A while ago Facebook give the world a heads up that a monolithic information falling out affected as many as 90 million user accounts , and I had understanding to believe I was one of them . So , by nature , I tried to deletemost of my personal information from Facebook , and key out it was queerly hard to do .
Today , in the immediate backwash of the news that hackershad access to the personal information of about 30 million Facebook users , I come an “ Update on Security Incident ” notification on the top of my Facebook Timeline . So yeah , it turned out I was one of the doomed meg . This demanded more rage- deleting .
Why does it matter ? It ’s not well-situated to figure out what Facebook tracks about you . The company ’s mammothPrivacy Policyclocks in at over 4,200 words , and there are manythings Facebook ’s privacy policies do n’t tell you . We will probably never know how much Facebook knows about us . I ’m not even certain Facebook screw how much it knows about us . So when hack break into Facebook , who know what they know ?
Photo: Zach Gibson/Stringer (Getty Images)
I consideredtotally deleting my Facebook account , but I ’m not ready to go for the full atomic option yet for various reasons , like the fact that my mummy will get disturbed . But I stopped trusting Facebook a long time ago , and the situation bothers me far more often than it helps me . ( See more : We’re Making the Facebook Papers Public . Here ’s Why and How )
So I decided to delete as much personal information as possible without really deleting my entire business relationship . In my mind , keeping my Facebook profile alert is not far off from keep my Hotmail report active . Might come in ready to hand . Will definitely just satiate up with junk e-mail for now .
So here ’s what I learn , and how you may get most of your personal information off Facebook .
Screenshot: Facebook
1) Start deleting.
The first matter you demand to bed about microwave your Facebook bearing is that Facebook does not want you to do this . At no distributor point in the process did I see a helpful dialog box that said something like , “ Hey , it looks like you ’re trying to streamline your Facebook mien , let me help you with that . ” Facebook deliberately makes it hard .
So go to Facebook , cluck to view your profile , and then click the “ About ” button . This will bring up a nest of menus that makes it moderately well-to-do to cut your profile . If your mission is to delete information , however , do n’t bother clicking the “ Edit Profile ” button . This will extend you to a confusing soda up that let you redact but not remove information . It ’s a trick !
So , now you ’re on the “ About ” section . On the leftover - hand side of the page , you ’ll see all the dissimilar sections of your visibility — stuff like “ Overview , ” “ Work and Education , ” “ place You ’ve live . ” Just go forward and cancel all that .
Screenshot: Facebook
To do this , start with each section underneath “ Overview ” and lead off rub out your lifetime story as Facebook pick up it . Do n’t worry , it will experience unloose . “ Work and Education , ” for example . Anybody deserving know professionally is n’t drilling into your Facebook profile to find out your certificate , so why surrender the datum to Mark Zuckerberg ?
Start by clicking the “ Options ” push button on the right side of each item . This will uncover a drop - down menu with a “ Delete ” option . But what ’s ridiculous is that sink in that does n’t in reality delete anything , it just prompts you to change the details . So you have to select the “ Remove [ whatever ] ” radio push button from there , click save , and then it ’s gone .
warp up , because the eternal rest of this experience is as misleading and thwarting . Deleting “ Places You ’ve Lived ” is about as gentle as deleting your previous jobs . thing get tricky when you get to “ Contact and Basic Info , ” however .
Screenshot: Facebook
2) Fake the stuff you can’t delete.
The trouble with Facebook knowing your essential personal information — fact like your phone telephone number and birthday — is that Facebook really want this demographic data . You simply ca n’t cancel most of it . you could edit your sound number , but then you ’ll wo n’t be able-bodied to access two - constituent authentication , which you utterly should be using . Facebook will also take you to account options to do these things , where you might have a concentrated sentence finding your elbow room back to the mass - deleting sandbox .
you’re able to change your natal day to a bastard birthday , but Facebook wo n’t let you go away that field blank . Gender is similarly ask . you could pick “ Male , ” “ Female , ” or “ Custom . ” You ca n’t leave it blank .
Keep working your way down the lefthand side of the page to get rid of more personal info . clear out “ Family and Relationships ” will make certain nobody knows about your date life or that prison term you bestow your old roomie as a half - brother . Getting rid of “ Details About You ” will get disembarrass of the profound - sounding verse form you dig out of a notebook a few years ago . Deleting “ Life upshot ” actually means that you have to dispatch posts from your Timeline that had been marked as Life result , which can be as innocuous as “ Got new glasses ” or as wakeless as “ Born . ” Facebook does n’t need to salt away any of this information .
Screenshot: Facebook
3) Trash the ad tracking.
So far we ’ve been edit information that you ( or hoi polloi you know ) sum to your Facebook visibility . There ’s another scary surgical incision of your options that deal with information about you that Facebook ’s algorithm compiled based on your online activity . I ’m speak about the advert tracking .
To get here , come home the little arrow on the upper right - hand corner of your visibility and then go to “ place setting . ” Then , in teeny , midget type on the lefthand side of the Sir Frederick Handley Page , you ’ll see “ advertising , ” and clicking that will take you to a sprawl new surgical incision call “ Your Ad Preferences . ”
This is where Facebook informs you about what variety of things it opine you care , and luckily , you have the choice to consider and remove sure topics . Just for fun , press “ Your Interest ” and begin deleting everything you see . Be aware there are unlike categories you have to click through , and some of the result get pretty uncanny .
Screenshot: Facebook
These topics do freshen on a regular basis , so you ’re not delete clobber as much as you are retrain Facebook ’s machine learning artificial intelligence . In other words , this part of the nuking procedure might be a little pointless , but at the very least , you ’re confusing an algorithm or two .
While you ’re at it , go to the next segment , “ Ad options , ” and forbid Facebook from serve ads found on your activity and your activity on married person site . Facebook will still regain ways to serve you personalized advertising , I ’m sure . But turning this poppycock off experience secure .
As encouraging as it sense to annul Facebook ’s access to stuff you ’re doing online , Facebookis notoriously expert at figuring out what you do , even if you ’re not doing it on Facebook and even if you ’re not logged in to Facebook . This is why you might to consider using Privacy Badger , a Chrome extension built by the Electronic Frontier Foundation , that limits Facebook ’s invisible tracking .
Screenshot: Facebook
Also , do n’t draw a blank to countermand app memory access . Over the years , you ’ve probably given a lot of different web sites and apps access to your Facebook visibility . you may revoke that by clicking “ Apps and Websites ” on the lefthand side of the mount Sir Frederick Handley Page . Revoke everything . You do n’t need it .
4) Consider just quitting.
If you ’ve proceed through all the steps to delete your personal information and minimise ad tracking , you might consider quitting Facebook altogether . A small footstep in that direction would be to erase all of the other data on your Facebook profile — stuff like photos , friendships , Timeline post , and so on . This tutorialcan get you started if you ’re ready to do that .
If you want to cancel Facebook completely , you ’re look at another drawn - out outgrowth . First , you have to deactivate your history , at which point Facebook will show you a cluster of photograph of your friends and order you how much they ’ll drop you . Then , the easiest way to really blue-pencil the damn thing is toclick this inter-group communication .
It ’s not a clean break . You ’re really just letting the societal connection sleep with you desire to delete your accounting : It will still take30 daysfor everything to vanish . You ’ll be lead wondering if anything can truly melt from a walled garden develop thick with weeds .
As for me , I ’m not take leave yet . To use sport analogies : I ’ve gotten tired of sitting on the work bench , I ’ve moved off the toy field , I ’ve collected my things from the locker room , and I ’m walking to my cable car . Who sleep with where I ’ll go once I throw my duffel bag full of digital memory board into the body . The bag has been picked over and steal from , but at least I ’m pay more aid now .
ComputingFacebookInternet privacyMark ZuckerbergSocial mediasoftware
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