Facebook had more than just fifteen minutes in the spotlight. The social network was going strong up until last year when a significant number of people deleted their accounts. Still, their numbers weren’t enough to dent Facebook. The social network has recently fallen from grace after it was discovered that personal data was harvested from 50 million accounts. The hashtag deletefacebook has been trending for days now, and Elon Musk has deleted the Facebook pages for both Tesla and SpaceX. Here’s how you can delete Facebook.
Delete vs Deactivate
Before we tell you how to delete Facebook, it’s important that you understand the difference between deleting Facebook and deactivating it. If you deactivate Facebook, your account and all the information in it, remains intact. You friends can’t write on your wall, or see you old posts, or like something you shared in the past. You can come back and activate Facebook again any time you want.
When you delete Facebook though, everything is purged. Your account no longer exists and everything from photos, to notes, likes, comments, friends, are all gone.
To put it metaphorically, deactivating Facebook is like turning your phone off and putting it in the drawer. Deleting Facebook is like taking a hammer to your phone and breaking it to bits until you can no longer use it and you have to get a new one.
Delete Facebook
Sign into Facebook on your desktop browser, and visit your Facebook account settings. On the General Tab, look at the very bottom where you have an option to download a copy of your data. This includes photos, videos, and chat conversations. Back them up in case you ever need them again in the future.
Once you’re done, go to the Delete Account page. Click the Delete My Account button, and you’ve basically swung the ax.
You cannot delete your Facebook account from its mobile apps. You”re going to have to go through the web interface to get to the delete page. The only thing you can do from the mobile apps is deactivate your Facebook account which is not the same as deleting it.
When you delete Facebook, your Messenger will likely go with it unless you’ve signed up for Messenger using your phone number. Facebook lets you use Messenger either by signing into your Facebook account, or by using your phone number as a login ID. If you’re deleting Facebook over privacy concerns, you should go ahead and delete Messenger as well.
