Put An End To Data Mining: #deletefacebook

Who would not want to keep their data secure? Would it be OK for you if your data is compromised?

Social media platforms have become an important part of our lives, and due to their popularity, the amount of time people spend on social media sites/apps has increased manifold.

While these apps provide an excellent way to connect with your friends and family, they come with their share of negatives too. Data breach! Yes, that’s correct, social media platforms are vulnerable to all kinds of data breaches.

Many of us share a lot of information on social media platforms, without realizing that everything posted is susceptible to hacking. One such latest news is related to Cambridge Analytics, a political firm. It is said that data of almost 50 million Facebook users have been used by it. Having said that we can very well imagine the degree of vulnerability on these social media platforms.

Owing to all such data breaches, people have been forced to consider deleting their accounts on social media platforms. Also after the Cambridge Analytica data breach, WhatsApp co-founder said that it’s time to delete Facebook. According to a tweet by him,

Though social media addiction makes quitting it a tough task. For people who consider the security of their personal data most important thing, deleting such accounts would be a better idea.  Learn how to put an end to data mining, delete Facebook.

How to get rid of the data miner: Facebook

Deleting the most addictive part of social media is not an easy task for sure. However, Facebook also offers the ability to disable the Facebook account.

But why to disable Facebook, when you know what it is up to?

Those of you, who have worked as a system administrator, developer know about data redundancy, backups, offsite backup, and other data retention policies that are used to find your data. This means even when you delete an account your data never gets disappeared permanently. If you happen to be a resident of the European Union then chances are that your data will be wiped under the right to be forgotten but that’s not the case of North American’s. If you assume once you follow any of the methods your data will be permanently deleted then it isn’t right.

If you want to delete the details you will need to purge your Facebook Data. Once you do so chances of linking your data with any new account will be decreased to nearly Zero.

So, let’s learn how to purge your Facebook Data before deactivating and deleting Facebook account.

How to Purge Facebook Data?

Before we move ahead, one thing you need to remember is no strategy can guarantee 100% data deletion. Therefore, here we will discuss ways to obfuscate your data to make it recoverable using retention techniques.

Purging manually will be lengthy and time-consuming hence we will be automating the purging the Facebook Data. For this, we will use a script released on Github. This script currently only edits a single post. With time it will be updated and will allow editing multiple posts at a time.

Now that you know how to purge Facebook data we are going to discuss deactivating and deleting Facebook Data:

1. Deactivate Your Facebook Account:

If you choose to deactivate your account, it will mean that:

• Your account will not be deleted permanently; however, it will only be deactivated until you reactivate it.
• No one will be able to see your Timeline.
• There may be visible information like your messages.
• Account information gets saved so that it can be used if the account is reactivated.

Here’s how you need to deactivate your Facebook account:

1. Launch Facebook on your computer.
2. Navigate to Settings by clicking on the inverse triangle icon on the top right corner of the page.

3. From the Settings page click on General tab from the left panel.

4. Under the General Account Settings, click on the Edit button next to Manage Account.

5. Now look for Deactivate your account, click on it and follow the steps to confirm your deactivation.

In future, if you wish to activate your Facebook account, simply log in back and you are done.

2. Delete Your Facebook Account:

While deactivating Facebook account gives you some security, for enhanced security you will have to delete it.

Note: Before deleting your Facebook account, make sure you have taken a complete backup of your Facebook data. Also, Facebook account once deleted cannot be reactivated or recovered.

So now that you have decided to delete your Facebook account, make sure you take a backup of all your memories shared on it. Let’s proceed with the steps to backup your Facebook data:

1. Launch Facebook on your computer.
2. Navigate to Settings by clicking on the inverse triangle icon on the top right corner of the page.

3. From the Setting tab, locate ‘Download a copy of your Facebook data’, under General Account Settings.

4. Now click on ‘Start My Archive’ to start the download.

Deleting a Facebook Account means:

• Your account will not be removed as soon as you delete it, however, it will remain dormant for a few days. If you log in during this time, your account deletion will be canceled.
• There is no way to login back to your account once it gets deleted permanently.
• Facebook takes almost 90 days to delete your data, however the same remains inaccessible.
• Messages sent using Facebook don’t get deleted and remain active.

Once Facebook data has been backed up, you can now put a stop to the data miner and delete Facebook. Follow the steps below and safeguard your data from any kind of breach.

1. Log in to your Facebook account.
2. Click on the link that redirects directly to the Facebook account deletion page.
3. Here click on Delete My Account to permanently delete your Facebook account.

If you think social media platforms where you share your favorite memories are secure, you are wrong. Cambridge Analytica scandal is the latest example of it. If you are tired of these data breaches and want to keep your data secure, put an end to data mining, delete Facebook today.