How to Deactivate Your Facebook Profile and Why You Might Want To
Millions of people across the world use Facebook each and every day. The site exploded in popularity during 2008 as people created Facebook accounts, connected with friends and family worldwide and joined in on the social media craze. However, political squabbles and pyramid schemes have inundated Facebook over time, raising concerns about its validity.
The past few years have seen the social media giant embroiled in a variety of controversies and scandals, from data collection practices to the spread of misinformation. One big scandal was the Facebook whistleblower hearing in October 2021 which demanded a congressional hearing with senior Facebook executives to determine Facebook’s impact on children. As a result, many people are opting to deactivate their Facebook profiles or to move away from the platform altogether.
Data Collection Practices
One of the biggest controversies surrounding Facebook is its data collection practices. The social media platform has come under fire for collecting users’ data without their consent and then selling it to third-party advertisers. Facebook has also been accused of collecting sensitive information, such as users’ political views and religious beliefs, without their permission. Facebook may be profiting off of content you provide on the platform, including your profile information, the posts you create, and metadata like the location of a post or the date the post was made.
- Device information: Including hardware and software versions, mouse movements, nearby Wi-Fi access points, GPS location, time zones, IP address, and cookie data that is stored on your device.
- Networks and connections: This includes the people, hashtags, pages, and groups you connect to and how you interact with them. Facebook can also collect your contact information if you sync or import your contacts from a device.
- Transactional data: Such as payment information of credit or debit card numbers, billing, delivery, and contact details.
- User patterns: Including the type of products you engage with, the actions you take, frequency and duration you spend interacting with said products online.
Facebook claims that the information it collects is used to personalize and improve its products. They also provide billable analytics to third parties to help with different companies’ advertising strategies. But should one social media platform have such overwhelming control over the private data of millions of users worldwide?
While it’s commonplace for users to ignore the terms of use and data policy when they sign up for a new service, you might want to reconsider reading through them. As it turns out, social media giants may be exploiting people’s personal information after all.
Facebook’s Cambridge Analytica scandal showed that social giants may not always prevent third parties from using private data for selfish gain. In 2014, millions of users’ personal data were collected without their consent by the British consulting firm Cambridge Analytica for political advertising. In turn, Facebook paid a roughly $643,000 fine to the UK’s Information Commissioner’s Office for their role in allowing users’ data to be used for political purposes.
Recent conversations in the tech space are taking a closer look at the fine print of these policies and whether companies respect people’s private data shared on their networks.
The Spread of Mis- and Disinformation
According to recent congressional hearing testimony from a whistleblower, Facebook prioritizes profit over people, harms children and destabilizes democracies. The evidence presented demonstrates Facebook’s amplifying and weaponizing of hate speech and its use of issues that teenagers face to encourage clicking and sharing of posts online. The testimony argued that spending more time looking at the platform will show the effect of negative self-image, eating disorders, and online bullying.
He claims that by using algorithmic formulas to recommend posts on news feeds, Facebook focuses on generating likes, shares, or comments rather than focusing on what will benefit the user. In essence, Facebook takes advantage of the minor hits of dopamine to encourage more content creation on their platform through the spread of mis- and disinformation on news feeds.
Despite community members critiquing Facebook’s data collection practices and Congress agreeing on the need for reform in how Facebook targets users and amplifies content, there appears to be no concrete action taken by Congress to enforce their concluding thoughts. For the time being, Facebook seems untouchable, leaving users with no choice but to deactivate their accounts, at least temporarily.
How to Deactivate Your Account
If you’re looking to take a break from Facebook or simply want to move to another social media platform, you can do so by deactivating your account. So whenever you’re ready, here’s a quick step-by-step guide on how to deactivate your account.
- Open your Facebook account.
- Go to your main profile page.
- Click the upside-down triangle on the upper-right side of the page.
- Go to Settings and Privacy, then click Settings.
- On the left panel, click Your Facebook Information.
- On the right panel, click Deactivation and Deletion.
- Select Deactivate Account, then click Continue to Account Deactivation.
- You’ll need to confirm your password, then click Continue.
- Fill out your reason for leaving, then click Deactivate.
Once done, no one will be able to view your profile. However, some messages you sent to your Facebook friends may still be visible. Also, your friends may still see your name on their friend list. The group admin might still see your name, posts and comments if you were in a group.
Lastly, the pages you control will be deactivated. If you still want people to find your page, give someone else full control of it before deactivating your account. And if you ever wish to return to Facebook, you can always do so by logging back into your account at any time.
