Another thing to note is that they don't want their users to delete stuff or do any action that may suggest abandoning the platform. I thought that I deleted my

Another thing to note is that they don't want their users to delete stuff or do any action that may suggest abandoning the platform. I thought that I deleted my profile 1.5 years ago but I tried logging in last week (after seeing a similar HN thread) and was surprised to find that it was all there. It occured to me that I must have deactivated my profile. Then I tried looking for delete option but couldn't find it anywhere. All I could find was a _deactivate_ button. I had to use a third party (Google) to find out about how to delete my profile. Facebook has made it unnecessarily hard to delete accounts and instead pushes the _deactivate_ option in a very psychologically manipulative way. Even after using the delete option, I'm sure that they're going to retain my data for as long as they like. I still did it for my own sake, prevent myself from using it at all.