Quit Facebook Day is May 31, but Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg hopes to make changes that will prevent people from deleting Facebook accounts by then. Flickr photo.
Quit Facebook Day is May 31. “How do I delete my Facebook account” is a top search inquiry on Google. Internet privacy issues are coming to a head as some of the hundreds of millions of users Facebook has attracted are turning against the social networking site in protest. In April, Facebook changed default privacy settings to allow the Internet at large access to personal information once available only to friends and networks.
Facebook privacy problems
Monday, Facebook Founder Mark Zuckerberg sought to reassure the public with an op-ed article in the Washington Post that Facebook would learn and adapt to accommodate Internet privacy concerns. Facebook’s privacy problems, including the “How do I delete my Facebook account” movement and the Quit Facebook Day website were inspired by a recent practice started by Facebook to make instant cash on the vast database of user information it has collected. Advertising companies were given information that could be used to look up individual profiles, which, depending on the site and the information a user has made public, include such things as a person’s real name, age, hometown and occupation. Several large advertising companies identified by the Wall Street Journal are receiving the data, including Google Inc.’s DoubleClick and Yahoo Inc.’s Right Media.
Internet privacy issues
Internet privacy issues have become harder to ignore now that more than 400 million Facebook users have accounts with default privacy settings that allow everything but contact information and birthdays to be accessed by anyone. Facebook has also changed how personal information is classified several times in ways that many users see as deliberately confusing. Quit Facebook Day questions Facebook’s intentions and the fairness of the choices it gives its users. People who want to know how do I delete my Facebook account believe Facebook doesn’t respect users or their personal information.
Quitting Facebook addiction
The people behind Quit Facebook Day have their work cut out for them. They acknowledge at quitfacebookday.com that quitting the Facebook addiction wouldn’t be easy even if it were easy to figure how to delete your Facebook account. Quit Facebook Day admits that Facebook is “engaging, enjoyable and quite frankly, addictive.” They equiate the difficulty of quitting the Facebook addiction to quitting smoking. Perhaps most importantly, they say:
“the way to quit Facebook is not to start a group on Facebook about leaving Facebook.”
Internet privacy issues
Quit Facebook Day may be May 31, but Future Tense reports that deciding to quit Facebook is a lot simpler than quitting. Users can search through menus and come upon a link to deactivate their account but they are confronted by pictures of people they have friended, along with messages from Facebook about how much they’ll miss them. Even with the account deactivated, the messages and event invitations will keep coming. Going through a few more steps can actually delete the account for good. The user will lose all the data, but Facebook won’t. They still have that information and will continue to use it for data mining.
Fixing a privacy loophole
In response to Facebook’s privacy problems and Internet privacy issues in general, Zuckerberg said if people share more, the world will be more open and connected. The Washington Post reports that Facebook said last week that it is fixing a privacy loophole that allowed advertisers to access user identification and potentially other information. Zuckerberg pledged to create a simpler way to control user information. In the coming weeks, he said Facebook will add privacy controls that are much simpler to use and provide an easy way to turn off all third-party services.
Steven, you are only deactivating your account, not deleting. The delete option has been removed by Facebook, so your information is not going anywhere. Facebook has your information unless you manually delete everything, posts, pictures, personal information, and remove everyone from your friends list. Funny thing, even though you removed everyone from your friends list, you still get suggested pages and suggested friends from them, so facebook is secretly keeping you linked to your friends. Probably still has your information, posts, photos on an background database. In their terms of service they state they make copies of everything you do on their service. Big Brother has you now and forever.
Scary stuff – and why am I not surprised? Thanks for the info, Facebooked4Life
I have tried, twice now, to delete my Facebook account. They simply won't let you go! The second time I tried I went through the longer process of deleting every posting and picture and friend so that the page was a clean slate. That time I actually received an acknowledgement from the site that proves they have received my request to delete. Then I waited the 14 days. The account is still there! I have written to my U.S. senator and will pursue this as far as I must however this is unconscionable conduct on their part and should be notice to all that something is very wrong with this company. They WILL NOT release their hold on a person's information or pictures!
Please delete my account.
I’m disgusted by Facebook and Mr. Zuckerberg’s attitude. Here’s info on how to delete your Facebook account, from a recent CNN article:
How do I deactivate my account?
Click the Account tab in the upper right-hand corner of your main page. The Settings tab should be highlighted and there is a Deactivate link at the very bottom of the list.
When you click it, you will be asked if you are sure you want to deactivate your account and why you are doing so. You will also be shown photos of you with friends with accompanying messages that say (Your friend here) will miss you.
There is also a box to check at the bottom to opt out of receiving e-mails from Facebook if friends tag you in photos or invite you to join the site.