How to permanently delete a Facebook account • Hacker News Board

Re: How to permanently delete a Facebook account

#41

Post by rwmj » Thu, Jul 11, 2013, 11:36 AM UTC

codesuela wrote: post #8

Peroni wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Coincidentally, Adam Hupp from FB spoke at HN London last night and he made a comment that when you permanently delete your facebook account, they do actually wipe all the data stored on you. In Europe at least, there are significant due diligence processes that they are legally required to follow in this regard.

I have zero trust in Facebook and probably would not even believe them if Mark swore on his mother that they perform a proper wipe of your private data. With that in mind you shouldn't have a hard time understanding why it sounds to me as if they delete all copies on servers in the EU but US mirrors of your profile remain untouched. How else could their algorithm deduct that your ladyfriend used to be a man without a…

You can be pretty certain the NSA's copy isn't wiped.

Re: How to permanently delete a Facebook account

#42

Post by rwmj » Thu, Jul 11, 2013, 11:38 AM UTC

300bps wrote: post #37

skrebbel wrote: post #7

To all the skeptics in threads like these: asking that Facebook actually, entirely, erase all your data isn't a reasonable demand. Unless, if course, you're also OK with Facebook's walled-garden, Facebook-is-the-Internet, Compuserve-wasn't-so-bad strategy. Anyone who ever tried to delete content from the internet knows this: The Internet Archive has long since made a copy of what you're trying to delete. Anything you…

I agree with your general point but your example is not correct The Internet Archive makes it very easy to remove content from their site. I had a family web site accessible to the public for 12 years with about 25,000 pictures on it. For various reasons I took the site down but archive.org still showed the pictures. A quick change to robots.txt stopped that though. Basically, even if the archive grabbed the files at…

Make sure you maintain control over the domain and always have a robots.txt file present, because if you ever lose that, those files will become visible again. Good luck arranging for your descendents to do this after you die.

Re: How to permanently delete a Facebook account

#43

Post by znowi » Thu, Jul 11, 2013, 11:38 AM UTC

rlu wrote: post #3

At least I have the option to delete my FB account. On the other hand, Google has lately been aggressively pushing me to convert my YouTube account into a G+ account. Once this is actually forced upon me, is there any way to 'delete' my Google+ account without deleting my YouTube one?

I get pestered with messages from Google on various services asking for my phone, merging/creating accounts, joining Google+, etc. Often the UI is so that for an average user it's not clear how to opt-out from it. Undoubtedly on purpose.

Each time you want to sign out of Google, there's an ever present, huge bright button - "Join Google+". I suppose more than one person clicked it by accident or out of frustration :) On rare occasions when I use Chrome, it never forgets to remind me how I'm missing out and should totally sign-in to Chrome.

Staying relevant is hard work :)

Re: How to permanently delete a Facebook account

#44

Post by antocv » Thu, Jul 11, 2013, 11:42 AM UTC

Peroni wrote: post #6

codesuela wrote: post #2

pretty sure this is not a real full delete. Probably just switches around the profile_status field: 0 - visible/default/active 1 - deactivated 2 - it is gone, really! I swear! crosses fingers 3 - suspended for tos abuse (we don't like you but your data might be valuable at some point) edit: also to be fair: 4 - memorial mode

Coincidentally, Adam Hupp from FB spoke at HN London last night and he made a comment that when you permanently delete your facebook account, they do actually wipe all the data stored on you. In Europe at least, there are significant due diligence processes that they are legally required to follow in this regard.

Yes, FB wipes data they have stored on you, but not NSA/GHCQ/FRA and any other letter-combination agency they have copied the data to.

Re: How to permanently delete a Facebook account

#45

Post by pseut » Thu, Jul 11, 2013, 11:50 AM UTC

kybernetyk wrote: post #27

enneff wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> And I think you should expect the same from every reasonable adult. FYI: Facebook is not primarily populated by reasonable adults.

Can minors legally accept a contract like the Facebook TOS in the US? (Real question, I'm not an US citizen and not a lawyer).

I think the emphasis was on "reasonable"

Re: How to permanently delete a Facebook account

#46

Post by [deleted] » Thu, Jul 11, 2013, 11:52 AM UTC

officemonkey wrote: post #25

restlessmedia wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is very true. I can't bear the deafening sound of trumpets blowing on FB so rarely visit it. On occasions though, it's service as a 'Friends Reunited v2' works well for me.

That's exactly what I used Linkedin for. Don't use the service, but it's a handy way to keep up with my extended business network.

[deleted]

Re: How to permanently delete a Facebook account

#47

Post by k-mcgrady » Thu, Jul 11, 2013, 11:55 AM UTC

EzGraphs wrote: post #29

If a user deletes their account using one of these forms, can a new account be created with the same username ?

I doubt it because your username is linked with your Facebook email address (username@facebook.com). It would probably lead to other people getting your emails if they reassigned the username. I was actually surprised when I found out Twitter reassigns usernames. After I closed my account it wasn't long before someone took mine.

Re: How to permanently delete a Facebook account

#48

Post by k-mcgrady » Thu, Jul 11, 2013, 11:56 AM UTC

tomgirl1 wrote: post #31

I gather this link points to facebook.com. Funny, I deleted my facebook account years ago, but Im sure as heck not going to click on a facebook.com link and find out if I really did! (subtitle, I react to facebook.com links as if they were phishing links and what would be the difference? scraping my contacts, selling my personal data, rewriting my TOS at every opportunity. I view the home page of facebook even withou…

>> "I gather this link points to facebook.com. Funny, I deleted my facebook account years ago, but Im sure as heck not going to click on a facebook.com link and find out if I really did!"

So although you don't want a Facebook account, if you have one you forgot about you'd rather not know about it??

Re: How to permanently delete a Facebook account

#49

Post by k-mcgrady » Thu, Jul 11, 2013, 11:59 AM UTC

officemonkey wrote: post #25

restlessmedia wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is very true. I can't bear the deafening sound of trumpets blowing on FB so rarely visit it. On occasions though, it's service as a 'Friends Reunited v2' works well for me.

That's exactly what I used Linkedin for. Don't use the service, but it's a handy way to keep up with my extended business network.

Isn't that one of the main features of LinkedIn? Maybe I'm misunderstanding but aren't you essentially saying the equivalent of "I don't use Google's services but it's a handy way to help me find websites"?

Re: How to permanently delete a Facebook account

#50

Post by stefanix » Thu, Jul 11, 2013, 12:00 PM UTC

Peroni wrote: post #6

codesuela wrote: post #2

pretty sure this is not a real full delete. Probably just switches around the profile_status field: 0 - visible/default/active 1 - deactivated 2 - it is gone, really! I swear! crosses fingers 3 - suspended for tos abuse (we don't like you but your data might be valuable at some point) edit: also to be fair: 4 - memorial mode

Coincidentally, Adam Hupp from FB spoke at HN London last night and he made a comment that when you permanently delete your facebook account, they do actually wipe all the data stored on you. In Europe at least, there are significant due diligence processes that they are legally required to follow in this regard.

The possibility that Facebook actually deletes "all the data stored on you" is negligible! I give it 0.00000000000000000001% likelihood. This is against anything Facebook has ever done. Empty words!