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I deactivated my account over a year ago. Facebook will not delete your account, deactivate is the best you can do. Interestingly I went to a Facebook event at

by city41 10y ago

I deactivated my account over a year ago. Facebook will not delete your account, deactivate is the best you can do. Interestingly I went to a Facebook event at their headquarters and when I signed in, there was my profile picture staring back at me. I thought pulling it out of my deactivated account was in poor taste. Anyway, I can say I'm happier without it. I'm now seriously considering deactivating my Twitter account. Twitter really will delete your account after I believe 30 days of it being deactivated.

rak00n 10y ago
I thought Facebook does delete your account. Do you have a source?
- zeroer 10y ago
  My guess is that they don't delete anything due to regulatory and legal reasons.
  - DashRattlesnake 10y ago
    My guess is they don't delete it because your data is valuable to them and they don't want to lose it, though they may use fake regulatory and legal excuses.
  - brokenmachine 10y ago
    What possible regulatory and legal reasons would there be that they can't delete your account? It's not like it's financial information. Any other service (eg Google) expressly says in it's TOS that they may delete your account whenever they feel like it.
- westmeal 10y ago
  Facebook can remove it from public view however any posts you make are the property of Facebook and so they continue to hold onto it.
rolodato 10y ago
It is possible to permanently delete a Facebook account. It's not known whether this truly deletes it, but it's a more permanent measure than deactivation: https://www.facebook.com/help/224562897555674?helpref=related https://www.facebook.com/help/224562897555674?helpref=relate... This is a nefarious dark pattern though - I don't think there's any way to find the delete option through menus, you have to search through Google or Facebook's help center.
- city41 10y ago
  Ah, I did not know that. As far as I know the UI only offers deactivate as an option. Thanks, I just deleted my account.

by city41 10y ago

rak00n 10y ago

I thought Facebook does delete your account. Do you have a source?

zeroer 10y ago
My guess is that they don't delete anything due to regulatory and legal reasons.
- DashRattlesnake 10y ago
  My guess is they don't delete it because your data is valuable to them and they don't want to lose it, though they may use fake regulatory and legal excuses.
- brokenmachine 10y ago
  What possible regulatory and legal reasons would there be that they can't delete your account? It's not like it's financial information. Any other service (eg Google) expressly says in it's TOS that they may delete your account whenever they feel like it.
westmeal 10y ago
Facebook can remove it from public view however any posts you make are the property of Facebook and so they continue to hold onto it.

rolodato 10y ago

It is possible to permanently delete a Facebook account. It's not known whether this truly deletes it, but it's a more permanent measure than deactivation: https://www.facebook.com/help/224562897555674?helpref=related https://www.facebook.com/help/224562897555674?helpref=relate... This is a nefarious dark pattern though - I don't think there's any way to find the delete option through menus, you have to search through Google or Facebook's help center.

city41 10y ago
Ah, I did not know that. As far as I know the UI only offers deactivate as an option. Thanks, I just deleted my account.