After it came to light that Facebook knew about Cambridge Analytica taking user data but doing nothing, many users are done with the biggest social media platform in the world. A new hashtag, #DeleteFacebook, has been trending, with many users opting to get off of Facebook altogether.
Despite preaching coming changes, there seems to be nothing that Facebook can do to retain users who are fed up with the constant mistakes the platform keeps making.
Prepping Before Deleting A Facebook Account
Facebook has been the largest social media platform for a long time. This means that it keeps a ton of user information and some that users don't want to lose despite wanting to leave Facebook. There are pictures and posts that some people may want to download before deleting their account.
It is possible to download this information before the account is permanently closed. In order to retrieve this information, users have to go to Settings on Facebook. Under the General Account Setting, they will find the option to "Download a copy of your Facebook data." From there users can click the button "Start My Archive" to get all of the information from their profiles.
This ensures that no information will be lost in the deletion of the account.
How To Delete A Facebook Account
After downloading that massive trove of personal data, it is now safe to delete the Facebook account. For some reason, the option to delete a Facebook account isn't present in the Settings portion of Facebook. In order to delete the account, users will have to go here. Once the Delete My Account button is pressed, it will immediately start the deletion process.
In order to avoid users protesting that they made a rash choice, Facebook doesn't immediately delete the account. It gives users a couple of days before it gets rid of the account. Logging back into the Facebook will make it think that the user has thought twice about the deletion and it will stop the process.
Facebook notes that it will take up to 90 days to delete data stored in backup systems, and no personal information will be accessible during this time. Information that remains on the Facebook database includes log-in records, but it will no longer have any personal identifiers.
Deleting a Facebook account is a permanent process and the account will not be able to be restored after the process is complete. There are other ways to get off Facebook like deactivating the account, but it will continue to hold user data even after the account is deactivated. On the plus side, the account can be reactivated at any time.
