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I removed my phone number from Facebook profile months ago. Now and then, Facebook still asks me if "XXXXXX" is my number? Once I unintentionally linked my Face

I removed my phone number from Facebook profile months ago. Now and then, Facebook still asks me if "XXXXXX" is my number? Once I unintentionally linked my Facebook account with my insta account. And then I started getting follow suggestions from people in my Facebook friend list. I tried many thing to de-link the accounts. Ultimately, I created a fake Facebook account and linked it to my insta. Once you give something to Facebook; it's never truly erased.

joering2 9y ago
Good story. And I bet you there are lawyers in Europe sharpening their teeth right now waiting for GDPR to kick in to send Facebook discovery letters just a minute after April 1st pass. Need popcorn and comfortable chair, as the stock is down 10%, and we've just started!! Edit: May 25, of course.
- hawaiianbrah 9y ago
  Doesn’t it go into effect May 25?
- jakeogh 9y ago
  I'm more than happy to see FB go down the tubes, but legislating away memory is foolish. It's part of the war on general purpose computing. The way things are framed to make them seem good is very interesting. What if I proposed we make keeping records of past information and actors encountered illegal if they don't want you to remember, while at the same time make it trivial for the same people to waste your time by demanding free consulting?
- adventured 9y ago
  I understand the blow-back against their privacy abuses, it's well deserved (as it was in the past). However, this kind of response is just funny. The stock is back to where it was in July. Up 100% in less than three years. $464 billion market cap. Things are really dire. They'll only earn $20 billion this year, growth will only be 30%+. They only have ~$43 billion in cash right now with zero debt. That's barely enough to keep the lights on. They should shut down the business right now before they run out of money. The speeding tickets they might one day get from the EU, could cost them hundreds of millions of dollars. But just imagine, what if it's $3 billion. I mean, it's not like Facebook can reluctantly change several of its policies while maintaining its massive 2+ billion userbase and keep right on printing money at their 50% operating income margins. Yeah, but just imagine if their operating income margins decline to only 40% because it crimps their business model by reducing the value of their ad targeting. And what if it cuts their growth rate in half? Under that scenario they might only earn $30 billion in net income in 2021. It's a rough road ahead. The other fun part? They'll still net add global users in 2018. None of this is going to matter for the survival of their business, although it might improve user privacy around the globe and that'll be a big win.
  - joering2 9y ago
    Unless another social network comes along and FB will die out loud like Friendster and MySpace did. If you think solid $ numbers are everything to keep "printing money" then see what happened to Kodak or Sony.
    - empath75 9y ago
      Or blackberry or Nokia.
    - Bahamut 9y ago
      Many have tried to take a slice of FB’s pie - almost all failed to make a serious dent, and the main social media alternatives are also generally struggling (or have serious fundamental issues of their own). At this point, I’m very skeptical another company will unseat FB’s dominance for quite a while, if ever.
      - alecco 9y ago
        And FB buys the competition or throws money at disarming it by buying its competition and putting it on steroids.
    - beagle3 9y ago
      That's true, but there's a difference between FB and Friendster/MySpace: Zuck is apparently trying (and succeeding) at managing that risk. Instagram was growing quickly and could seed the next big FB competitor. So FB bought them for a $1B valuation almost everyone thought was crazy at the time. WhatsApp could seed the next big FB competitor. So FB bought them for $20B or so, which again was mostly considered crazy at the time. Neither of these is crazy in retrospect: FB's dominant position is easily worth what DB paid for these and more. FB didn't manage to buy Snap, so they started waging war, adding Snap's features 3 times (to FB, WhatsApp and Instagram). FB management is actively trying to stay dominant. MySpace was, in comparison, passive; and friendster was never as dominant.
      - joering2 9y ago
sundvor 9y ago
Oooh I've been trying for ages to kill my insta FB link. My FB app permissions is null and zilch, but FB must have secret storage of this. I'll try that. Then kill the fake account.
- thomasahle 9y ago
  What's the point of removing the link between your Instagram and Facebook accounts? It's all stores on the same servers anyway.
  - sundvor 9y ago
    I created my Insta account before FB bought it. For some stupid reason I let it connect to FB for (limited) sharing some pics, rather than doing it manually - then that was it. I don't want all my FB contacts to "see me" on Insta; I just have tonnes of people adding me with no real interaction. The integration is really quite obnoxious. I have in fact stopped using Instagram now due to this.
- wmwm 9y ago
  I never connected my FB/Insta accounts and they were created with different email addresses entirely. Was conscious of not letting the two connect. One day my Instagram account started actively recommending my FB friends. Anybody have this experience?
  - jzl 9y ago
    Yes! It's insane. It's probably using location data and IP address among other things. If they had even an ounce of concern about privacy they would detect and explicitly prevent making recommendations across accounts that someone is obviously trying to keep separate. The best breakdown I've seen of this issue, including glib comments from Facebook: https://gizmodo.com/how-facebook-outs-sex-workers-1818861596 https://gizmodo.com/how-facebook-outs-sex-workers-1818861596
    - sundvor 9y ago

joering2 9y ago

Good story. And I bet you there are lawyers in Europe sharpening their teeth right now waiting for GDPR to kick in to send Facebook discovery letters just a minute after April 1st pass. Need popcorn and comfortable chair, as the stock is down 10%, and we've just started!! Edit: May 25, of course.

hawaiianbrah 9y ago
Doesn’t it go into effect May 25?
jakeogh 9y ago
I'm more than happy to see FB go down the tubes, but legislating away memory is foolish. It's part of the war on general purpose computing. The way things are framed to make them seem good is very interesting. What if I proposed we make keeping records of past information and actors encountered illegal if they don't want you to remember, while at the same time make it trivial for the same people to waste your time by demanding free consulting?
adventured 9y ago
I understand the blow-back against their privacy abuses, it's well deserved (as it was in the past). However, this kind of response is just funny. The stock is back to where it was in July. Up 100% in less than three years. $464 billion market cap. Things are really dire. They'll only earn $20 billion this year, growth will only be 30%+. They only have ~$43 billion in cash right now with zero debt. That's barely enough to keep the lights on. They should shut down the business right now before they run out of money. The speeding tickets they might one day get from the EU, could cost them hundreds of millions of dollars. But just imagine, what if it's $3 billion. I mean, it's not like Facebook can reluctantly change several of its policies while maintaining its massive 2+ billion userbase and keep right on printing money at their 50% operating income margins. Yeah, but just imagine if their operating income margins decline to only 40% because it crimps their business model by reducing the value of their ad targeting. And what if it cuts their growth rate in half? Under that scenario they might only earn $30 billion in net income in 2021. It's a rough road ahead. The other fun part? They'll still net add global users in 2018. None of this is going to matter for the survival of their business, although it might improve user privacy around the globe and that'll be a big win.
- joering2 9y ago
  Unless another social network comes along and FB will die out loud like Friendster and MySpace did. If you think solid $ numbers are everything to keep "printing money" then see what happened to Kodak or Sony.
  - empath75 9y ago
    Or blackberry or Nokia.
  - Bahamut 9y ago
    Many have tried to take a slice of FB’s pie - almost all failed to make a serious dent, and the main social media alternatives are also generally struggling (or have serious fundamental issues of their own). At this point, I’m very skeptical another company will unseat FB’s dominance for quite a while, if ever.
    - alecco 9y ago
      And FB buys the competition or throws money at disarming it by buying its competition and putting it on steroids.
  - beagle3 9y ago
    That's true, but there's a difference between FB and Friendster/MySpace: Zuck is apparently trying (and succeeding) at managing that risk. Instagram was growing quickly and could seed the next big FB competitor. So FB bought them for a $1B valuation almost everyone thought was crazy at the time. WhatsApp could seed the next big FB competitor. So FB bought them for $20B or so, which again was mostly considered crazy at the time. Neither of these is crazy in retrospect: FB's dominant position is easily worth what DB paid for these and more. FB didn't manage to buy Snap, so they started waging war, adding Snap's features 3 times (to FB, WhatsApp and Instagram). FB management is actively trying to stay dominant. MySpace was, in comparison, passive; and friendster was never as dominant.
    - joering2 9y ago

sundvor 9y ago

Oooh I've been trying for ages to kill my insta FB link. My FB app permissions is null and zilch, but FB must have secret storage of this. I'll try that. Then kill the fake account.

thomasahle 9y ago
What's the point of removing the link between your Instagram and Facebook accounts? It's all stores on the same servers anyway.
- sundvor 9y ago
  I created my Insta account before FB bought it. For some stupid reason I let it connect to FB for (limited) sharing some pics, rather than doing it manually - then that was it. I don't want all my FB contacts to "see me" on Insta; I just have tonnes of people adding me with no real interaction. The integration is really quite obnoxious. I have in fact stopped using Instagram now due to this.
wmwm 9y ago
I never connected my FB/Insta accounts and they were created with different email addresses entirely. Was conscious of not letting the two connect. One day my Instagram account started actively recommending my FB friends. Anybody have this experience?
- jzl 9y ago
  Yes! It's insane. It's probably using location data and IP address among other things. If they had even an ounce of concern about privacy they would detect and explicitly prevent making recommendations across accounts that someone is obviously trying to keep separate. The best breakdown I've seen of this issue, including glib comments from Facebook: https://gizmodo.com/how-facebook-outs-sex-workers-1818861596 https://gizmodo.com/how-facebook-outs-sex-workers-1818861596
  - sundvor 9y ago