Deleting Your Facebook Profile Isn't So Easy
from the they're-saving-it-for-when-you-realize-what-a-huge-mistake-you-made dept
On Friday, we jokingly noted that Bill Gates was erasing his Facebook profile. However, the NY Times is now reporting on just how difficult it actually is to erase your profile on the site. Basically, you can "deactivate" it, but it still exists and can be found by users of the service. Of course, some might argue that it's rather silly to try to delete anything once you've put it online, and that counts for social networking profiles as well as other content.
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Removing Your Facebook profile is easy
Robert Scoble is a perfect example.
Here's what you do
1) Spam a bunch of Facebook accounts.
2) Send out notes explicitly stating you are being paid by companies separately to write positive reviews of their product
3) Photoshop crude images of Zuckerberg and put them on your wall
4) Upload your entire e-mail contact list into Facebook using their contact upload list. If you have a 1000 names or more, they will probably delete you.
Writing things about them on your blog won't get you anywhere. You're going have to take action if you really want to disappear.
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I like Jim's idea
I went though my profile with a fine-tooth comb and did my best to make my profile as uncompromised as I could, but it was a fairly tricky interface, and even as a nerd, I don't know if I covered all the bases. Of course, there's probably stuff you can't see in the profile that'll nail ya. I don't find myself going on there as much anymore, and I still may dump it.
The people I like are the ones who appear in their underwear or less, with the "F me" expression, and then they are shocked, shocked, when they can't get a job for some reason, or their parents, teachers, and all their peers (oh, let's not forget stalkers) see them and make comments or worse.
Maybe Jim's idea will work!
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They removed me
All gone now, and I'm not returning.
But if you find this name in there, let me know!;
Hugh Superfreak.
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Re: They removed me
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Still exist? Yes. Still Visible? No.
I've had my account deactivated once for angering the spam filter, sending messages to alumni from my high school about upcoming events. My sister has had a run in with the spam filter as well.
When your account is deactivated, you disappear without a trace. It's like you never existed. It's more reminiscent of an encounter with the secret service in a Hollywood movie than Hotel California (as suggested in the article).
The data retention policies are still a privacy issue, yes, but I'd bet money that Mr. Das just couldn't figure out how to deactivate his account. I'd advise him to spend a bit more time on his technical education and a bit less time "threatening legal action."
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Uh.. Yeah? RDBS?
Data can't be deleted without causing a huge ruckus. It just gets flagged as not-visible.
That's just how the technology works.
::shrug:: it's really not a big deal. I hate the scare tactics media uses to imply that it's some big conspiracy or some crap like that-- I'm surprised Tech Dirt didn't point out the obvious like it normally does (to its credit).
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Re: Uh.. Yeah? RDBS?
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The data itself can never really be deleted. again, i shrug. They'd have to find every piece of data in every table with every row that's associated with that Facebook profile and Null out every single value. It's not as simple as "Delete row! yay!"
It actually takes a significant amount of effort to delete something.
It's far better to just set a "Not Visible" Flag.
But, if you disagree, please be willing to explain why.
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Re: Re: Re: Uh.. Yeah? RDBS?
Believing that any database worth mentioning, by which I don't mean M$ Access, actually fails to release space for deleted data is absurd. Believing that it is difficult to "find every piece of related data" in a relational database proves that you have no idea what a relational database is, or at least how to design one. In a properly designed database you can delete every piece of related data with just a few simple queries. A database to manage a site like Facebook would have, or at least could have, a surprisingly simple design with fewer tables then you might expect, perhaps only a couple dozen.
Finally, if you believe that any database management plan for a large database would leave data that is no longer needed or wanted for archival reasons laying around is ridiculous. I've worked on DB's where the indexes alone were too big to load into memory. On a DB this size you delete all unwanted data and recover unused space whenever possible to optimize performance.
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They aint the only one....
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Actually deleting most web content isn't easy
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megaupoad downloading
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