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Extra Technical Obstacles for Facebook Quitters

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Re: Extra Technical Obstacles for Facebook Quitters

#3
Probably (maybe?) not intentional, but suspiciously timed. Presumably off-boarding from Facebook looks a bit like a funnel, where every additional hurdle means more people will bail on their original intended action.

I nuked my facebook account a couple years back and I remember eye rolling at the number of steps. And then there was the waiting period where they’d keep my account around for some number of days or weeks just in case I decided to come back. Easier to buy a gun at a gun show than do something truly grave like get rid of a social media account.

Re: Extra Technical Obstacles for Facebook Quitters

#5
While not exactly the same, reminds me of the "Roach Motel" Dark Pattern [1] which intentionally increases friction to completing an action by users that would be detrimental to the business (such as deleting one's account). Amazon is another example of making it nearly impossible to figure out how to delete your account unless you search for the steps or go through a lot of trial and error. [2]

[1] https://darkpatterns.org/types-of-dark-pattern/roach-motel [2] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kxkrdLI6e6M

Re: Extra Technical Obstacles for Facebook Quitters

#7
I clicked the delete button on my account on Monday. I've had several people come to me and ask why I unfriended them, as if they had thought they'd offended me in some way. I started to wonder if Facebook had told them that I'd unfriended them. No, some of them had browser plugins that would search their friends list for changes.

... which is cool, I guess.

Re: Extra Technical Obstacles for Facebook Quitters

#9
post #6

An account created 40 minutes ago can post something that appears on the front page?

Fot a more zen perspective, consider the upside down: It’s not the poster that got it to the front page, but the people who upvoted it.

If those were all fresh accounts, it would have been detected as a voting ring.

Re: Extra Technical Obstacles for Facebook Quitters

#10
If you're in Europe and want to delete your fb account, wouldn't it be better to wait until GDPR activates, so your data actually gets erased instead of hidden?

I'm going to erase quite a few accounts I'm no longer using on various services, I really hope they won't cheat.

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