FYI here’s a link to delete your Facebook account: https://www.facebook.com/help/delete_account
Earlier I had “deactivated” my account thinking it would get deleted, but then I learned I have to visit this page to actually delete it.
Earlier I had “deactivated” my account thinking it would get deleted, but then I learned I have to visit this page to actually delete it.
"Incorrect email/password combination"[1]
This is despite being logged in to FB with the same password.
The fix is to change your password, log out and log back in with the changed password. You will then be able to delete your account without issue.
Maybe the author could add this information to their post?
People have been asking on the FB help forum for years about how to resolve this error. FB refuses to answer anyone asking for help with this error. I'm guessing their failure to mention this or address this is quite intentional.
Oh and the audio versions of the CAPTCHAs are all completely unintelligible gibberish. I'm guessing this is intentional as well.
[1] https://www.facebook.com/help/community/question/?id=4018056...
We typed it very carefully. Tried copying from notepad, the same copying used to reset the password.
It indeed felt like Hotel California, as someone below compared.
I also ran into a challenging captcha and a page saying my account had been “locked”, but I was still able to log in. After logging in, I received a phone call from Palo Alto. When I let the call go to voicemail, it left a message consisting only of a recorded voice saying “goodbye”. Perhaps this was some poorly-implemented two-factor auth, but in context, I felt like Facebook was intentionally making the experience of using a mobile browser unpleasant to encourage use of the app.
Sounds like the delete your account page has similar “issues”.
From my experience optimizing signup funnels, it made me wonder if somebody is doing that work in reverse here. Are they getting a bonus based on what percentage of people abandon the account deletion process?
Maybe I’m just being paranoid, and optimizing those flows is simply not a high priority. But for a tech-focused company that tends to operate at a pretty high level, it felt like they are actively making things more difficult. Like this was the shittiest experience bright minds could come up with.
I didn't know this was a real thing. I was getting ready to delete my account a couple days ago but I wanted to set all the privacy settings to be as strict as possible before I did it.
Sure enough, somehow all of the advertising and data retention settings were on the most open option possible, despite restricting them when I made the account and when I would occasionally check my privacy settings
Also, using Messenger Lite (Android only) is a vastly better experience than the main Messenger app.
Also it is quite old fashioned and painfully limited wrt/attachments.
And expensive for thise with families/friends abroad.
There are other chat services sure, but the Facebook has by far the most number of people I know on it. Also, not everyone I know exchange numbers. There's no usernames, etc on Facebook so its easy to find people too.
Weird, I know, but guess generations are changing. Apparently now Snapchat has become the main form of 'communication' for many millennial with their friends. So looks like I'm falling behind.
And it's funny because contrary to the "Facebook as hypnotist" narrative (which is real) Facebook is a really fantastic tool for getting people together talking face to face and even working together on things.
Meetup.com maybe? But I agree, I use Facebook Events a lot. It comes back to that issue of "everyone is here and using it, so this is where events are posted".
(I bet that's a stupid question)
I also don't know if turning off location services actually disables the ability of apps to get your location.
Assuming I could be relatively certain that my data will be deleted, I'd probably keep a bare account but delete most of what they have.
You will need to contact Spotify support if you deactivated Facebook prior to disconnecting from Spotify.
However! Spotify support were great, they offered to migrate all my playlists from the old account over to the new account. No guarantees they could do that now with everyone deleting their FB accounts at once, but I was really impressed with the friendliness of their service. They pretty much created a customer for life out of me from that support experience.
For too many years I kept a page at popular social networks even if they added negative value for me. I don't know, what if someone place a page there impersonating me? Well, I don't care anymore.
Until recently I thought Lyft made Facebook login mandatory, I'm not sure if that's still the case.
It still requires you to create a new account (that has an account key you can automically store in Google Drive) but it works.
The downsides are that messenger.com doesn't support this so you can only access messenger on your phone and that Facebook still has an idea of who you are.
> You can checkout any time you like, but you can never leave!"
Thank you for pointing this out. I, too, was under the impression that "Deactivate" was the delete option, especially considering they place a "Delete" segment right above it but make it sound as if that is about handling your account after death. Some definite dark patterns in the UI right there.
But yeah, there's a sneaking dark side to how they use that feature.
Instead, we should first model what the future of social networking should look like:
https://hackernoon.com/a-new-kind-of-social-network-emotiona...
Then I am curious to hear people's thoughts on:
- Mastodon
- Secure Scuttlebutt
- Steemit
etc.
It's safe to do it now. I got you covered:
Is it not "safe" to do something until the guy people worship does something? Have respect for yourself.
Those alternatives never went anywhere for the past 14 years. Musk is late to the game, what's his wiki prove?
The "I've got new respect for Musk" mantra (actually stated in this thread) when he's doing what other people have been doing for a decade, only difference is, he's rich, is very follow the crowd for something which prides itself on individuality like HN.
-if you want to read the news for Tesla, go to their website -you don't need to be spied on 24/7 and having that "intelligence" coming back to bite you -you don't need a constant spy to follow you around to any page with a "like" button -you don't need to waste 60mins in cat videos and party photos on a party you were not invited, if your actual need to see the news about the new Tesla XYZ car
None of them are very good...?
Others use Signal.
Signal advantages: tptacek thinks the crypto is good.
Signal disadvantage: It wont work with limited permissions on your phone according to some people on HN.
Telegram advantage: somewhat more userfriendly. Larger userbase. Works even if you limit its permissions.
Telegram disadvantage: every cryptographer seems to think their crypto is bad. Uncertainty wrt their relations with Russian government. (I think they are enemies but some think they are very good friends or blackmailed into cooperation.)
And some friends and me use Threema. Very old fashioned: you pay some money and get a product. But I wouldn't want to switch.
I used to like WhatsApp, another app with an old-fashioned business model ...
They both audit their crypto:
Threema audit: https://threema.ch/es/faq/code_audit
Signal audit: https://eprint.iacr.org/2016/1013.pdf
I'm curious as to what those limited permissions are? I assume this refers to iOS, because in my experience, Android is not as restrictive of apps.
> This holiday season, don't ask for everything all at once (especially during installation). Signal now supports dynamic permissions.