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Internet spring cleaning: How to delete Instagram, Facebook and other accounts

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Re: Internet spring cleaning: How to delete Instagram, Facebook and other accounts

#171

Post by adambyrtek »

jorvi wrote: post #19
adambyrtek wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You don't need a lawyer to send a standard "right to erasure" GDPR request and they are required to respond within 30 days: https://gdpr.eu/right-to-erasure-request-form/

Yes, but here comes the problem: where would I send this request? Instagram notes no public facing physical address for my country and their support e-mail just sends back automated replies.

https://help.instagram.com/519522125107875/

"The data controller responsible for your information is Meta Platforms Ireland Limited, which you can contact online or by writing to:

Meta Platforms Ireland Ltd.

4 Grand Canal Square

Grand Canal Harbour

Dublin 2 Ireland"

The "contact online" link leads to the following form: https://help.instagram.com/contact/186020218683230

I would send the request both online and by tracked post with a proof of delivery. In the end your lawyer would do the same thing and charge for this at an hourly rate.

Re: Internet spring cleaning: How to delete Instagram, Facebook and other accounts

#172

Post by p1peridine »

AdvancedCarrot wrote: post #71
kibwen wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Discord has taken over this role for me and all my social groups. And unlike Facebook there's no ads, no viral bullshit, no astroturfers, no personal information, and you can keep your identities separate across multiple social circles (all of which are private and invite-only by default).

Thing is I'm not convinced that discord is really any better from a privacy perspective. They still retain all of your messages (including DMs) unencrypted indefinitely with no easy way to remove them. Deleting your account doesn't remove messages either.

Yes and to be able to use discord with a VPN or Tor it requires a phone number. Unacceptable. Privacy disaster.

https://spyware.neocities.org/articles/discord.html

https://stallman.org/discord.html

Re: Internet spring cleaning: How to delete Instagram, Facebook and other accounts

#173

Post by prox »

micromacrofoot wrote: post #16
prox wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I feel the same way with the contact ability. Companies should have a human contact opportunity by law.

they’ll just make you wait an hour and hang up on you like my health insurance company does, unfortunately you can’t mandate good service

Still I will take it above no possibility at all.

Re: Internet spring cleaning: How to delete Instagram, Facebook and other accounts

#174

Post by toastercat »

DangitBobby wrote: post #131
toastercat wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> At some time or another you're going to need said account for something. Nope for almost all of these. Different strokes different folks. > Facebook Nope. Haven't had one for more than 10 years now. So easy to live life without a FB account. I stay in touch with family and friends by phonecalls and Mumble. > Instagram Used it for maybe 10 minutes in 2013, haven't touched since. > Snapchat Same as Instagram, but in…

Some events or even companies don't have a website, they just have a Facebook page that you have to be logged in to visit. Also, if your family uses Facebook, they will interact with each other on it whether you are there or not.

> Some events or even companies don't have a website, they just have a Facebook page that you have to be logged in to visit.

I really have not experienced this, but the several times I've had to interact with a company without a website, phone works wonders and is often quicker.

> Also, if your family uses Facebook, they will interact with each other on it whether you are there or not.

I really don't see the issue here unless you have a terribly unhealthy sense of FOMO.

Re: Internet spring cleaning: How to delete Instagram, Facebook and other accounts

#175

Post by toastercat »

belval wrote: post #114
toastercat wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> At some time or another you're going to need said account for something. Nope for almost all of these. Different strokes different folks. > Facebook Nope. Haven't had one for more than 10 years now. So easy to live life without a FB account. I stay in touch with family and friends by phonecalls and Mumble. > Instagram Used it for maybe 10 minutes in 2013, haven't touched since. > Snapchat Same as Instagram, but in…

> I stay in touch with family and friends by phonecalls and Mumble. You are a counter-example for sure, but this means that you don't have a group chat platform to plan coordinated events with your friends? Maybe it's an age thing, but getting my friends in a call at a given time to organise a social event is probably as hard as organising the event itself. Compare with Facebook/Messenger/Whatsapp where everyone is i…

> You are a counter-example for sure, but this means that you don't have a group chat platform to plan coordinated events with your friends?

Signal, Text Message, and most importantly and most universal, E-mail. I've coordinated Secret Santa events purely by email for the past 5 years.

Re: Internet spring cleaning: How to delete Instagram, Facebook and other accounts

#177

Post by tbrockman »

It’s pretty interesting to see so many people here suggesting that there’s no value to deleting your account.

Like the added friction of creating a new account doesn’t make it less likely for you to relapse, or increase the time it takes for it to happen.

Like social media applications won’t send you notifications however they can to keep you engaged.

Like it doesn’t affect the companies perceived value to lose real users.

Like it doesn’t diminish network effects to see fewer of the people you like on the platform.

Like retaining the data you’ve contributed doesn’t increase the performance of their machine learning models, broaden their understanding of consumers, or directly provide content for consumption. (okay this point is a bit shaky because it depends on their data deletion policy, or if you can take advantage of CCPA/GDPR, but you get the idea)

I agree that leaving or maintaining healthy use of these platforms ultimately requires developing some amount of self-control, but saying that there’s no value to deleting an account doesn’t seem grounded in truth.

I found it way easier to just delete the majority of my social media accounts than try to curate or moderate their use. Most social media platforms aren’t built with your best interests at heart, why risk it for some momentarily satisfying content/interactions that you could probably find elsewhere?

Re: Internet spring cleaning: How to delete Instagram, Facebook and other accounts

#178

Post by andrewzah »

micronova wrote: post #96
Mikeb85 wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> To protect my mental wellbeing, I find that carefully selecting who to follow on some of these services improves considerably my experience. For Instagram and Twitter, my rule of thumb This. These services aren't toxic if you don't follow toxic accounts. Also, I didn't think much about it in the past but now that I split my time between 3 countries and 2 continents, having FB (messenger) is the best way to keep in…

> This. These services aren't toxic if you don't follow toxic accounts. This is so wrong, on so many levels. They will capture your clicks, your usage patterns, your interests, and the internet will present to you in a non-neutral way, in a way which will not be in your interest, but in the interest of whoever is paying for the results of your data analysis. A way which will influence your perception of reality in mi…

No. The parent comment’s viewpoint is fine, whereas your absolutist viewpoint is not helpful.

Facebook, Instagram, Twitter are what you make of them. There’s nothing to “present” if you don’t mindlessly scroll but use them the way they were originally intended: to keep in touch with contacts. For some people it’s just easiest to keep in touch with them on Facebook, etc.

There also a lot of good Facebook groups, and marketplace is very useful.

Being able to stay in contact with people is extremely useful. Cutting that out entirely out of spite doesn’t do any good.

Re: Internet spring cleaning: How to delete Instagram, Facebook and other accounts

#179

Post by throwawayboise »

belval wrote: post #114
toastercat wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> At some time or another you're going to need said account for something. Nope for almost all of these. Different strokes different folks. > Facebook Nope. Haven't had one for more than 10 years now. So easy to live life without a FB account. I stay in touch with family and friends by phonecalls and Mumble. > Instagram Used it for maybe 10 minutes in 2013, haven't touched since. > Snapchat Same as Instagram, but in…

> I stay in touch with family and friends by phonecalls and Mumble. You are a counter-example for sure, but this means that you don't have a group chat platform to plan coordinated events with your friends? Maybe it's an age thing, but getting my friends in a call at a given time to organise a social event is probably as hard as organising the event itself. Compare with Facebook/Messenger/Whatsapp where everyone is i…

How this used to work: You invite your friends to dinner, with enough lead time that they can avoid making other plans. They accept, or decline.

Re: Internet spring cleaning: How to delete Instagram, Facebook and other accounts

#180

Post by dicknuckle »

AdvancedCarrot wrote: post #71
kibwen wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Discord has taken over this role for me and all my social groups. And unlike Facebook there's no ads, no viral bullshit, no astroturfers, no personal information, and you can keep your identities separate across multiple social circles (all of which are private and invite-only by default).

Thing is I'm not convinced that discord is really any better from a privacy perspective. They still retain all of your messages (including DMs) unencrypted indefinitely with no easy way to remove them. Deleting your account doesn't remove messages either.

I'm not really worried about Discord keeping all my messages about a Robot Lawnmower or a couple pieces of software / games I discuss on there.
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