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How to permanently delete your Facebook account

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Re: How to permanently delete your Facebook account

#271

Post by MadWombat »

nobody9999 wrote: post #133
jasode wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Deleting WhatsApp, [...], has resulted in many people I know joining Signal or Telegram — the network effect can be broken by being belligerent. This practical application of your advice depends on where a particular person sits in their social hierarchy . E.g. an influential person that's a "hub" or "connector" in their social circle can switch from WhatsApp to Signal ... or insist on email only ... or insist on no…

>being defiant by deleting WhatsApp doesn't accomplish anything because others don't care to switch to reach you. I disagree. It accomplishes at least one thing -- WhatsApp isn't tracking/recording your messages any more. That's what I would care about.

So you prevent them from recording your conversations with friends by having no conversations and no friends.

Re: How to permanently delete your Facebook account

#272

Post by frumper »

winternett wrote: post #255
nepthar wrote: post #251

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> they're not authorized to demand it like the health care industry is. There is no governing body that determines who is and who is not "authorized" to request ID in the United States.

Yes there is... Congress does it regularly by creating and amending laws like HIPAA.

Which law restricts a business like McDonalds from requesting an ID? It sure isn't HIPAA.

Re: How to permanently delete your Facebook account

#273

Post by nobody9999 »

MadWombat wrote: post #271
nobody9999 wrote: post #133

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>being defiant by deleting WhatsApp doesn't accomplish anything because others don't care to switch to reach you. I disagree. It accomplishes at least one thing -- WhatsApp isn't tracking/recording your messages any more. That's what I would care about.

So you prevent them from recording your conversations with friends by having no conversations and no friends.

>So you prevent them from recording your conversations with friends by having no conversations and no friends.

You're absolutely right. Because there's no such thing as other messaging apps, email, social media platforms, SMS/MMS, telephone, written correspondence or discussion over a beer/coffee/meal. Only WhatsApp exists.

Gee, I wish someone would invent some or all of of those things -- I'm so lonely! /s

Re: How to permanently delete your Facebook account

#274

Post by nobody9999 »

kelnos wrote: post #267
nobody9999 wrote: post #138

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>You underestimate the power of convenience. It doesn't bother me much, but I've lost friends because we couldn't keep in touch anywhere other than facebook and whatsapp. Eventually, anyone can stop needing to talk to you. Then I guess they weren't very good friends, were they? If they were, they might make an effort, no?

Perhaps not, but often there's value in maintaining casual friendships.

>Perhaps not, but often there's value in maintaining casual friendships.

A good point. I can't (and don't pretend to) speak for anyone else, but I want to be around people who want to be around me. And not all of those.

Take from that what you will.

Re: How to permanently delete your Facebook account

#275

Post by everybodyknows »

_0ffh wrote: post #217
davidjytang wrote: post #213

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I tried to download my Facebook data once and found that it had all my ancient and deleted posts, ancient relationship status, ancient cities of dwelling, etc. Anyway how would filling in garbage help in deleting Facebook account?

I think the idea is to seed mistrust in the data because there is no way to distinguish between the genuine and the fake data you put on your account. So the fake data makes the genuine practically useless.

Exactly. Taking it to the next level, leave your own tracking info in the fakery, e.g. "favorite vacation: France". Then if someone cold-spams you with tickets to Paris, you'll know why.

Re: How to permanently delete your Facebook account

#276

Post by fakedang »

cratermoon wrote: post #241
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…

The problem is that fundamentally, to Facebook, a user's login account is a separate thing from the user's profile. You can delete your account , and with a straight face Facebook can assert you've deleted it. But your profile , the mass of data and content that you put on Facebook with your account, and all the data associated with it through their social graph and algorithms, that never gets deleted. In a very real…

I tested this quite recently actually. I typed my Facebook password to login with all sorts of mistakes, although the core part of it remains the same, with some minor changes (all caps, a capital letter, an extra character, etc). In all cases the passwords were accepted.

Which leads me to think that Facebook passwords might just be stored as searchable text rather than hashes. Granted I'm no cryptography expert though.

Re: How to permanently delete your Facebook account

#277

Post by hetspookjee »

naivsdaya wrote: post #236
hetspookjee wrote: post #227

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well I think there’s quite the difference any. A regular user of Facebook is worth roughly tens of euros. But working there rewards you with a salary that’s easily upwards of 200k. Given that they’re not losing money if you, you could consider yourself as one of the few power users around by providing a value to evil corp north of your salary. So I think you can definitely differentiate between a regular user contrib…

So it is morally wrong but only above a $ amount? :) Anyway, the irony is interesting, some people on HN unable to control the urge to tell a stranger on the internet that he/she is morally inferior without considering how it makes them feel, while blaming another platform for similar effects and how it negatively impacts people.

No, you argued that people draw an arbitrary line regarding morals when working for evil corp vs consuming. I tried to indicate to you why that line isn’t so arbitrary as it indicates a factor of x100, or whatever exact number it is that is many times larger.

Re: How to permanently delete your Facebook account

#278

Post by asdff »

naivsdaya wrote: post #260
asdff wrote: post #252

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not like people are going to their broker and saying "buy facebook" then going online and saying "ban facebook." Most people probably have no clue that their retirement indexes include like 1% facebook stock in the mix. With the way retirement funds are set up in this country you really don't have much choice in the investment mix unless you are savvy and with time on your hands to study and pick your own horses…

Ok, let's agree that some of us have a moral position against x and are benefiting financially from x but are too busy or too ignorant to do anything about it. And, lets also agree that being employed a company is bad, the argument still seems to breakdown soon enough. Generally, the engineers are to blame because they make enough money and could choose other options, but not others capacities of employment e.g. a dr…

I mean, I wouldn't work minimum wage for a company like this either. There is no shortage of job opportunities these days at the bottom level what with most every business having staffing issues.

Re: How to permanently delete your Facebook account

#279

Post by cascom »

tremon wrote: post #58
cascom wrote: post #53

Why would I want to delete my Facebook account? I abhor Facebook, I never log on, I haven’t used WhatsApp or Facebook messenger, etc. for several years, So I don’t feel like I’m giving them any information, but deleting my account only hurts me by giving away a free option? What am I missing?

You're adding to Facebook's network value by having a Facebook presence, however minimal you deem it to be. You're inducing other people into giving Facebook information on them by maintaining a Facebook account.

Sure, but they're not getting much if anything out of me + i don't to be impersonated / i just view it as a parking a domain

Re: How to permanently delete your Facebook account

#280

Post by Nilithus »

fakedang wrote: post #276
cratermoon wrote: post #241

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem is that fundamentally, to Facebook, a user's login account is a separate thing from the user's profile. You can delete your account , and with a straight face Facebook can assert you've deleted it. But your profile , the mass of data and content that you put on Facebook with your account, and all the data associated with it through their social graph and algorithms, that never gets deleted. In a very real…

I tested this quite recently actually. I typed my Facebook password to login with all sorts of mistakes, although the core part of it remains the same, with some minor changes (all caps, a capital letter, an extra character, etc). In all cases the passwords were accepted. Which leads me to think that Facebook passwords might just be stored as searchable text rather than hashes. Granted I'm no cryptography expert thou…

This was talked about in another HN thread a few years ago https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13426544

It's not stored in searchable text rather they simply have some heuristics that they modify the password submitted and retry automatically.

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