[HN Gopher] Internet spring cleaning: How to delete Instagram, F...
___________________________________________________________________
Internet spring cleaning: How to delete Instagram, Facebook and
other accounts
Author : Ashoka_rkt
Score : 496 points
Date : 2022-04-24 11:08 UTC (11 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (blog.mozilla.org)
(TXT) w3m dump (blog.mozilla.org)
| agilob wrote:
| Edit, Link should be https://justdeleteme.xyz/
| bennyp101 wrote:
| I quickly checked a few of those that say "impossible" and they
| clearly are possible - kinda makes me think I'd be better off
| searching for "[service] delete account" and just doing that.
|
| (I did notice some said "subject to applicable law" - so I
| guess Europe!)
| hoppyhoppy2 wrote:
| I'm not sure why one would use this "backgroundchecks"
| redirection link, which just appears to add ads to the top of
| the page. The actual site is https://justdeleteme.xyz/
| agilob wrote:
| oh sorry, I posted it from mobile, didnt even notice it's
| wrong domain!
| tbrockman wrote:
| It's pretty interesting to see so many people here suggesting
| that there's no value to deleting your account.
|
| Like the added friction of creating a new account doesn't make it
| less likely for you to relapse, or increase the time it takes for
| it to happen.
|
| Like social media applications won't send you notifications
| however they can to keep you engaged.
|
| Like it doesn't affect the companies perceived value to lose real
| users.
|
| Like it doesn't diminish network effects to see fewer of the
| people you like on the platform.
|
| Like retaining the data you've contributed doesn't increase the
| performance of their machine learning models, broaden their
| understanding of consumers, or directly provide content for
| consumption. (okay this point is a bit shaky because it depends
| on their data deletion policy, or if you can take advantage of
| CCPA/GDPR, but you get the idea)
|
| I agree that leaving or maintaining healthy use of these
| platforms ultimately requires developing some amount of self-
| control, but saying that there's no value to deleting an account
| doesn't seem grounded in truth.
|
| I found it way easier to just delete the majority of my social
| media accounts than try to curate or moderate their use. Most
| social media platforms aren't built with your best interests at
| heart, why risk it for some momentarily satisfying
| content/interactions that you could probably find elsewhere?
| aendruk wrote:
| The missing follow-up is how to stay in the loop with your
| friends and family who continue to use these services.
|
| Many used to be actively helpful by serving web feeds of public
| content. Now, not only have they removed the feeds, but they
| actively sabotage their public website to pressure you back into
| their control.
| 97s wrote:
| Deleted all of these years ago besides Google for email. Never
| looked back, one of the best decisions I have ever made.
| russellbeattie wrote:
| Don't delete the accounts, delete the data in the accounts. That
| way you can keep your usernames and logins for various services.
|
| In 2016 I deleted all the tweets I had made over the previous 9
| years, and soon after I backed up then cleaned out my FB profile
| and unfollowed all my contacts. There was a lot of manual labor
| involved in this because I had auto imported a bunch of stuff
| early in FBs life, and it was all sort of stuck in there. FBs
| crappy API and barely functioning admin UI made it slow going,
| but it was worth it.
|
| As soon as Instagram shows any sign of its popularity waning with
| my contacts, I'll be deleting all the pics there as well.
| amin wrote:
| I have friends and family, and groups in which I discuss highly
| specific topics. I don't think there's a better tool than
| Facebook that allows me to stay up to date on things that are
| important to me. The equivalent subreddits are of much worse
| quality. I know this will get downvotes, but this is my opinion.
| kibwen wrote:
| Discord has taken over this role for me and all my social
| groups. And unlike Facebook there's no ads, no viral bullshit,
| no astroturfers, no personal information, and you can keep your
| identities separate across multiple social circles (all of
| which are private and invite-only by default).
| ekianjo wrote:
| > And unlike Facebook there's no ads, no viral bullshit, no
| astroturfers, no personal information
|
| The counter to all of this is "for now..." - there's no
| network that gets massive without falling prey to numerous
| kinds of incentives.
| kibwen wrote:
| Sure, but then we'll migrate somewhere else. "They'll be
| bad eventually" is by no means an argument in favor of
| instead using a service that is worse _now_.
| mccorrinall wrote:
| Facebook at least doesn't force me to subscribe to a 5$
| service in order to upload images from my phone. It's so
| annoying that they can't just compress images and videos on
| the client. Right now I'm always sharing videos and photos to
| telegram first, since their client actually compresses most
| of the files below 8MB and then continue sharing it to
| discord once again.
|
| The UX as a free discord user is horrible.
| Pigalowda wrote:
| Facebook gets its pound of flesh from you in other ways.
| dzink wrote:
| Some groups are really dependent on evidence the person is
| who they say they were - especially parent groups /Mom
| groups, health groups, where you're looking for advice or
| legitimate local socialization / resource information.
| kibwen wrote:
| Facebook has no way of actually verifying that you are a
| parent, so I hope nobody is relying on that to provide any
| sense of security. And my experience with Google+ is that a
| real-name policy is a woefully naive way of trying to
| filter out the maniacs; plenty of deranged people have no
| qualms about having their actions associated with their
| legal identities.
| AdvancedCarrot wrote:
| Thing is I'm not convinced that discord is really any better
| from a privacy perspective.
|
| They still retain all of your messages (including DMs)
| unencrypted indefinitely with no easy way to remove them.
| Deleting your account doesn't remove messages either.
| dicknuckle wrote:
| I'm not really worried about Discord keeping all my
| messages about a Robot Lawnmower or a couple pieces of
| software / games I discuss on there.
| p1peridine wrote:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nothing_to_hide_argument
|
| > The nothing to hide argument states that individuals
| have no reason to fear or oppose surveillance programs,
| unless they are afraid it will uncover their own illicit
| activities. An individual using this argument may claim
| that an average person should not worry about government
| surveillance, as they would have "nothing to hide".
|
| > Edward Snowden remarked "Arguing that you don't care
| about the right to privacy because you have nothing to
| hide is no different than saying you don't care about
| free speech because you have nothing to say." He
| considered claiming nothing to hide as giving up the
| right of privacy which the government has to protect.
| kibwen wrote:
| I didn't say anything about message privacy, but it's still
| strictly better than Facebook because Discord "profiles"
| feature nothing except a username (which, unlike Facebook,
| is not required to be your legal name), an avatar, a
| profile banner, and 190 characters worth of freeform
| markdown. And unlike Facebook, it doesn't pester you to
| ever add personal information. A company can't store
| private information that it never has to begin with. By all
| means, if you want message privacy, use a service that
| offers end-to-end encryption, which isn't Discord. (But
| keep in mind that end-to-end encrypted _group chat_ (as in,
| not strictly one-to-one) is an impossible and unsalvageable
| UX boondoggle.)
| p1peridine wrote:
| Yes and to be able to use discord with a VPN or Tor it
| requires a phone number. Unacceptable. Privacy disaster.
|
| https://spyware.neocities.org/articles/discord.html
|
| https://stallman.org/discord.html
| leros wrote:
| I've been without Facebook for a decade now. Given what I know,
| it sounds like I'm missing out on some good stuff going on in
| Facebook Groups. I also hear Facebook Marketplace is the new
| Craigslist but Craigslist has been good enough for me still.
| FYYFFF wrote:
| Marketplace is a mess. Absolutely unusable. The sheer volume
| of paid ads mixed with volumes of scams and really, really
| obnoxious creative (think borderline porn)makes it impossible
| to use with any clarity. Or even to use to find something
| specific.
|
| It shows how awful FB is at design and UX. They really are
| the Fisher Price of the web. Its seems as if they build for
| stupid people who have no tech skills... In other words: the
| majority of people...
| dicknuckle wrote:
| marketplace has almost completely replaced craigslist in my
| area. i do occasionally find some good deals on Craigslist
| but by far I have a better chance of finding something
| specific on Fb.
| ge96 wrote:
| I was in high school when FB came out, and man I got sucked into
| it, posting cringe things everyday. I was lucky I caught myself
| later on/stopped. Also means I didn't get sucked into TikTok
| (never used it).
|
| I still partake in social media though just accounts not tied to
| my name.
|
| I want to delete my FB account but it has all of my old
| pictures/videos from childhood. I closed it for now, made another
| one just for family.
|
| The main reason I abandoned my main FB account is too many people
| that were asking me for money found me and I stupidly accepted
| their friend requests.
|
| I spend most of my time alone though so social media still has a
| place for me.
| davidkuennen wrote:
| Instead of deleting, I usually simply deactivate all
| notifications by default.
|
| I think only 1 or 2 apps are allowed so send notifications and
| one of them is my own.
| a_imho wrote:
| I'm not even convinced deleting (and especially deactivating)
| your account does anything besides handing over control to
| Facebook and others. Perhaps it is better to obfuscate the data
| in your account and just not log in, even if emotionally less
| appealing than deleting.
| dazc wrote:
| No photo, some random DOB, location and obscure employement
| history for me.
|
| I used to advertise on FB so had to maintain an account purely
| for this purpose but noticed a few times that 'people you may
| know' were usually a result of random encounters looking me up.
| Maybe because only facebook can verify you're not a creep or
| something?
|
| One time I asked soemone out on a date and she seemed keen
| until the next day she had changed her mind. Probably pure
| coincidence that this person I didn't know until 2 days before
| was suddenly one of my 'people you may know' list.
|
| Sure enough my blank FB profile was the giveaway that I am
| actually a serial killer. Now I'd rather these people just go
| down a rabbit hole of looking through 1000 possible matches and
| finding nothing instead.
| VLM wrote:
| Most people don't need to delete their accounts.
|
| I have a tasty bottle of rather expensive whiskey on the bar in
| my basement right now. Luxury consumables are a good gift, I
| guess.
|
| I don't want to drink it right now because I have things to do
| requiring sobriety, its a bit early in the day for that sort of
| thing, etc. I got my reasons, none of them terribly interesting.
|
| If I don't want to drink it for various reasons, I merely need to
| not drink it; for me this is very easy to do, not having an
| addiction.
|
| An alcoholic whom does not want to drink it, would absolutely
| need to perform the ritual of dumping it down the drain.
|
| Note that the ritualistic act of pouring alcohol down the drain
| does not cure alcoholism, it just wastes time and money. And it
| is just so with social media addicts periodically deleting their
| accounts. Usually comes alongside a long rationalization and
| projection about privacy and paranoia about sharing information.
| gompertz wrote:
| Unsure how this is so upvoted... It pretty much goes against
| anything evangelized in Deep Work or Atomic Habits - must reads
| promoted by most on HN. Y'all need to revisit those books I
| think ;)
| mattgreenrocks wrote:
| No, most people should delete their accounts and go cold
| turkey. In time, they will begin to see that they never needed
| it, that human relationships necessarily require reaching out
| (aka work), and that social media was merely empty calories all
| along.
| entropie wrote:
| > An alcoholic whom does not want to drink it, would absolutely
| need to perform the ritual of dumping it down the drain.
|
| Nope. Iam an sober alcoholic and don't have any issues with
| alcohol in my flat around me. In fact there is a bottle of
| expensive wine standing on the table next to the front door for
| a few weeks now (kind of a tip for a favor I did) I just dont
| care. Ill hand it to my mom when I see her next.
|
| I guess its a bit pedantic to point this out. I felt the need
| to do it.
| agency wrote:
| What a bizarre take. You should continue to volunteer your
| personal information to an ad-tech behemoth... in order to
| prove you're not an addict?
| jamal-kumar wrote:
| Yeah I'm pretty sure that the whiskey in the basement isn't
| spying on you
|
| It would be a truly messed up world if that was the case
| VLM wrote:
| > whiskey in the basement isn't spying on you
|
| Everyone important in the world already knows my SiL bought
| it for me, tracked at the point of sale using a loyalty
| card, tracked via her credit card, her highway pass shows
| she visited to deliver it to me on my birthday, it probably
| has a RFID chip somewhere either for theft protection or
| inventory tracking (maybe in the presentation box not the
| bottle itself "obviously"?). The bank has a record of what
| she bought which is probably legally or illegally shared
| with the health insurance company and/or medical care. Her
| fitbit tracked her walking thru the store.
|
| But, yeah, the "real" threat to my privacy is people on HN
| now know I have an expensive bottle of whiskey, LOL. Or my
| cat-meme sharing account on FB, if I used FB, would know
| that I have a nice bottle. Because that distractor is the
| "real threat" not everyone in the paragraph above whom I
| have zero control over.
|
| If an organization or whatever knows they're going to piss
| people off, give them a false sense of control. Maybe give
| them fake elections where both candidates are insiders.
| Maybe provide corporate oversight by a revolving door
| between the regulators and the regulated. Its all pretty
| standard propaganda stuff.
| imwillofficial wrote:
| What a weird comment flow to read. Your defensiveness off
| putting.
| jamal-kumar wrote:
| Truly, dude just went OFF. Morning basement whiskey
| vibes.
|
| Honestly funnier than my little joke
| [deleted]
| VLM wrote:
| Binary thinking. You can ONLY actively consume or actively
| delete, unthinkable that you can passively not use it.
|
| Its like claiming its impossible for that bottle of whiskey
| to sit, undrinking, on my basement bar top, whiskey can only
| either be chugged immediately or angrily poured down the
| drain. Its impossible that bottle is sitting there without my
| drinking it.
|
| I assure you, despite your claim that its impossible, I have
| a mostly full bottle of whiskey on my bar and an unused
| Facebook account. Why do you believe I'm lying? It seems
| realistic, reasonable, and a wise course of action.
|
| The other reason deletion is pushed is to provide the
| illusion of privacy. You have no privacy anymore. Everyone
| important or actionable has total access to your entire
| digital life and always has and always will; the government,
| the banks, the big corporations. Its a false illusion that
| deleting your cat-meme-sharing account somehow protects you
| from the credit reporting agencies or the NSA. Its important
| to provide that false illusion of choice so that people are
| distracted from the actions of the credit reporting agencies
| and the NSA and the IRS and the banks and ...
| imwillofficial wrote:
| This isn't binary thinking. It's clear you don't understand
| people who need these extra steps, and thank god for that.
| This is a problem I wouldn't wish on anyone.
|
| However, your lack of understanding does not make it any
| less relevant or useful.
| syshum wrote:
| Ironic that you talk about binary thinking then proceed to
| think of Privacy only in the binary of having it from
| government or not.
|
| Aside from you being factually wrong on your take (you have
| massively over stated the competency of government and big
| finance, their data is more wrong than it is correct)
|
| That however is not the only, and in many cases not even
| the most important, realm for which one may want to protect
| their privacy
|
| At this point I am not sure what is more ignorant, your
| thoughts on addiction or your thoughts on privacy... it is
| a pretty close race
| ipaddr wrote:
| Volunteer random information or targeted information for who
| you want your character to be. Never volunteer personal
| information unless you want your character connected to your
| person.
| hunter2_ wrote:
| The one little nugget I'm gleaning is that for people who are
| able, not even volunteering that you're incapable of simply
| ignoring the account is also worth considering. Like setting
| up an email filter instead of clicking unsubscribe on a
| mailing list, since doing so is yet another piece of
| information.
| phphphphp wrote:
| People are different. I, personally, find ownership of digital
| and physical things to "weigh" on me and so deleting something
| digital or giving something away physical is meaningful to me
| -- it keeps my life simple in this moment, whether I acquire
| the thing again in future is not relevant. Not everybody is the
| same :)
| mattgreenrocks wrote:
| Ditto. Delete if only to feel a smidgen more agency in your
| life. Completely worth it.
| necessary wrote:
| I think pouring the alcohol down the drain does more than just
| waste time and money: it increases the cost of pouring another
| drink and creates an opportunity for self-reflection for the
| addict when popping open another bottle. This can make the
| difference between pouring one more drink and abstaining for
| another day.
|
| For the only moderately addicted social media user, the cost of
| recreating your accounts might actually be greater than
| abstaining.
|
| And all it would take is a small burst of motivation caused by
| finding a website that 1. causes self-reflection towards one's
| use of social media and 2. reduces the cost of deleting your
| accounts.
|
| Point being, pouring the alcohol down the drain increases the
| cost of further addiction and increases the likelihood of
| prolonged abstinence.
| ipaddr wrote:
| Or throws you in a new endless cycle of deleting and
| recreating accounts with each new account representing a new
| leaf / new you. I've seen people in this birth/death cycle.
| politician wrote:
| Venmo seems out of place. What about PayPal? Cash App?
| 2OEH8eoCRo0 wrote:
| Does Venmo have a social aspect that the others lack?
| politician wrote:
| I don't think so. It's just a way to pay people with the ACH
| process handled in the background.
| [deleted]
| baby wrote:
| Please don't do this. It's really sad every time I want to reach
| out to an old friend and I can't because they deleted their fb :(
|
| I mean, if you don't have such connections then who cares, but if
| you do think about that
| jll29 wrote:
| Please use email instead, which is a standardized open protocol
| that does give people some choices.
|
| You can always exchange email addresses before closing down
| accounts to stay in touch.
| baby wrote:
| My generation doesn't use emails basically. I changed emails
| quite a lot through my younger years as did my friends so it
| wouldn't have been useful. We used to ask for people's
| facebook shortly after meeting them. It's the best tool to
| create and maintain your social graph. I understand that not
| everybody use it this way, and that's fine, but if you do
| please think about that. It's really heart breaking how I
| lost contact with old friends due to this
| 3np wrote:
| Now is the time to do something about that then.
|
| Perhaps hand out an e-mail address and/or something else
| that does not require people to agree to some corporate
| ToS/privacy policy where people can reach you to the ones
| you do care about staying in touch with, preemptively for
| when they or you stops using Facebook, be it by choice or
| force.
|
| It is not acceptable that a single or a handful of corps
| should own the digital social room. If you rely only on
| them, then it is you who close people out, not the ones who
| choose to leave or get kicked out.
|
| I get that it's a sad situation but you can not put the
| blame on the ones who left. Learn from that and you won't
| have to experience it again.
|
| I guess I am part of your generation as well because I
| recognize your description.
| yummypaint wrote:
| Locating and contacting old friends is entirely within your
| means in 2022. What is most striking to me as someone in my
| early thirties is how much learned helplessness is
| associated with these communication technologies that
| supposedly enhance our capabilities.
|
| Facebook makes it easy to curate the appearance of
| friendship, but meaningful relationships take time and
| effort in the real world to maintain. People have traded
| quantity for quality, and the true impetus for this
| transformation is that social graphs with more nodes are
| easier for facebook to make money from.
| Adraghast wrote:
| I want to reconnect to someone I went to high school
| with. What steps would you suggest I follow to do so?
| justapassenger wrote:
| This enabled me reach out to an "apparent" friend
| (someone I had very casual relationship with and didn't
| talk to for 10 years) in 30 second. And that person
| helped my "true" friends evacuate from Ukraine and avoid
| being killed.
|
| Extended social networks are integral part of humanity
| and communities. Being isolated and interacting only with
| handful of true friends is more modern invention.
| 8b16380d wrote:
| You weren't actually friends if all you had was a Facebook
| connection.
| yummypaint wrote:
| Calls, letters, and in-person visits are still a thing, and
| they are all vastly superior to facebook. Besides, the
| alternative to deletion is a bunch of zombie accounts that
| appear to be real people but will never respond to messages.
| Best to make it obvious and not leave an account around to
| cause confusion.
| [deleted]
| robonerd wrote:
| As if sending messages to an abandoned account they'll never
| check is any better? If they close their account instead of
| abandoning it, you won't waste your time waiting for a response
| to a message they'll never see. Instead you can ask mutual
| friends and acquaintances to help you establish contact. This
| almost always works and only requires a little effort.
|
| Zuck needs you more than you need Zuck.
| BrianOnHN wrote:
| I've been looking for a similar solution for deleting Facebook,
| though one with a checklist of "don't forget these things you
| want to keep."
|
| Edit: I'd even pay >$100 just for a ZIP of "everything you might
| regret deleting." The connections are valueless at this point,
| but the pictures and my mom's priceless comments on them not so
| much.
| wonderbore wrote:
| That's literally the export feature that Facebook had for a
| decade, for free. I use it regularly because I heard that
| sometimes it "forgets" older messages though.
| notjustanymike wrote:
| Delete. Delete delete delete.
|
| Did it a few years back, trust me you won't miss out on anything
| important. In fact, the opposite: important things will find a
| way to you regardless. It's the unimportant things that will
| filter out.
| bennyp101 wrote:
| I'd much rather they figured out how to fix their sync service -
| or at least let me actually delete everything on it and start
| again! I still get temporary containers coming back months after
| I have deleted them!
| replygirl wrote:
| sir, i dont think their content editor can do anything about
| that.
| boondaburrah wrote:
| firefox containers is both the killer feature of firefox for me
| (I can't leave it) and also the jankyest. I don't think mozilla
| knows they have gold on their hands (but do they ever know?).
|
| I lived through the firefox extension debacle in 2019 or so
| when FF accidentally let a cert expire and it helpfully
| uninstalled all my "unverified" extensions, of which container
| tabs was one. When everything was fixed, my settings were
| erased.
|
| Except they weren't. To this day, I still get random ghost-like
| behaviour from my old container tabs settings. Google-contained
| apps will try to open in my banking container, as I gradually
| realise all of my containers were deleted but the URL-to-
| container mapping wasn't, and it was by ID not name, and the
| IDs have been reused.
|
| Containers should be a core feature because they are /the/
| feature ff has over the chrome army right now. I know they were
| (are?) trying to prove that core features aren't necessary
| because you can write anything in a web extension (IIRC that's
| how they justified getting rid of RSS), but it just hasn't been
| so in my experience.
| javajosh wrote:
| I suspect that Mozilla looks at the telemetry and very few
| people use containers. I'd guess because users don't
| understand what they're good for. Perhaps you, an
| enthusiastic user, could do a little writeup somewhere
| (here?) on why they are the cat's meow.
| wintermutestwin wrote:
| Containers are simple to use and incredibly useful.
|
| Temporary account containers: automatically makes a new tab
| isolated from the others. This reduces the data thieves
| tracking and it allows you to ignore sites that have a
| limit on the number of articles you read before putting up
| the paywall. For some sites, there is advantage in using
| the same container so I use Multi-Account containers.
|
| Multi-Account containers: I have multiple webmail accounts
| and have a container for each one pinned in my main browser
| window. For me, these containers are aligned with different
| businesses that I run and personal stuff. Using them is so
| easy - right click on a tab and reopen in X container.
|
| Containers (and uBlock and side tabs) should be baked into
| the browser.
| adhesive_wombat wrote:
| > very few people use containers
|
| Not many people use _any_ extensions[1], which is why it
| should not be an extension, even if it is actually an
| extension in terms of implementation. Certainly I wouldn 't
| expect my parents to discover and install the extension,
| but I might expect them to be able to be taught to use a
| first-class feature.
|
| [1]: As the Firefox base dwindles further to only a hard
| core of techies, this might not be true, but it's probably
| true of Chrome: only 13 extensions have over 10 million
| installs and Chrome is used by over 2 billion people.
| wintermutestwin wrote:
| That's because Chrome extensions suck. Specifically none
| come close to replicating the functionality of:
|
| Multi-Account Containers
|
| Temporary Containers
|
| Sidebery
| tg180 wrote:
| I agree, very few people are able to properly understand
| and manage containers.
|
| For mosts it should be easier and more intuitive to use
| Firefox with First Party Isolation enabled.
|
| The mental gymnastics of container management becomes
| superfluous, and there is minimal risk of leaking data by
| mistake.
| robonerd wrote:
| > _I suspect that Mozilla looks at the telemetry and very
| few people use containers_
|
| The UX for using containers is abysmal, so no fucking
| wonder. This is the problem with "data-driven" design, it
| falls for the McNamara Fallacy. It's an over-reliance on
| 'scientific and objective' quantitative metrics while
| aggressively ignoring qualitative considerations and
| analysis. You'll never achieve excellence like this.
| politelemon wrote:
| The 'How to delete Google' section seems out of place and
| somewhat forced. The reasoning behind suggesting
| cleaning/deleting becomes weaker or absent further down the page.
| I think the page could have done with a bit more focus, just
| highlight the important ones rather than looking for filler
| material?
| ape4 wrote:
| As a half way measure, you can ask it not to remember your
| history
| trevorboaconstr wrote:
| One day I asked myself, after I use
| Facebook/Instagram/Twitter/other social media, how do I feel? The
| immediate answer was "not good." Immediately deleted. This was 5
| years ago. Not one day have I missed them.
|
| Have a LinkedIn in for professional connections. Anyone that I
| see/communicate with regularly I just text.
| yololol wrote:
| It really gets me that Mozilla has adopted this political /
| activist marketing style. It feels so fake.
| Barrin92 wrote:
| Mozilla, as in the foundation, is broader than the browser and
| that blog has been running since 2007 with plenty of privacy
| focused content on it. The point of Mozilla has always been to
| advocate for an open internet rather than a corporate one, so I
| don't see the change in objective here. Firefox is one means to
| that end. Not sure why "marketing", "political" or "activist"
| are supposed to be negatives.
| pelasaco wrote:
| the part "Whether you want to follow in Neil Young's
| footsteps or are already streaming music and podcasts through
| another service, deleting your stagnant Spotify account is a
| good idea." has nothing to do with privacy, but with an
| specific agenda.
| Barrin92 wrote:
| of course they have a specific agenda, it's on their
| website (https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/about/manifesto/)
|
| I'm slightly out of the loop on the Neil Young stuff but I
| assume this is about Rogan spreading antivax content or
| something, which I don't think is very compatible with
| Mozilla pushing for an internet that is civil, free of
| misinformation and factual, so it seems to me they're
| sticking to their principles, which I think are very
| reasonable.
| pelasaco wrote:
| interesting that I see they actually going against their
| own manifesto, specially the points:
|
| - "We are committed to an internet that promotes civil
| discourse, human dignity, and individual expression."
|
| - "We are committed to an internet that elevates critical
| thinking, reasoned argument, shared knowledge, and
| verifiable facts."
|
| For sure one can paint what Rogan does as "spreading
| antivax content or something" but that is not what he
| does.
| pelasaco wrote:
| Exactly, I was surprised and had to check twice that i was
| actually on mozilla.org, after I saw the unpretentious attack
| to Joe Rogan
| jll29 wrote:
| Here's a sample letter for European citizens that would like to
| make a legally-binding data subject deletion request:
|
| https://www.datarequests.org/blog/sample-letter-gdpr-erasure...
|
| Send this letter by email and my registered snail mail letter to
| the Data Protection Officer of the company (e.g. Facebook's
| Dublin Office).
|
| Violating such a request can lead to fines of 4% of annual
| revenue of any offending company.
| 3np wrote:
| Nit: EU residents, not EU citizens.
|
| The reach of the law is concerned with where you are, not what
| your citizenship is.
| xigoi wrote:
| If a company violates 25 requests, does it lose all revenue?
| hnhg wrote:
| Worth mentioning redact.dev here too for deleting posts and
| behavioural content on various platforms.
| reustle wrote:
| Clickable link: https://redact.dev
| dijit wrote:
| There was a really good service like 10 years ago that auto
| deleted Facebook/Instagram and so on. Sadly (and obviously)
| Facebook and co were extremely unhappy with such a service
| existing and took devastating steps to kill it.
|
| That said, it would be great to have some kind of service like
| that again. It shouldn't be hard to erase a digital identity,
| that's what GDPR stipulates anyway.
|
| More info on the service I'm referring to:
| https://latimesblogs.latimes.com/technology/2009/12/facebook...
| enahs-sf wrote:
| Startup idea: wipe yourself from the internet completely as a
| service.
| thenerdhead wrote:
| I've found myself between deleting, deactivating, and moderating
| my use of these apps for many years of my life.
|
| I never found deleting or deactivating to be very helpful. At
| some time or another you're going to need said account for
| something.
|
| While deleting is a bit extreme, some of these services will
| respect the actual deletion and others will not. I suppose the
| question at the end of the day is...why bother?
|
| I've found it much more easy to "declutter" by following digital
| minimalism practices of getting rid of apps, only using browsers,
| practicing mindfulness of said platforms, and only using said
| platforms with a specific intention.
|
| There's a laundry list of tips you could use to make social media
| harder to use or even more bearable, but the most effective
| approach I've used is simple moderation and mindfulness.
|
| Also why is Mozilla writing articles about this? I get the
| privacy angle, but aren't they also willing to put ads in front
| of people and other partnerships sacrificing that privacy for
| users? Like how does Mozilla make money outside of Google search
| engine being the default? I do know they lay off many of my
| friends who work on dev tools or even mobile apps there(i.e.
| browsers).
| keb_ wrote:
| > At some time or another you're going to need said account for
| something.
|
| Nope for almost all of these. Different strokes different
| folks.
|
| > Facebook Nope. Haven't had one for more than 10 years now. So
| easy to live life without a FB account. I stay in touch with
| family and friends by phonecalls and Mumble.
|
| > Instagram Used it for maybe 10 minutes in 2013, haven't
| touched since.
|
| > Snapchat Same as Instagram, but in 2016.
|
| > Tiktok Same as above.
|
| > Spotify I listen to music on my harddrive.
|
| > Venmo Still using Paypal since 2012.
|
| > Twitter Nope, in fact my life has been significantly improved
| since I've not had an account. I use Nitter when I want to read
| a Twitter thread.
|
| Amazon and Google are the only ones that I find very hard to
| avoid, but Google has gotten increasingly easy to avoid as
| alternative services are popping up.
| belval wrote:
| > I stay in touch with family and friends by phonecalls and
| Mumble.
|
| You are a counter-example for sure, but this means that you
| don't have a group chat platform to plan coordinated events
| with your friends? Maybe it's an age thing, but getting my
| friends in a call at a given time to organise a social event
| is probably as hard as organising the event itself. Compare
| with Facebook/Messenger/Whatsapp where everyone is in a group
| chat I can just write "Anyone wants to have dinner at my
| place this Friday?".
| tomtheelder wrote:
| I just use text message group chats, and so do most people
| I know.
| bombcar wrote:
| Telegram or slack or discord or even iMessage or SMS can
| provide group chat.
|
| It can make it even easier, especially if you have various
| groups you interact with on different platforms.
| scruple wrote:
| Friends? What friends?
|
| More seriously... My wife has friends that she sees pretty
| regularly, because we still live in her home state near
| where she grew up, but I really don't. I'm not sure what
| they use to organize but I do know that it isn't Facebook
| or WhatsApp.
|
| I have a couple of friends that I keep in touch with over
| text but we aren't a group of friends. One of my friends
| does have a large friend group and I happen to be in a
| group MMS because of him. But it's not a place where events
| are organized because his friends are also scattered all
| over the country.
|
| I use Discord for the group that I play DnD and video games
| with but, again, we're scattered all over the country. Only
| one of them is nearby.
| throwawayboise wrote:
| How this used to work: You _invite_ your friends to dinner,
| with enough lead time that they can avoid making other
| plans. They accept, or decline.
| keb_ wrote:
| > You are a counter-example for sure, but this means that
| you don't have a group chat platform to plan coordinated
| events with your friends?
|
| Signal, Text Message, and most importantly and most
| universal, E-mail. I've coordinated Secret Santa events
| purely by email for the past 5 years.
| klabb3 wrote:
| > Venmo
|
| The fact that venmo is on this list is hilarious, but yes it
| is deserved. It's genuinely exciting to see where the limit
| of shameless growth hacking is, if there is any. Will there
| ever be a dialysis machine that invites all your friends?
| DangitBobby wrote:
| Some events or even companies don't have a website, they just
| have a Facebook page that you have to be logged in to visit.
| Also, if your family uses Facebook, they will interact with
| each other on it whether you are there or not.
| keb_ wrote:
| > Some events or even companies don't have a website, they
| just have a Facebook page that you have to be logged in to
| visit.
|
| I really have not experienced this, but the several times
| I've had to interact with a company without a website,
| phone works wonders and is often quicker.
|
| > Also, if your family uses Facebook, they will interact
| with each other on it whether you are there or not.
|
| I really don't see the issue here unless you have a
| terribly unhealthy sense of FOMO.
| ryandrake wrote:
| People have a really weird definition of "need". Nobody
| needs Facebook. A handful of things might be moderately
| more difficult without Facebook, but not impossible. I
| bet if Facebook started charging $1000/hour to use,
| people would suddenly find it is in fact not really a
| necessity of life and would somehow find an alternate way
| to contact their families.
| warner25 wrote:
| If Facebook started charging $1,000/hour to use, all
| these entities (including government offices... for me,
| it's not about my family at all) that have de facto
| chosen to conduct all their public-facing business on
| Facebook over the past few years would reverse course,
| and then we really could ditch our accounts with no
| problem. Let's hope.
| DangitBobby wrote:
| Really it's difficult to say you "need" much more than a
| cardboard box and a supply of food and water.
| DangitBobby wrote:
| Why are you calling them, texting them, visiting them, or
| keeping in touch at all? Must be an unhealthy sense of
| FOMO!
| warner25 wrote:
| I see it mostly with very small businesses and government
| offices, especially in small towns or rural areas. Years
| ago, they might have employed someone part-time to
| maintain their domain name, server or hosting service,
| website, etc. Then it became free and much easier to just
| create a Facebook page, and any layperson in the office
| can manage it as the social media coordinator. Sometimes
| they still have a real website, but it hasn't been
| updated in years. All the recent and relevant information
| is on their Facebook page.
|
| There was an item on Hacker News a few months ago about
| the crisis of water contamination at Pearl Harbor in
| Hawaii. As commented on that item, I was there. For a
| while, a couple Facebook pages were the only sources of
| timely information for affected residents. All the town
| hall events, in which US Navy and Army officials answered
| questions, were streamed live on Facebook, and being
| logged into a Facebook account was the only way to ask a
| question if you couldn't attend the town halls in-person
| (which had limited seating due to COVID). It was probably
| two weeks before they started putting all the information
| onto an official non-Facebook web page after people
| complained about this (during the Facebook town hall
| events, on behalf of friends and neighbors without
| Facebook accounts).
| micromacrofoot wrote:
| they're all legally obligated to actually delete your data,
| feel free to cite the ccpa or gdpr, they'd rather delete the
| data than contest your residency
|
| you don't actually need the accounts for anything, I deleted
| all of mine and felt the same way at first... but 3 years in
| and I have zero doubts that i'm better off without them, should
| have done it sooner
| johannes1234321 wrote:
| What really helped me was getting rid of the app and
| distracting my muscle memory. It was weird to realize how often
| I was looking at the screen in search for the icon when I was
| otherwise idle. Once the habit to fill empty time with those
| was broken life was better. (less "stupid" posts on my mind,
| more enjoying the outside by looking up instead of the screen
| etc.)
|
| And once in a while I unfortunately "need" Facebook:
| Restaurants having current info only there etc. and each time
| I'm happy not to waste time there anymore
| incongruity wrote:
| > What really helped me was getting rid of the app and
| distracting my muscle memory. It was weird to realize how
| often I was looking at the screen in search for the icon when
| I was otherwise idle.
|
| This, 100%. I went dry for January and included social media
| in that. Deleted apps on 1/1 and still find myself
| occasionally instinctively going to where they were - much
| less often now, but it was startling at first.
| mtzaldo wrote:
| In Android you can now pause apps, which helps to reduce the
| social media consumption.
| Chernobog wrote:
| I communicate with a lot of people on Facebook, but I hated that
| I ended up scrolling my feed. So I unfollowed everything and now
| I have an empty feed and nothing to scroll.
|
| I realize many have reasons to get rid of Facebook entirely, but
| for me this was a reasonable compromise.
| crawsome wrote:
| scottdupoy wrote:
| I did exactly the same thing a few years ago - now it feels
| like a pull service that I'm in control of, instead of a push
| service with an algorithm controlling the content I view.
| philjohn wrote:
| Same - and this is really the crux of the matter. You are in
| control of how toxic your social media experience is. Find that
| a group or particular person is making your world a worse
| place? Unfollow/Unfriend.
|
| People bemoan the Facebook of old where it was updates from
| friends old and new, and family - but that's still the core of
| the product, groups are optional.
| elliene wrote:
| These companies hire psychologists in droves to make their
| products more addictive. There are certainly ways to combat
| their manipulation techniques, but let's not pretend this is
| some neutral product and try to pin the blame on the users.
| Cigarette companies used the same tactic and it hasn't gotten
| any less repellant.
| derwiki wrote:
| I've been using Beeper to use Facebook messages without using
| Facebook directly.
| dicknuckle wrote:
| I've been using Disa.im but every few years FB breaks the API
| it uses for a few days or weeks at a time.
| deergomoo wrote:
| It's also worth noting that you can continue to use Messenger
| with a de-activated Facebook profile.
| astura wrote:
| Messenger is a different app, you can install it without
| having the Facebook app installed.
| nicbou wrote:
| I've done this for Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn. It's really
| effective.
| blackearl wrote:
| How do you delete facebook if you're at the stage where they've
| requested you upload a photo ID, passport, SSN, lock of hair, and
| stool sample just to sign in?
| Ashoka_rkt wrote:
| Though I haven't deleted my social media accounts, I don't use
| them at all even on an occasional basis. I have them for reaching
| out to my acquaintances/old friends, access content behind
| login(when I've been shared with their links), etc. After
| watching The Social Dilemma(1), I've grown even more averse
| towards social media.
|
| Many regular social media consumers feel that they get useful
| info out of it along with their entertainment content. Consider
| this, there are specific sources to get entertainment-
| netflix,local newspaper website's movie/gossip section,etc. And
| if one is looking for useful info, the chance of finding the info
| that is really useful/timely in the specific moment of their life
| is more via a web search than their infinite feed in their
| Facebook/twitter/instagram. If you really need an info then you
| wouldn't rely on random chance/luck that's needed in finding that
| in your feed.
|
| Here in India, WhatsApp is ubiquitous, it is kind of used as a
| work chat as well when people are logged out of work
| MSTeams/Skype. So I have WhatsApp installed but I don't go to it
| to browse the status messages/pics people post, no matter how
| tempting it is :). I use other more privacy friendly apps for
| messaging with family and friends.
|
| It is hard to tell people to stop using social media, sometimes
| people find it offending/intrusive. But the perspective of life
| changes if you don't use social media. You seem to have time for
| more things in life.
|
| We also have to admit that many don't have the
| luxury(work/professional reasons) to avoid social media
| altogether.
|
| 1- http://thesocialdilemma.com
| romanovcode wrote:
| "Close" is not "Delete". Would be nice to have actual guides on
| deleting your data, for example for Spotify.
| btdmaster wrote:
| https://justdeleteme.xyz: "Public playlists will be anonymised,
| delete any playlists you want."
| cube00 wrote:
| _> While the tech giant will likely continue to loom large over
| our lives, from search to email to our calendars, we can delete
| inactive or unnecessary Google accounts._
|
| This is a missed opportunity to recommend good alternatives,
| especially for email and getting people onto their own domains.
| endisneigh wrote:
| Personally I think it's a bad idea to delete any of your
| accounts. It becomes a huge hassle to claim anything if there's a
| situation in which you need an account that can show that you
| have ownership.
|
| In particular if you see a photo of you or yours somewhere and
| want it modified or removed.
|
| Not to mention there's really no value in deletion. Log out, stop
| using all of the clients. The end.
| mrtesthah wrote:
| Isn't this the use case for Keybase?
| kibwen wrote:
| Whether or not you have an account with a service should not
| matter here. If your country doesn't grant you the legal right
| to get a photo taken down, then a service won't take it down
| even if you have an account. And if you do have the legal right
| do have a photo taken down, then the service will take it down
| even if you don't have an account, lest they become victim to a
| lawsuit that they will easily lose.
| sdevonoes wrote:
| > Not to mention there's really no value in deletion. Log out,
| stop using all of the clients. The end.
|
| I see value in deleting information about me on the Internet.
| Not to hide it from companies like Facebook (because they
| probably hold you data even if you delete them), but from other
| people. You never know who can use your pictures/profile for.
| Obviously, the first step would be to not publish sensitive
| information about yourself, but if that ship has already
| sailed, well, the least you can do is to remove it before you
| "log out and stop using all the clients".
| endisneigh wrote:
| You don't need to delete your account to hide it. Deleting
| your account simply just stops your ability to prove who you
| are if you later find your stuff archived or mirrored
| somewhere.
|
| I don't really see what you gain by deletion. Better off
| running one of many scripts to delete all your data and
| retain the account
| pipeline_peak wrote:
| Mozilla is sounding less like a browser developer and more like
| Richard Stallman.
| mikojan wrote:
| Good.
| trapatsas wrote:
| The article could just simple give some instructions on how to
| stop your data and internet subscriptions, which is pretty much
| equivalent.
| ahmedfromtunis wrote:
| To protect my mental wellbeing, I find that carefully selecting
| who to follow on some of these services improves considerably my
| experience.
|
| For Instagram and Twitter, my rule of thumb is to prefer topical
| accounts to entity ones. That is, accounts that are dedicated to
| a single topic, no matter how narrow or large the scope, over
| those of people and/or companies.
|
| Personal and business accounts, no matter how focused they are,
| tend to go off topic very often, and there's nothing to do about
| it. A designer or an art studio can still post about politics,
| religion, or whatever the controversy du jour is about. An
| account about logo design or some python framework, not so much
| if ever.
|
| This allows me to have a feed whose content I sort of control.
| With Twitter, it gets even better with lists, so I have ones
| about dev stuff, others about business topics, etc. and the
| content there is almost on topic most of the time.
|
| Since I started doing this, the impact of social media on my mood
| almost vanished, yet I'm still able to closely follow what's
| happening on topics I really care about.
|
| When I want to see what's happening on the real world, I check my
| Facebook.
|
| I'm sure aware of how bad these companies are with personal data.
| So it you think it'd be better to delete your account, then, yes,
| do it.
| nathias wrote:
| Yea, I have followed a lot of philosophy professors and when
| COVID started the accounts started to behave like a botnet
| really aggressively retweeting anti-trump and covid mainstream
| media. I really don't know if that was actually a set of hacked
| accounts or if people really started to behave like locust. But
| just unfollowing people that just have opinions about 'current
| thing' will do a lot for the quality of your timeline.
| Mikeb85 wrote:
| > To protect my mental wellbeing, I find that carefully
| selecting who to follow on some of these services improves
| considerably my experience. For Instagram and Twitter, my rule
| of thumb
|
| This. These services aren't toxic if you don't follow toxic
| accounts.
|
| Also, I didn't think much about it in the past but now that I
| split my time between 3 countries and 2 continents, having FB
| (messenger) is the best way to keep in touch with people
| without bugging them with my several phone numbers (and charges
| that may occur, thanks Canadian telecoms).
| 31098347 wrote:
| >This. These services aren't toxic if you don't follow toxic
| accounts.
|
| Your ability to moderate your usage of these services doesn't
| make them not toxic. Your statement is victim blaming.
|
| These services are still major proprietors of surveillance
| capitalism. They sell your future behavior to the highest
| bidder. This is toxic in itself.
|
| Beyond which, your participation in these services is a
| signal to those who trust you that these services are safe
| for them to use. They are not, because they are not safe for
| anyone to use. That you have mitigated the harm through
| devoting even more of your attention to them doesn't change
| that.
| Mikeb85 wrote:
| > Your statement is victim blaming.
|
| Really? You're going to equate this to crimes someone
| perpetuates against another?
|
| For weeks I've seen posts blaming Ukraine for being invaded
| and having genocide committed against them. That's victim
| blaming.
|
| Social media users aren't victims of anything except their
| own inability to limit and moderate usage. Back in the day
| people would sit in front of the TV, now it's just a
| different screen. That's on them. Many people also use
| social media constructively; to do things like run their
| business, keep in touch with friends and family, etc...
| 31098347 wrote:
| The naivete of this take is astounding for someone who
| frequents a technology message board. You're just going
| to ignore the part where these services employ A/B tests
| to make their services more addictive? You're going to
| ignore the countless stories about how Facebook knew that
| the content they boost is bad for mental health and is
| addictive but they did it anyway? You're going to ignore
| .. the entire surveillance capitalism aspect where an
| entire industry is predicated upon keeping people
| engaged?
|
| Have a feeling you'd get a long with the Sackler family
| famously. Christ.
| Mikeb85 wrote:
| And commercial food producers make their products more
| addictive too... How about the tobacco industry? How
| about illicit drugs? Porn?
|
| At some point you need to talk about personal
| responsibility...
| harrylove wrote:
| You can be an impartial observer of predator/prey
| behavior without considering yourself part of either
| group. But it doesn't change the fact that there is a
| predator/prey relationship. In the case of social media,
| just like many addictions, there are too many variables
| at play to propose a simple solution like "just stop
| doing it." So when you say people (who are indeed
| targeted) should "just" do the simple solution or else
| suffer the consequences, that is victim blaming.
| 31098347 wrote:
| > And commercial food producers make their products more
| addictive too... How about the tobacco industry? How
| about illicit drugs? Porn?
|
| How about them? They also designed their products to be
| addictive.
|
| "Personal Responsibility" is just the shield that
| powerful companies use to avoid being regulated.
|
| Shift the blame to the exploited and make it clear that
| their problems stem from their moral deficiency. Pretty
| convenient all told --- the personal responsibility of
| the architects of these systems and products somehow
| evaporates.
|
| Personal responsibility cannot overcome AI designed to
| addict you. These services are not your friends. You are
| not the customer or the product. Your future behavior is
| the product. The only way to win is not to play.
| robonerd wrote:
| > _Personal responsibility cannot overcome AI designed to
| addict you._
|
| I agree with your general arguments but you're going too
| far here. Individuals _can_ overcome addiction. That
| doesn 't change the big picture of how additive
| substances and services effect society as a whole, and I
| agree corporations use personal responsibility rhetoric
| to stave off government regulation. But you're going too
| far by suggesting that individual addicts have no chance
| of quitting. Many people _have_ quit, proving that it 's
| not impossible. It's good to see the whole forest, but
| don't forget the trees.
| BolexNOLA wrote:
| I largely agree with the thrust of your argument, but you
| need to ease off the throttle a bit man.
| nicce wrote:
| > This. These services aren't toxic if you don't follow toxic
| accounts
|
| Well. They do their best with recommendations and popular
| posts which try to lurk into your feed anyway. The whole
| TikTok is kinda based in that idea.
| yywwbbn wrote:
| I just reported every post FB recommend to me (not from
| someone I'm following) as spam and blocked the user. Over
| time it stopped showing crap to me (at least it seems
| so..).
| ahmedfromtunis wrote:
| I wish my experience was similar. About a month ago,
| Facebook started showing really low quality, and even
| spammy, content as "Recommended for you".
|
| I spent a day or two reporting every recommended post
| that I didn't like hoping to tell the algorithm to leave
| me alone. To no avail.
|
| I still see these posts on my feed whenever I check it.
| And it's very bad.
| micronova wrote:
| > This. These services aren't toxic if you don't follow toxic
| accounts.
|
| This is so wrong, on so many levels. They will capture your
| clicks, your usage patterns, your interests, and the internet
| will present to you in a non-neutral way, in a way which will
| not be in your interest, but in the interest of whoever is
| paying for the results of your data analysis. A way which
| will influence your perception of reality in microscopic and
| permanent ways, because they will know you more intimately
| than you know yourself.
|
| Do not interact with surveillance capitalists. You will lose.
|
| One should instead protect its behavioural breadcrumbs and
| try to use non surveillance ways of communication.
| andrewzah wrote:
| No. The parent comment's viewpoint is fine, whereas your
| absolutist viewpoint is not helpful.
|
| Facebook, Instagram, Twitter are what you make of them.
| There's nothing to "present" if you don't mindlessly scroll
| but use them the way they were originally intended: to keep
| in touch with contacts. For some people it's just easiest
| to keep in touch with them on Facebook, etc.
|
| There also a lot of good Facebook groups, and marketplace
| is very useful.
|
| Being able to stay in contact with people is _extremely_
| useful. Cutting that out entirely out of spite doesn't do
| any good.
| BolexNOLA wrote:
| I don't know about you, but when I cut out the toxic
| folks I actually discovered I wasn't using Facebook for
| keeping up with folks _at all_. That was a side-benefit
| of the arguing I was doing with folks I hadn't seen in
| years. I didn't realize how insane that was of me, just
| giving all of these people my emotional and mental
| energy, until I stopped. And yeah, you can point to me
| and say, "see? Just stop! It works!" but it took MANY
| years for me to realize what was happening.
| BolexNOLA wrote:
| Can't endorse this approach enough. I blocked/unfriended about
| 15-20 people on Facebook and it got exponentially more
| pleasant. What's more, I barely use it now because as it turned
| out...I was mostly using Facebook to have political arguments
| and I had no idea. I just _thought_ I needed it to keep up with
| folks.
|
| Frankly, it's shocking how much mental energy some random dude
| you met once 8 years ago can occupy if you let him on your
| feed. We choose to not remove them due to some vague fear of
| "the social media bubble" as if we don't filter out people and
| organizations we don't like all the time with or without it.
| ggga wrote:
| Gghjj
| yamrzou wrote:
| I'm not sure deleting an Instagram account completely removes it
| from Facebook's servers. I recently deleted an old account, and
| after it was completely removed, I wanted to create a new one
| with the same username, but it complained that the username could
| not be used because it still "exists".
| the__alchemist wrote:
| Thx; deleted Spotify. Ended up needing a conversation with their
| chat bot and email confirmation, but was over in 5 minutes.
| jorvi wrote:
| I have an Instagram account that I no longer own the e-mail or
| recovery phone number for. I have the password for it but every
| time I try to log in I get a 'suspicious login' warning and have
| to verify with said phone number. I want it gone but I cannot
| delete it. Loathe as I am I would even be willing to provide
| government ID.
|
| Instagram literally has no contactable support if you aren't a
| massive account (200k+ followers or whatever). I feel this should
| be highly illegal.
|
| I have thought about retaining a lawyer and see if I can twist
| their arm legally (via GDPR), but I don't want a simple account
| deletion to run in the tens of thousands of euros.
|
| Yes I am intensely frustrated.
| Jhsto wrote:
| I once got my old username released through their generic
| support ticket system. I never received a reply, but instead
| found one day that they had processed my request.
| adambyrtek wrote:
| You don't need a lawyer to send a standard "right to erasure"
| GDPR request and they are required to respond within 30 days:
| https://gdpr.eu/right-to-erasure-request-form/
| jorvi wrote:
| Yes, but here comes the problem: where would I send this
| request? Instagram notes no public facing physical address
| for my country and their support e-mail just sends back
| automated replies.
| adambyrtek wrote:
| https://help.instagram.com/519522125107875/
|
| "The data controller responsible for your information is
| Meta Platforms Ireland Limited, which you can contact
| online or by writing to:
|
| Meta Platforms Ireland Ltd.
|
| 4 Grand Canal Square
|
| Grand Canal Harbour
|
| Dublin 2 Ireland"
|
| The "contact online" link leads to the following form:
| https://help.instagram.com/contact/186020218683230
|
| I would send the request both online and by tracked post
| with a proof of delivery. In the end your lawyer would do
| the same thing and charge for this at an hourly rate.
| dflock wrote:
| Their support email processing system may have a different
| code path for emails that contain "gdpr right to erasure"
| in the subject line?
| Nextgrid wrote:
| This should work.
|
| The automated ID verification might fail for a variety of
| reasons (frankly if they don't originally have a copy I'm not
| sure what they'd be comparing it to) but the GDPR process
| should work if you fight long enough. You might need to prove
| that you owned the email or number though - email might be
| tricky but number is easier as you can submit a bill or do
| another subject access request to your provider which should
| still have records about it.
|
| Good luck!
| prox wrote:
| I feel the same way with the contact ability. Companies should
| have a human contact opportunity by law.
| micromacrofoot wrote:
| they'll just make you wait an hour and hang up on you like my
| health insurance company does, unfortunately you can't
| mandate good service
| prox wrote:
| Still I will take it above no possibility at all.
| sunjester wrote:
| Anyone who reads the Mozilla Blog probably doesn't need this
| guide, so for whom is this article targeting?
| ouid wrote:
| The hackernews comments section, populated by people who are
| looking to talk about their latest argument against social
| media (guilty), but who typically need to find an appropriate
| article for that rant to be on topic.
| tqi wrote:
| searchableguy wrote:
| If you want to clean history regularly instead of deleting the
| account, you can use https://redact.dev.
|
| I use it to clean twitter on regular interval.
|
| It works with every service except Google and Apple related ones
| (They can't add support for those without getting kicked off the
| app stores)
| philjohn wrote:
| How do they get around only being able to get at your last 3000
| tweets?
| hallway_monitor wrote:
| It seems like if you are tweeting that much you might not be
| someone who needs this service.
| rovr138 wrote:
| If I have 6000, and it deletes 3000. Does it show the next
| 3000?
|
| No idea, just wondering if it's just batches of 3000 would
| solve that.
| wheelerof4te wrote:
| People will always find ways to waste their time.
|
| The least you can do is to do it of your own will instead of
| being pushed into it by conditioning from various social
| networks.
| throwawayhnacct wrote:
| How to I delete my HN account?? (not this throwaway account, but
| my real one)
| zgk7iqea wrote:
| https://jacquesmattheij.com/the-unofficial-hn-faq/#deleteacc...
|
| You can't.
| hexo wrote:
| How to delete unwanted features from Firefox and bring back
| wanted ones would come handy as well.
| csnti wrote:
| The only reason why I haven't deleted FB is because of the
| memories shared on there. I haven't posted on my timeline in
| years. A long time ago, I got spooked when I saw ads that tracked
| my Google search activity, that's what drove me away from social
| media in general; an utter lack of respect for the privacy of
| users. And then I got obsessed with finding out ways to avoid
| fingerprinting (it's nearly impossible). On the odd occasion I
| might log-in to see what people are up to, but for the most part
| I keep in touch with friends and family through text and
| sometimes Discord.
|
| I deleted my linkedin because I kept getting nothing but spam
| emails, with no actual prospects of a job. Tbh I think that
| entire platform is a cesspool.
| jancsika wrote:
| > And then I got obsessed with finding out ways to avoid
| fingerprinting (it's nearly impossible).
|
| At that point it's worth considering heading to a university
| library and reading the periodicals and books that are housed
| there.
|
| Obsession = 3+ hours a day attempting to defeat tracking in a
| category of software designed to track you.
|
| I live about _40_ minutes away from a decent university
| library.
|
| In your first six days of failing to avoid fingerprinting, I
| would have gotten nine hours of private, uninterrupted reading
| time.
|
| Even better-- if I chose to read a newspaper in the library, I
| wouldn't be distracted by a cheapo "companion scroll" taped to
| the bottom by Silicon Valley types so their underlings can
| paste "Gellman-Amnesia effect ftw" during breaks in some
| desperate attempt to misdirect the angst that must come from
| polishing someone else's ad tech for a living.
| shashashasha___ wrote:
| missing how to delete your Mozilla account?
| Simon_O_Rourke wrote:
| I deleted my Facebook account around 2017, then went back under a
| pseudonym (telling all my friends of this account of course), and
| then just recreating my old account again. Skip forward five
| years, I barely login to Facebook at all, even just to check up
| on friends.
| qiskit wrote:
| Firefox's market share is what? 3%? Shouldn't mozilla be focusing
| more on that than this nonsense? So much unnecessary waste of
| capital in tech.
| webchat wrote:
| jiffygist wrote:
| I have an old facebook account registered using the email address
| that no longer exists so it is impossible for me to log into it.
| Yet it still exists and appears in google search results.
|
| I would've written to the support, but I can't find any way to
| contact facebook. Any suggestions?
| orsenthil wrote:
| Why is Mozilla publishing this?
| rvnx wrote:
| Content-marketing / keyword stuffing, so when you search for
| "How to delete Instagram", you get on Mozilla website and get
| to learn about it and eventually decide to download Firefox,
| which will make money out of ads from Google Searches and other
| partnerships.
| pridkett wrote:
| Mozilla is very active on privacy advocacy and highlights
| Firefox's privacy as a feature[0]. This makes some sense
| because the features of Firefox (cookie blocking, containers,
| first class ad blocking) all help preserve your privacy better
| than Chrome or Edge. As part of this advocacy space they've
| also done things like " _privacy not included"[1] (the asterisk
| and lowercase are intentional, similar to the 1987 movie "_
| batteries not included").
|
| [0]: https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/privacy/
|
| [1]:
| https://foundation.mozilla.org/en/privacynotincluded/about/
| philjohn wrote:
| Yes and no. Some of it seems genuine, but then you had the
| pocket debacle, as well as offering Google as the default
| search engine.
|
| They're all for privacy (which is a selling point) until
| there's money on the line.
|
| Much like Apple.
| crossroadsguy wrote:
| I deleted my Facebook account. Good decision. The username - my
| first name (very common in my country) - was then used by a guy
| who regularly posts sexist, religious hatred, general ultra right
| wing posts - he's kinda high up in a state committee of the
| ruling party. I kinda feel bad about that. (Same guy got my
| Instagram handle as well - I think he was waiting for it)
|
| Then I had to open a Facebook account anyway, because house
| hunting here became next to impossible without it. So that's
| there.
| LB232323 wrote:
| People are realizing that social media is draining, predatory,
| and entirely superfluous.
|
| Of course there are employees here of social media corporations
| who would want to stem the tide of this mass exodus, but it's
| useless. Social media corporations have overstepped their
| boundaries and become a net negative on human society.
|
| Deleting your social media accounts results in an immediate
| improvement of quality of life and mental wellbeing. These sites
| are intentionally designed with predatory psychological
| mechanisms, they are designed by hackers like ourselves, but the
| hackers who see "social engineering" as a perfectly ethical
| practice and not simply psychological manipulation.
|
| These services are designed to be addictive, full stop. Addiction
| is not healthy, and neither is social media. Maybe this will
| bring SV back to its roots, real technological progress for the
| nation and not desperate bids for data mining based on cheap
| psychological tricks.
|
| People are growing sickened of the endless scrolls of
| psychological disturbing viral content combined with the false
| positivity of human interest stories. It is deepening social
| divisions, racial conflicts, political partisanship, and general
| misery. We don't need social media, what we need is real social
| connections in an increasingly isolated society, and social media
| stands in the way of this.
| elvis10ten wrote:
| I think social media is just serving people what they want. We
| can argue if this is a good thing or not.
|
| > Addiction is not healthy, and neither is social media.
|
| Maybe I'm an old head, but maybe we need more self discipline
| in the world? I know this is not pragmatic but I feel there are
| lots of things that are addictive (even things that were not
| designed to be).
|
| > We don't need social media, what we need is real social
| connections Maybe I'm using social media differently, but what
| is in today's social media that makes it mutually exclusive to
| real social connections?
| patrick451 wrote:
| Meth labs are also giving people what they.
|
| Even if your take the full libertarian stance that all drugs
| should be legal, the parent comment did not seem to be
| advocating for outlawing social media. It was positing that
| people have realized that social media is an addictive toxin
| and are deciding, on their own, to bail out. If something is
| truly addictive, suggesting people develop some self
| discipline and partake just little seems misguided at best.
| It's way easier to just abstain completely. Nobody wants to
| end up like Doug Stamper dispensing three drops of whiskey
| from syringe onto their tongue.
| jamal-kumar wrote:
| I left my home country and when I did this people thought I died
| or something hahaha.
|
| I got forwarded screenshots from all these worried people
| wondering where the fuck I went. Some of them thought I blocked
| them or something
|
| Like no, I just got incredibly sick of being exposed to that
| level of banality
| OtomotO wrote:
| I don't have accounts on any of these platforms.
|
| But when I follow people (where possible, e.g. twitter) I only
| follow people that are interesting or have a completely different
| worldview than me.
|
| I don't want to live in a bubble and I don't need to hear my own
| opinion, I know it anyway.
| butz wrote:
| One thing to watch out for, is that on some platforms (those that
| are not doing correct email account ownership verification)
| account might get recreated either by accident or not, by a
| person using your email address. I think it is better just to
| remove as much personal data as possible, cleanup account and
| leave it with updated, more secure password.
| ddalex wrote:
| If somebody creates an FB account with my email address, I will
| took it over immediately and remove it.
| 3np wrote:
| Alternatively: Let them, even click the confirm link for them;
| increase the noise-to-signal ratio for their tracking,
| targeting, and profiling.
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