Deleting Your Facebook Account Now Wipes Out All Your Internal Data | Hacker News Reader

Deleting Your Facebook Account Now Wipes Out All Your Internal Data

facebook.com

A link to an FAQ explaining how internal data is wiped would probably be better than linking to the actual page to delete your Facebook. Right now, it's like being taken to the edge of a cliff to be told that there's a landing trampoline on the other side.

I already deleted my Facebook account a month or so ago. I'd like to read the post to see if it's retroactive...but I can't read it without logging in to Facebook.

Sigh. Will Facebook ever learn?

It’s not a post. It’s a link to the account deletion screen on Facebook.

I’m surprised this username hadn’t been used before.

Given it’s 4 minutes old color me skeptical

This is not a link to an article. This is a link to the page which contains the button to delete your account. Here's the text from that page:

If you do not think you will use Facebook again and would like your account deleted, we can take care of this for you. Keep in mind that you will not be able to reactivate your account or retrieve any of the content or information you have added.

If you would still like your account deleted, click "Delete My Account".

Is this appropriate as a Show HN? I assume not everyone who wants to see how this works wants to actually (irrevocably) delete their account.

Show HN is for something the author has built that they think the community will be interested in. I think this fits.

There is about a 0% chance that this is actually Marky Z.

It'd be pretty interesting if it is though.

Screenshot for those complaining they need a facebook account to see the feature https://imgur.com/a/15BzvRl

The help link goes to https://www.facebook.com/help/224562897555674

This ranks upon the most socially responsible acts Facebook has performed.

Does anyone have a handle on the intention or anticipated benefits behind this move?

Hypothesis: Facebook is seeing a huge increase in temporary account deactivations (my friends call it a Facebook fast...), and this is intended to mitigate that by making the act of account deactivation more intimidating.

It should take about 10 seconds of googling to realize that Facebook supports both deactivation and deletion.

Noted that https://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=Mark-Zuckerberg is real

> Noted that https://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=Mark-Zuckerberg is real

I'm skeptical that account is controlled by Mark Zuckerberg and will remain skeptical until I see a good verification proof.

What makes you say that?

Is OP the real Mark Zuckerberg?

Yes - Because the real MZ is into making everyone on HN delete their FB permanently

What about those of us who deleted our facebook account, say, in 2016? Will that data be deleted?

Does it delete shadow profiles as well or just information gleaned from the account itself?

Considering they won't give you any real data they have on you via the 'download your data' function they've had for a while; I highly doubt it.

Seems more like a PR move than anything to me.

> Considering they won't give you any real data they have on you via the 'download your data' function they've had for a while; I highly doubt it.

There are leaks, the contacts.html file shows some evidence of the kind of record-linkage they must do to build shadow profiles.

>Log into Facebook

>You must log in to continue.

Seriously?

It is a security reason. Imagine you have your computer not lock and someone goes on that page. At least, the person won't have his/her account deleted. It's all fine because it's not an operation that is done repeatedly.

You still have to enter your password to confirm deletion of your account, so there would be no security risk in displaying that info page.

For a "Show HN" I'd have expected a blog post/detailed status update/something explaining what changed.

You want to delete someone's account without logging in?

I'd like to see the details without logging in, yes.

I don't get the delete facebook movement. You can still use facebook without giving them all your data. Just.. don't give them your data!

> I don't get the delete facebook movement. You can still use facebook without giving them all your data. Just.. don't give them your data!

That's not true, they get all kinds of data from other sources, including stuff from your friends that they may not have even realized they shared (such as your phone number when FB slurped their phone's contacts list).

and of course they track your movements across the web via their advertising platform and 'log-in-with-facebook' stuff.

Yes but the sign in stuff is within your control too. Simply logout or delete the cookies, and don't use sign in with facebook. Simply having a facebook account (even under a pseudonym), doesn't mean you have to start using login with facebook. I try to use Facebook in the most minimal way possible—I have an account and can message people, but I don't use it for anything that I don't need it for. I try to ensure I get more out of it than it does from me. I don't voluntarily fill out my profile with more information than necessary.

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