Yesterday, I deleted my Facebook account. The decision was made after nearly a year of back and forth thinking. I surprised myself, questioning, “Should I delete my account or not? What will other people think? What will I miss?” In the minutes after deleting my account, I felt emptiness and — dare I say — a little anxious. Those feelings quickly faded.
In the grand scheme of things, it’s kind of crazy to know that Facebook was a “free” service I had been using since ~2006. Opening an account just before I entered undergraduate school, it was fun to stay in contact with people my own age. Even through undergrad and med school, it helped me stay in contact with family. Doing some high-level math, my total time investment equates to TWELVE years of loyalty to Facebook, the social network.
Valued at $500 billion dollars as recently as July 2017, the wealthy corporation, whose mission is to “Give people the power to build community and bring the world closer together” has amassed TWELVE years’ worth of my data. The problem is this data, either in part or whole, has been patently been exploited for financial profit. In my opinion, it is unlikely that Facebook will stop using targeted advertisements, which requires lots of user data.
Impetus to Delete My Facebook Account
Unknown extent of the (ab)use of my account’s data.
There are numerous well-written articles (see list) describing the now-famous data breach by Cambridge Analytica (CA), wherein Facebook data of 50 million users was stockpiled in an effort to develop profiling models of U.S. voters in an attempt to manipulate human behavior. Data included user identities, “likes” activity information, and friend networks.
The NY Times reports that “Cambridge paid to acquire the personal information through an outside researcher who, Facebook says, claimed to be collecting it for academic purposes.” The vehicle to acquire this data was a survey that some people voluntarily completed. The same NY Times article also reports that “Only about 270,000 users — those who participated in the survey — had consented to having their data harvested.” A list of predicted traits were eventually developed by a researcher associated with CA, including: neuroticism, openness, IQ, political views, job information, whether one allows self-disclosure, and many others. Per the NY Times article (website link in this paragraph), CA still has copies of Facebook user data.
TIME magazine shed light on the fact that Android cellphone users had call and text messaging log information transmitted to Facebook over several years. Some screenshots show call type, contact’s name, and duration of the call. These people entrusted Facebook Messenger, granting access to their phonebook contacts, so they could use the app. However, it seems to be less clear to the end-user exactly the level of detail uploaded to Facebook’s system. Interestingly, Facebook users who did not use the Messenger mobile app do not seem to have been notified their contact information was transmitted to Facebook.
Although I am simplifying matters here, I want to stress the seriousness of these events. Users’ data was unknowingly used for financial and political profit.
Deactivation vs. Deletion
Knowing that we have the option to “deactivate” or “delete” our account is important. If deleting your account, consider downloading a copy of your Facebook data (in “settings”) and also downloading any tagged photos uploaded by other friends that you want to save (must be done individually).
According to Facebook’s official website, here are the differences:
- Deactivation
- Profile/timeline are temporarily taken down, no longer visible to public.
- Messages and “some other information” are still visible to “others.” Language is vague here and needs more detail.
- Simply log in and pick up where you left off. All data is intact.
- Deletion
- Once processed (takes ~14 days per Facebook), you lose all access to your old account. Request may be canceled by logging back in.
- Could take up to 90 days (three months) to delete information in backup servers/systems.
- “Some information” still is visible to others. Vague language again here, needs more specificity by Facebook.
- Facebook still retains log records and “some material,” but assures the person’s name is “disassociated” from this material.
Moving Forward
The benefit of using Facebook does not outweigh the harm, or specifically, the use of my account for profit using techniques I do not agree with. Similar to when I deleted my Instagram and Snapchat accounts, I feel a renewed sense of focus and presence in the here-and-now. I sincerely hope we as a society are able to find a way to communicate with friends and family that does not exploit our information for profit.
Moving forward, I plan on using “old school” modalities including text messaging, phone calls, and email. For now, I plan on keeping my Twitter account because it allows me to easily follow authentic medical doctors, medical journals, and other healthcare professionals. My hope is that tech companies make a concerted effort to adhere to privacy rules and avoid transfer of user data in unsavory ways. Transparency using plain language is key.
More Reading
The information on this post has been gleaned from the following well-written news articles. I suggest anyone who is interested in this topic to read more.
How Trump Consultants Exploited the Facebook Data of Millions
Facebook and Cambridge Analytica: What You Need to Know as Fallout Widens (more concise article)
Photo credit: https://unsplash.com/@stickermule