How to permanently delete your Facebook account

Post by arkh » Wed, Oct 06, 2021, 3:14 PM UTC

ghego1 wrote: post #132

arkh wrote: post #118

So here is an idea about deleting accounts. Usually people may want to undo it sometime but if it's deleted it is deleted. One of the things required by the GDPR is a way to export your data and even import it (article 20, right to portability). So you should implement a way to do that. Then when users ask to delete their account, create an export, encrypt it with a one-time use key which you mail to the user, store…

Technically very smart solution, but legally way too risky. If there's ever a breach, for example someone steals the key and then accesses the data, the fine will be super high given that the company has retrained data after the user asked to delete it. To mitigate such risk, the company would at least need explicit consent of the user, at which point it's just as simply asking the user to not really delete their acc…

Post by wintermutestwin » Wed, Oct 06, 2021, 3:18 PM UTC

shadowfaxRodeo wrote: post #15

I got rid of Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp about 4 years ago. Facebook and Instagram was easy, but people who have WhatsApp really think you’re weird for not having it. Deleting WhatsApp, while annoying for me personally, has resulted in many people I know joining Signal or Telegram — the network effect can be broken by being belligerent. If you don’t want to have a conversation about why you deleted WhatsApp, si…

Post by wintermutestwin » Wed, Oct 06, 2021, 3:26 PM UTC

hdhdbid wrote: post #156

roydivision wrote: post #145

Most of the time tech companies have their fans and detractors. In virtually any discussion about tech companies, you’ll find people for the company in question, and others against, Apple and Google are great examples. I find it interesting that I don’t think I’ve ever come across any discussion about Facebook (and I read a lot of them) where anyone is defending them. Either people are strongly against the company, o…

At least in my opinion for this on HN, you get downvoted very quickly on HN to have such an opinion. I work for FAANG. I generally dont comment on HN but recently I read every thread about FAANG to have a thread that read like you should be ashamed to work there. I replied, Even before i worked there, I used their products to keep in touch woth my family/friends, at a startup I worked at we used open source tech from…

Post by avs733 » Wed, Oct 06, 2021, 3:31 PM UTC

dleslie wrote: post #177

swamp-agr wrote: post #134

Earlier quoted context omitted.

From data modelling point of view it's a challenge to wipe the user data since it will affect a social graph. And there're different strategies to handle corner cases (e.g. how to deal with reactions/replies on "deleted" comments or with reactions on your photos or your reactions on different news, mark as deleted and wipe the content or completely remove nested graph). And it actually makes user tracking much harder…

This all seems to be problems for them surveillance capitalist, and not the user.

Post by input_sh » Wed, Oct 06, 2021, 3:40 PM UTC

rubylark wrote: post #184

xadhominemx wrote: post #168

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> An unregulated private company asking you for official government documentation and your real name is definitely tracking you in my opinion. This is nothing unusual? It’s extremely common for a private company to request identify verification

Is it? Maybe its my unconscious avoidance of industries with that practice, but the only other private corporation I can think of that has requested my ID is Costco. I can't think of a single software service or social media that has wanted my ID for anything. On the other hand, Facebook has never asked for my ID either, I assume because I have an old enough account that I was grandfathered in. Edit: I thought of two…