Cut your ties with companies that collect data for analytics, marketing, and targeted advertising. They invade your privacy and manipulate your choices. Deflate the tech oligarchs by deleting your centralized social media accounts. This can be difficult, but remember that Meta keeps track of you and uses your information against you! Here are related articles and next steps:

Criticisms of FaceBook – Wikipedia page covering Censorship, Privacy Issues, Social Media Addiction, Self-Harm and Suicide, Envy, Divorce, Stress, Narcissism,  Non-informing, knowledge-eroding medium, Other psychological effects, User influence experiments, Tax avoidance.

Part 1 and Part 2 of “The Facebook Dilemma” (2018) – FRONTLINE investigates a series of warnings to Facebook as it grew into a global empire. (YouTube)

USA Today (2023) – how to remove your data from Facebook

CNN (2018) – what  you get if you download your Facebook data

How to Delete Your Facebook Account:

Deleting your Facebook account involves several steps: saving your photos and personal information, removing personal data from the platform, and then permanently deleting the account. Follow this comprehensive guide to ensure a smooth process.

1. Download All Your Facebook Data

Before deleting your account, back up your data, including photos, posts, messages, and more.

Access Your Facebook Information:

Log in to your Facebook account.

Click on your profile picture in the top right corner and select Settings & Privacy, then Settings.

under settings and privacy search: Type “download your information”.

Download Your Information:

Click on Download Your Information.

Choose the data you want to download (e.g., photos, posts, messages).

Select the Date Range, Format (recommend HTML), and Media Quality.

Click Create File.

Facebook will notify you when your file is ready for download.

For a detailed walkthrough, refer to Facebook’s official guide

Photo retrieval / Downloading: Save all photos

The most effective way to do this that we found is by adding the ESUIT.DEV Chrome extension to Google, before you delete the Google stuff. (If you are deciding to do so!) These guys do not make it easy to get you stuff. There is a free version (300 pics with the free version), or for a small fee you can subscribe to the monthly subscription with unlimited downloads, then cancel after you scooped up your pics. There are different extensions depending what you’re trying to scrape from Facebook. Here’s the link https://esuit.dev/

2. Remove Personal Data from Facebook

To ensure your personal information is minimized on Facebook before deletion:

Delete Posts and Photos Manually:

Navigate to your Profile.

Click on Photos to delete individual photos or albums.

For posts, go to your Activity Log, review your posts, and delete them as needed.

Bulk Deletion:

Use Facebook’s Manage Activity tool in the Activity Log to archive or delete multiple posts at once.

Remove Tags:

In your Activity Log, select Photos and Videos.

Choose Photos You’re Tagged In.

Select the photos and click Report/Remove Tags to untag yourself.

For more details, see this guide: TechRadar.

3. Unlink Your Facebook Account from Other Services

If you’ve linked your Facebook account to other apps or services (e.g., Instagram, Oculus):

Access Accounts Center:

Go to Settings & Privacy, then Settings.

Click on accounts center.

Remove Linked Accounts:

Under Accounts, select your Facebook account.

Click Remove and follow the prompts.

For a detailed guide, visit: Meta Community Forums.

4. Delete Your Facebook Account

In Settings, go to Your Facebook Information.

Select Deactivation and Deletion.

Choose Delete Account and follow the prompts.

Enter your password to confirm.

Note: After initiating deletion, you have 30 days to cancel before your account and data are permanently deleted. More details: The Verge

5. Additional Considerations

Third-Party Logins:

Ensure you update login methods for services where you used Facebook to log in.

Notify Friends and Connections:

Let them know about your decision to leave Facebook and provide alternative contact information.

By following these steps, you can securely back up your data, remove personal information, and permanently delete your Facebook account.