

Re: Facebook doesn't want you to deactivate your account.

#35

Post by ersi »

marcusbooster wrote: post #12

It bothers me that they won't let you actually delete your account.

They don't let you actually delete your own account, but giving them a "written slip" via e-mail works - they'll remove your account. I'm not sure to what degree they remove stuff though. I think your profile is removed and your tags/links are void.

I've got friends who've mailed to support@facebook.com and gotten their accounts removed following. I'd be interested to hear if other people have had similar encounters.

Re: Facebook doesn't want you to deactivate your account.

#36

Post by d64 »

ersi wrote: post #35
marcusbooster wrote: post #12

It bothers me that they won't let you actually delete your account.

They don't let you actually delete your own account, but giving them a "written slip" via e-mail works - they'll remove your account. I'm not sure to what degree they remove stuff though. I think your profile is removed and your tags/links are void. I've got friends who've mailed to support@facebook.com and gotten their accounts removed following. I'd be interested to hear if other people have had similar encounters.

I once tried to remove my Facebook account. I found a form (via Google) for this purpose and filled it out. However I got an error reply via email which looked like the email sent by the SMTP form was not being accepted by some Facebook server. I complained of this via support, and within one day they removed my account.

Re: Facebook doesn't want you to deactivate your account.

#37

Post by torpor »

chris11 wrote: post #11
LargeWu wrote: post #5

Of course they don't want you to deactivate your account. It's their business to try to retain their members/customers, just like every other company in the world. Now if they are pretending to deactivate your account but leaving it accessible to others, or other shenanigans, then we've something to talk about. But this? Big deal.

Not only is it their business to retain customers, I think they are also trying to retain your personal data. I don't really know what their business plan will be, but I'm sure it won't involve normal users paying any money. So they have to make money off of me somehow, whether it is through targeted advertising or selling information to marketers. The current privacy policy allows them to give information from your…

>Not only is it their business to retain customers, I think they are also trying to retain your personal data.

No question about it: THEY KEEP YOUR DATA.

Re: Facebook doesn't want you to deactivate your account.

#38

Post by gaius »

LargeWu wrote: post #5

Of course they don't want you to deactivate your account. It's their business to try to retain their members/customers, just like every other company in the world. Now if they are pretending to deactivate your account but leaving it accessible to others, or other shenanigans, then we've something to talk about. But this? Big deal.

Facebook doesn't care about individuals, it only cares about the "social graph". Once you're a node on the graph, then your data "belongs" to it (the graph). For example, if A knows C via B and B deletes their account, FB won't update A and C that they just know each other randomly.

Re: Facebook doesn't want you to deactivate your account.

#39

Post by michaelawill »

tokenadult wrote: post #28
marcusbooster wrote: post #12

It bothers me that they won't let you actually delete your account.

This URL may only be visible to Facebook users, but please let me know if this helps. http://www.facebook.com/home.php#/group.php?gid=16929680703&...

This is the first link on google for "delete facebook account"

It works. They deactivate your account for 2 weeks and then permanently delete it. Worked for me.

Re: Facebook doesn't want you to deactivate your account.

#40

Post by zimbabwe »

Eliezer wrote: post #33
Radix wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm curious, what about this do you find evil?

Imagine the following more dramatic version: "If you deactivate your account, we'll kill this kitten." Same essential principle. If you want a detailed ethical analysis, it would have something to do with saying that your friends will miss you, as though they're asking you to stay, when they said no such thing.

"If you deactivate your account, we'll kill this kitten."

Actively threatening a life.

"Your friends will no longer be able to keep in touch with you."

Suggesting there might be passive harm caused directly by a user's action.

Yeah, those two are ethically correlated.

Post reply on HN