How to check if Facebook really deleted my account after deactivation?


Recommended Posts

Two days ago, and after a lot of consideration, and after downloading the zip of my profile, I deactivated my Facebook account, and want everything deleted from Facebook servers.

Reading around, I found that Facebook leave the account data on their servers in case someone decide to come back, and the advice is not to have any interaction with Facebook for 14 days to have you account really deleted off the servers. but how can I be sure it is deleted after that time?

The problem is that I can't try to login, as when I do so, it signs in saying "Welcome back", and reactivates everything. What i expect is a message that my account is deactivated, and an option to enable or not, but this is not what happens.

Any ideas?

for the moment, to be sure that in no case i do activities related to facebook, i added Facebook urls in my windows "hosts" file to redirect them to 127.0.0.1, and deleted all cookies.....

  • 4 months later...

As i mentioned in my post in October, I deactivated my Facebook to have everything cancelled and removed from Facebook servers, but still they have my data:

I tried now to do a forgot my password, put only my username and they sent to 2 email addresses that were configured with my account the recover procedure to follow to reset my password..

WHAT CAN I DO TO HAVE MY ACCOUNT DEFINITIVELY REMOVED !?!

As i mentioned in my post in October, I deactivated my Facebook to have everything cancelled and removed from Facebook servers, but still they have my data:

I tried now to do a forgot my password, put only my username and they sent to 2 email addresses that were configured with my account the recover procedure to follow to reset my password..

WHAT CAN I DO TO HAVE MY ACCOUNT DEFINITIVELY REMOVED !?!

You can't. Plain and simple.

As i mentioned in my post in October, I deactivated my Facebook to have everything cancelled and removed from Facebook servers, but still they have my data:

I tried now to do a forgot my password, put only my username and they sent to 2 email addresses that were configured with my account the recover procedure to follow to reset my password..

WHAT CAN I DO TO HAVE MY ACCOUNT DEFINITIVELY REMOVED !?!

You can't really, anything you upload to facebook becomes part of their property. It's in the ToS so check that next time before clicking I agree.

They say they will try to delete your data but obviously tags and other such information will remain even though it may not be linked back to your original account. I think your comments are deleted as well however?

why do you care so much? Just stop visiting the site, and stop worrying about it. If you aren't active.. you aren't accepting friends.. if you were smart you locked down your account so anything people could see was blocked. It doesn't need to be removed off the face of the earth.

As i mentioned in my post in October, I deactivated my Facebook to have everything cancelled and removed from Facebook servers, but still they have my data:

I tried now to do a forgot my password, put only my username and they sent to 2 email addresses that were configured with my account the recover procedure to follow to reset my password..

WHAT CAN I DO TO HAVE MY ACCOUNT DEFINITIVELY REMOVED !?!

why dont you re-activate your account, change all your data to new false values (i.e. change your name to steve smith, 123 fake street, etc) then de-activate it again

if your really worried, change your email to a brand new one, just make a new gmail or hotmail account for this purpose

I'm going to take a gander and say their database can not work like that.

Imagine if you could actually delete your account, removing all of your photos, comments etc. It wouldn't just effect you. It would effect your friends who you tagged in those photos, the comments you left on other people's walls, pictures and statuses. It would be like a virus, almost.

You may be able to remove your profile, but the pictures and such, I don't think you can

You can't. Plain and simple.

You can, but it's very well hidden. Plus they make it sit on their server for a few weeks, because [sarcasm]it takes a huge datacenter a long time to delete records out of a database.[/sarcasm]

As far as checking goes, just make a bogus account. If you try and log in to your "delete pending" account, it'll automatically reactivate it again, making you start the wait cycle over again.

As for why, why not. It's the person's personal information, not Facebook property, TOS be damned. (If they own it, they can pay my f'ing mortgage.) If they wan't it removed, that's their right. They have serious issues respecting people's privacy,you shouldn't have to jump through hoops to delete your own data.

  • Like 2

Facebook can hold your data up to 2 months afaik, so it's best to simply change your password to some random generated value, and never log back in.

I'm going to take a gander and say their database can not work like that.

Imagine if you could actually delete your account, removing all of your photos, comments etc. It wouldn't just effect you. It would effect your friends who you tagged in those photos, the comments you left on other people's walls, pictures and statuses. It would be like a virus, almost.

You may be able to remove your profile, but the pictures and such, I don't think you can

You can delete anything you personally added on your profile. Or anything others added on your profile. You cannot edit/delete things others added, or your comments/posts/pictures that you have posted on others profiles/walls.

Sign back in and manually remove all your information, posts, pictures and anything else. Now deactivate your account again and your done. Also set your account privacy settings to only you and hide yourself from any search.

I'm going to take a gander and say their database can not work like that.

Imagine if you could actually delete your account, removing all of your photos, comments etc. It wouldn't just effect you. It would effect your friends who you tagged in those photos, the comments you left on other people's walls, pictures and statuses. It would be like a virus, almost.

You may be able to remove your profile, but the pictures and such, I don't think you can

It does work like that because you can delete photos, comments etc yourself. I think if you delete your account with that link above ^ it removes your photos and any comments you made or inboxes your name will change to "Facebook User" and any posts you was tagged in your name won't be linked to the profile, just plain text.

  • 5 years later...

Personally I don't believe that Facebook gets rid of everything after deletion.  That seems like a time-waster. And it just isn't a viable way for a database of their calliber ti work. So, I believe this to be a smokescreen to the user. In short, they lie. So, to answer the actual question: in my opinion, you can't. Whatever information you posted will be tucked away somewhere. Yeah, it's not fair. Yes, it's legal. Does Facebook care about the ethics of maintaining a user's dat a after they deleted their account? Not really. They are social manipulators, not productI've advetisers. Don't believe me. Think about when you went to deactivate the account? Immediately you were posed with a peer pressure emotional ploy, an attempt to exploit your emotions to keep you on Facebook,     "(these) friends will miss you." 

 

This is terrible. I've heard better peer pressure from my drunk uncle. Get real. Facebook is essentially an internet parasite. Can you make sure Facebook Deleted your data? I don't think so. Do they care? I don't think so.  They essentiallyare Data collectors, and not compensating the people who give their data away for free to Facebook to use as Facebook sees fit.  So, imho, you and I probably should stay off Facebook as long as possible

On Tuesday, February 15, 2011 at 11:00 AM, pixelpixel said:

Sign back in and manually remove all your information, posts, pictures and anything else. Now deactivate your account again and your done. Also set your account privacy settings to only you and hide yourself from any search.

Bad idea. This will restart the account and totally be contrary to what this person is attempting to do. Cold Turkey is the way to go.

47 minutes ago, Chado2423 said:

Bad idea. This will restart the account and totally be contrary to what this person is attempting to do. Cold Turkey is the way to go.

That or don't use it...

 

Edit: Thread jump, sorry, didn't notice...

  • Nick H. locked this topic
This topic is now closed to further replies.
  • Recently Browsing   0 members

    • No registered users viewing this page.
  • Posts

    • AI will never be the jobs panacea some companies fantasize about today. Oracle is likely using it as an excuse, which we will see a lot of companies doing, I'm certain. They love their "plausible" excuses for their downturns. A couple of weeks ago my wife asked me to call Krogers about some discrepancy in a online grocery order, and it will be the last time either of us does that. I'll just do emails with humans from now on... The AI experience was horrible--the obviously recorded voice started asking a bunch of questions about our orders six months prior(!) and saying, "Is this in reference to your order on January 6, for $****?" You say "No!" and immediately the next question is "Is this in reference to your order on January 29th, for $****?" again, I answered "No!"--and it was incredible--on and on it went like that for fully 20 minutes until we finally got to the present, and only then was I put through to a human with authentic intelligence... I wondered why on Earth the idiot AI didn't start with the most recent orders and work back from there, as it was something anyone with a functioning brain would have done. And why didn't the AI have enough sense to ask me what the problem was in the first place? It didn't take too much deduction to understand that the goal of this "AI" was to cause the person on the phone to hang up in disgust, with no resolution of the problem. That begs another question: why pay for a tool-free problem line if the goal is to avoid solving your customer's problems?... Fortunately, Krogers does have real humans capable of reading an email and understanding it, and if she sees another situation in the future that's route she or I will take. The online grocery delivery service from Krogers has been great, over all, but their AI truly sucks.
    • AI is the justification that company administrators use to lay people off; it is not the end all, be all touted in the media (many of whom can't tell a microchip from a potato chip). Greed is main driving factor behind its adoption; the other is remaining relevant in the face of competition from other entities.
    • Firefox 152.0.2 is out with fixes for performance, translation, and cloud storage services by Taras Buria A new bug-fixing update is now rolling out to Firefox users in the Release Channel. Less than a week ago, Mozilla fixed crashes on Intel Raptor Lake processors with version 152.0.1. Now, Mozilla has prepared yet another set of fixes that address problems with localization, playback issues of certain MP4 files, and performance issues on website that perform various encryption operations at once. Here is the full changelog: Firefox 152.0.2 is now available for download from Mozilla's FTP. Existing installations will get the update over the next several hours. The latest version will also be available soon on the official website, the Microsoft Store, and Neowin's Software page. You can find Firefox 152.0.2 release notes in the official documentation. In case you missed it, Mozilla released Firefox 152 earlier this month. The latest feature update brought reworked settings with a more streamlined user interface, JPEG XL support, new features for Private mode, a new way to mute a tab (just type "mute" in the address bar), and many more. You can find the complete changelog here. In other Firefox news, Mozilla recently published its roadmap, where the company detailed the upcoming Nova redesign and other features it plans to implement. Mozilla wants to make the new user interface easier to navigate and more modern, with a heavy focus on its privacy tools, such as its built-in VPN. If you are curious, you can already enable the new UI as described here.
    • Liene PixCut S1 Starter Kit gets a whopping 31% discount on Prime Day by Steven Parker Liene reached out to us to share another Prime Day exclusive deal that starts today on Amazon. It gives buyers a massive 31% off on the cost of this color sticker printer and cutting machine. It's basically an all-in-one sticker maker for DIY crafts, custom labels and gifts. It utilizes thermal dye-sublimation at 300 dpi, and offers precise "AI" auto-cutting. Here are some more of its highlights: All-in-One Convenience - Print and Cut in One Step. Say goodbye to the hassle of using separate machines. The PixCut S1 seamlessly integrates high-resolution photo printing and precise die cutting into one streamlined device. With just a few clicks on the user-friendly app, you can edit, print, and cut directly from your smartphone via Bluetooth. Create stickers in just 2 minutes! This all-in-one solution saves you time and effort, making your creative projects more enjoyable and efficient. AI Image Extraction & Precision Cutting - Unleash your creativity with the AI image extraction feature that automatically recognizes and extracts subjects from your photos. Then watch as the high-precision cutting system, guided by the same AI technology, perfectly follows every edge with pinpoint accuracy. This seamless AI-to-cut workflow ensures flawless results every time. Turn any moment into custom stickers with professional edges in minutes - just masterpieces made simple. High-Resolution Prints - Vivid and True-to-Life Colors. Utilizing thermal dye-sublimation technology, the PixCut S1 delivers stunning 300 dpi high-resolution prints with 16.7 million colors. Whether you're printing photos, stickers, or labels, you can expect vibrant, true-to-life color effects that make your creations stand out. Every detail is captured with precision, providing professional-quality results every time. AI Lab - Bring Your Imagination to Life. Upload a photo, pick a style from the Liene Photo App, and watch AI bring your vision to life instantly. Turn selfies into an anime character, a fantasy hero, or a festive holiday illustration — all with stunning realism. One style, endless versions of you. Print your AI art as custom stickers, unique gifts, or social media posts — perfect for avatars and DIY projects. No design experience required. Your creativity is just one click away from magic. Durable Stickers - Create Long-Lasting Creations .Thanks to the four-layer thermal dye-sublimation technology, the photopaper is automatically laminated during printing. Stickers produced by PixCut S1 are durable, waterproof and scratch-resistant, ensuring they remain vibrant and intactover time. Perfect for creating custom stickers, labels, and more that last. No Subscription. Just Pure Creativity. With the Liene app, available on mobile, tablet, and desktop. Unlock 40,000+ free images, fonts & elements (and growing), plus 2000+ ready-to-use templates for phone skins, lens stickers, ID cards, labels, name tags, journaling, and more. No paywalls, no hidden fees, just pure creativity. Turn any idea into a custom creation in minutes. Your imagination has no limits, neither should your software. This deal is for the Starter Kit, so what do you get? What's in the box PixCut S1 Photo Sticker Printer and Cutter x 1 Photo Sticker Cutter Ink Cartridge x 1 (36 sheets) Photo Paper 4"x6" (18 sheets) Sticker Paper 4"x7" (White) x 18 sheets Blade x 1 (Pre-installed) So in short everything you need to get printing and cutting. The Liene PixCut S1 has a 4.3 star rating after more than 1,000 reviews from customers, but we can't promise the landing page always sold this particular model, so do check out the reviews before purchasing. In any case Prime members are covered with a 30 day return or replacement should things not work out so great. Liene Pixcut S1 for $205.99 (was $299.99) 31% off Use code 15PIXCUT6 during checkout Although this is a Prime Day discount, the above code will stay live until June 30. Good to know This Amazon deal is U.S. specific, and not available in other regions unless specified. We only use first-party seller links (at the time of article publishing); ensure that you purchase from a first-party seller link only. Check out Today's Deals on Amazon | or our recent tech deals. Become a Prime member (for Students or SNAP) via Neowin Get Prime Access - Prime for half price (for qualifying Medicaid, EBT, SNAP) Subscribe to Prime Video, Audible Plus, Music Unlimited or Kindle Unlimited via Neowin As an Amazon Associate, we earn from qualifying purchases.
  • Recent Achievements

    • One Month Later
      timbobit earned a badge
      One Month Later
    • One Month Later
      nates earned a badge
      One Month Later
    • Week One Done
      Almohandis earned a badge
      Week One Done
    • Rookie
      dorf went up a rank
      Rookie
    • First Post
      mike_rumble earned a badge
      First Post
  • Popular Contributors

    1. 1
      +primortal
      481
    2. 2
      +Edouard
      174
    3. 3
      PsYcHoKiLLa
      103
    4. 4
      Michael Scrip
      88
    5. 5
      neufuse
      70
  • Tell a friend

    Love Neowin? Tell a friend!