How to delete your Facebook account completely on your iPhone or Mac
With anger and distrust at the social network at perhaps an all-time high, here's how to go about getting rid of Facebook -- something that's a lot easier than it used to be.
Facebook is once again in the news for not-very-positive reasons, this time due to a series of news stories related to its relationship with the polling and data mining outfit Cambridge Analytica, and specifically the way CA improperly used a large cache of Facebook users' data, without permission, in connection with the 2016 presidential election.
This has all made trust in Facebook collapse, along with its stock price, while also pushing some users to get off the platform altogether. But for users to take the plunge, how exactly can they go about doing it?
There are two different options for getting off Facebook: deactivating and deleting. If one chooses to de-activate, that simply means they are removing their profile from public view, while retaining the option of re-activating it at a later time. This allows Facebook to retain your data.
Deleting your account means both they and you lose everything you've posted.
Still want to delete? First, open up Facebook in a browser, as you can't delete your account from the app. Second, Go to the Delete Account page:
Click Delete My Account, and that's it. However, even if you do, deletion requests take a few days to go into effect, and if the user logs back in during the deletion process, the deletion is cancelled with no warning to the user.
If you wish to save all of your data before deleting Facebook, there's an easy way to do that, too. Go to Facebook.com/settings and click "Download a copy of your Facebook data" at the bottom.
Deleting Facebook used to be much more difficult, but some EU regulations passed last year led the social network to change the protocol.
Facebook is once again in the news for not-very-positive reasons, this time due to a series of news stories related to its relationship with the polling and data mining outfit Cambridge Analytica, and specifically the way CA improperly used a large cache of Facebook users' data, without permission, in connection with the 2016 presidential election.
This has all made trust in Facebook collapse, along with its stock price, while also pushing some users to get off the platform altogether. But for users to take the plunge, how exactly can they go about doing it?
There are two different options for getting off Facebook: deactivating and deleting. If one chooses to de-activate, that simply means they are removing their profile from public view, while retaining the option of re-activating it at a later time. This allows Facebook to retain your data.
Deleting your account means both they and you lose everything you've posted.
Still want to delete? First, open up Facebook in a browser, as you can't delete your account from the app. Second, Go to the Delete Account page:
Click Delete My Account, and that's it. However, even if you do, deletion requests take a few days to go into effect, and if the user logs back in during the deletion process, the deletion is cancelled with no warning to the user.
If you wish to save all of your data before deleting Facebook, there's an easy way to do that, too. Go to Facebook.com/settings and click "Download a copy of your Facebook data" at the bottom.
Deleting Facebook used to be much more difficult, but some EU regulations passed last year led the social network to change the protocol.
Comments
The timing from the EU couldn't be better.
BUT — I never post anything, read anything, or otherwise use in any way anything on FB. I just have the account as a way for people to reach me.
it’s kind of like my landline. I never answer the phone, I send all messsages to voicemail. Maybe 1 out of 500 messages isn’t crap — is something I actually pay attention to.
Same goes for my gmail account. It’s the e-mail I give to businesses. Actual humans that I want to talk to get my iCloud address.
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Don't forget to delete the app itself, along with Messenger, and search for Facebook cookies on your computer and phone and delete those as well. You'll also need to reregister with those apps and websites to which you originally registered using your Facebook credentials. In some cases, this might mean creating a new account entirely.
Lastly, you'll likely need to block facebook.com, and any sites associated with it, entirely so as to avoid the Facebook tracking cookies that many other sites save to your machine.
I'm sure there's stuff I've forgotten.