How to permanently delete your Facebook account • Hacker News Board

Re: How to permanently delete your Facebook account

#201

Post by sgregnt » Wed, Oct 06, 2021, 3:42 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.

Is facebook here different than other apps? If you publically post something on internet, good luck trying to delete it...

Re: How to permanently delete your Facebook account

#202

Post by Nextgrid » Wed, Oct 06, 2021, 3:42 PM UTC

1024core wrote: post #192

Nextgrid wrote: post #122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's no reason to believe it's a "full" account delete even in the countries covered by the GDPR considering they brazenly breach the GDPR with their "consent" flow.

So why are there no consequences? Why isn't there a red corner Interpol arrest warrant for Zuck out?

The regulators who are supposed to enforce the GDPR are either incompetent or unwilling to do so. I suspect there might be political problems with stepping up enforcement considering a lot of politicians rely on social media & ads (which is powered by non-consensual data processing) to help with their (re)-election.

Re: How to permanently delete your Facebook account

#203

Post by hncurious » Wed, Oct 06, 2021, 3:45 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…

A lot of people on HN downvote for disagreement, which I think creates a chilling effect, reinforces groupthink and results in a warped view of reality. For what it's worth, I try to balance that out by upvoting gray'd out comments that are sincere or well argued regardless of whether I personally agree with the statement or not. One of the things I appreciate about HN is seeing positions that challenge my existing ideas.

Re: How to permanently delete your Facebook account

#204

Post by ploum » Wed, Oct 06, 2021, 3:45 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…

The fact is that working for a company is investing a lot of your time and energy to make this company more powerful.

Your work count. Really.

So your work should be as much as possible aligned with your moral values. Lot of people blind themselves with the salary and weak justification. I find that complete hypocrisy.

Now, is the company you are working for aligned with your own moral values?

Only you can answer that ;-)

Re: How to permanently delete your Facebook account

#205

Post by ta1234567890 » Wed, Oct 06, 2021, 3:45 PM UTC

1024core wrote: post #192

Nextgrid wrote: post #122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's no reason to believe it's a "full" account delete even in the countries covered by the GDPR considering they brazenly breach the GDPR with their "consent" flow.

So why are there no consequences? Why isn't there a red corner Interpol arrest warrant for Zuck out?

Because the US government wants to maintain access to FBs data. Shutting down FB would be a big blow to surveillance, hence they will never do anything serious against it. They’ll just put on a show, scream publicly in outrage about what FB does or whatever, and then nothing substantial will come out of it, because they never intended to do anything in the first place.

Re: How to permanently delete your Facebook account

#206

Post by xtracto » Wed, Oct 06, 2021, 3:45 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…

I find Whats App to be the easiest of the 3: Whoever has WhatsApp has a mobile phone. So, it's just a matter of sending them SMS instead of WhatsApp. The odd situation is when contacting companies via WhatsApp, but most companies usually have alternative methods of contact.

Re: How to permanently delete your Facebook account

#207

Post by sgregnt » Wed, Oct 06, 2021, 3:48 PM UTC

classified wrote: post #110

swamp-agr wrote: post #47

The situation is quite interesting here. - Imagine, you're living outside of USA/UK/Europe. - Formally, it's possible to proceed with "Permanently delete my account". - You will even receive email assuring you that two weeks later profile would be completely deleted. - Then, couple years later you'll occasionally seen email from facebook that someone tried to log in into your ("permanently deleted") account. - You'll…

They lie about everything else, why would this be different?

How this exageration contributes to a discussion here? It is very popular now to bash facebook. This kind of herd conformism and unsubstantiated claims are harming hacker news community in my humble opinion.

If you do not bring new evidence or ideas, please refrain from exaggerated accusations.

Re: How to permanently delete your Facebook account

#208

Post by raverbashing » Wed, Oct 06, 2021, 3:49 PM UTC

swamp-agr wrote: post #47

The situation is quite interesting here. - Imagine, you're living outside of USA/UK/Europe. - Formally, it's possible to proceed with "Permanently delete my account". - You will even receive email assuring you that two weeks later profile would be completely deleted. - Then, couple years later you'll occasionally seen email from facebook that someone tried to log in into your ("permanently deleted") account. - You'll…

Maybe a better idea would be to actively go against the Terms of Service for FB and obfuscate the data in your account

- Remove all photos and replace them with other images (nothing illegal)

- Change all data relating to your person

- Create several posts with unrelated data

- Like as many pages as you possibly can

Re: How to permanently delete your Facebook account

#209

Post by mimentum » Wed, Oct 06, 2021, 3:52 PM UTC

wintermutestwin wrote: post #193

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…

Is the problem that a lot of non-US mobile providers don't include SMS for free? I'm probably showing my ignorance around SMS and iMessage, but why can't SMS simply use your data allowance? Doesn't iMessage do this?

SMS runs through a different protocol and has different set standards; https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SMS

iMessage is a proprietary messaging system

Re: How to permanently delete your Facebook account

#210

Post by rvnx » Wed, Oct 06, 2021, 3:52 PM UTC

winternett wrote: post #182

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

Sure, for a dentist or doctor's visit, it's totally reasonable. But if you were asked for your ID every time you bought a burger at McDonalds, it would be considered suspect and a potential privacy invasion by most. The same is the case with social media. They don't need your government ID, and they're not authorized to demand it like the health care industry is.

It's called a loyalty card what you describe